Oct
14
to Apr 6

Group Exhibition | A New Subjectivity 1979/2024 | Parrish Art Museum

Jordan Casteel, Chimé (Eternal Lamp of Dharma), 2023, Oil on canvas, 80 x 94 inches

A New Subjectivity 1979/2024 looks back at the momentous exhibition Nouvelle Subjectivité (A New Subjectivity) organized by the essayist and art historian Jean Clair in Brussels at the Palais des Beaux Arts in 1979. The exhibition at the Parrish pays tribute to the original exhibition by presenting a selection of works from several of the artists included in the original exhibition—Robert Guinan, David Hockney, Raymond Mason, Philippe Roman, and Sam Szafran as well as R.B. Kitaj from the Parrish’s collection—and works by artists whose work has continued the figurative traditions celebrated in Nouvelle Subjectivité, some also drawn from the collection of the Parrish, such as Rackstraw Downes, Jane Freilicher, and Howard Kanovitz, and artists working today not in the collection, such as Martí Cormand, Jordan Casteel, Peter Doig, Jenna Gribbon, and Arcmanoro Niles.

Nouvelle Subjectivité preceded A New Spirit in Painting, the legendary 1981 exhibition at the Royal Academy in London, by two years. Like the 1981 exhibition, Nouvelle Subjectivité was an early tribute to new currents of figurative and expressionist painting in the mid- to late-seventies as a retort to the prevailing minimalist and conceptual trends in the art of the sixties and seventies. Both exhibitions made a case for painting returning to the “subjectivist passion” of painters like Pierre Bonnard or Balthus, long considered outdated. Unlike A New Spirit in Painting, which focused on the figurative traditions of the School of London and the resurgence of neo-expressionist painting in Germany, Nouvelle Subjectivité, in particular, paid tribute to artists in the tradition of the Balthus (one of his paintings will be included in the Parrish’s exhibition) whose paintings of disquieting narrative scenes were out of step with the prevalent art movements of his time but had a profound influence on French figurative painting that came to prominence after World War II, such as the figurative and poetic-iconic approach of Sam Szafran whose paintings and drawings of interior spaces challenge the viewer’s gaze with their distorting and deconstructing perspectives, or Philippe Roman’s equally disquieting landscapes evocative of the Engadin region, where he spent summers with the writer Pierre Jean Jouve and his wife, the psychoanalyst Blanche Reverchon.

This “subjectivist passion” Jean Clair spoke of is very much apparent in an increasing number of artists working today, such as Jordan Casteel, Peter Doig, Jenna Gribbon, and Arcmanoro Niles, all included in the exhibition.

As Jean Clair wrote in the publication that accompanied the exhibition:

“Nothing unites [these artists] other than a common refusal to consider the artistic field as a battlefield, with its watchwords, its theorists, and its strategists, its avant-gardes and its front lines…For them, to use the language of war, it is more a question of for joining the rearguard and of consolidating and renewing the broken links with a certain tradition, which was also, perhaps, a certain joy for painting.”

A New Subjectivity 1979/2024 is curated by Klaus Ottmann, Robert Lehman Curator, with additional support from Kaitlin Halloran, Associate Curator and Publications Manager.

View Event →
Dec
4
to Apr 6

Group Exhibition | The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century | Art Gallery of Ontario

Jordan Casteel, Fendi, 2018, Oil on canvas, 60 x 35 inches

Immersing viewers in the world of hip-hop through contemporary art and fashion, The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century brings together contemporary artists, musicians, designers and stylists to tell the story of the art form and its global impact on visual culture.

Organized on the occasion of Hip Hop’s fiftieth anniversary and featuring contemporary art by some of today’s most important and celebrated artists, including Derrick Adams, John Edmonds, Deana Lawson and Hank Willis Thomas, this dynamic and wide-ranging exhibition highlights the art form’s ongoing conceptual and material innovation. Placing fashion, consumer marketing, music, videos and objects in dialogue with paintings, sculpture, poetry, photography and multi-media installations, the exhibition considers activism and racial identity, notions of bling and swagger, as well as gender, sexuality and feminism. 

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century is co-curated by Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director; Gamynne Guillotte, the BMA’s Chief Education Officer; Hannah Klemm, SLAM’s Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art; and Andréa Purnell, SLAM’s Audience Development Manager. The AGO presentation will be organized by Julie Crooks, Curator, Arts of Global Africa and the Diaspora, AGO.

View Event →
Mar
8
to Jun 29

Group Exhibition | The Time is Always Now, Artists Reframe the Black Figure | North Carolina Museum of Art

  • North Carolina Museum of Art (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Jordan Casteel, James, 2015, Oil on canvas, 72 x 56 inches

The title of the exhibition, The Time Is Always Now, references an essay on desegregation by American writer James Baldwin (1924–1987). Organized around three themes—double consciousness, the persistence of history, and our aliveness—the exhibition showcases works by artists including Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Lubaina Himid, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Amy Sherald.

This collective assertion and interest in figuration and representation, examining both the presence and absence of the Black figure in art history, transcends geographical boundaries. Through their work these artists invite a shift in the dominant art historical perspective from “looking at” the Black figure to “seeing through” the eyes of Black artists and the figures they depict.

View Event →
Mar
8
to Jul 13

Group Exhibition | Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys | Minneapolis Institute of Art

  • Minneapolis Institute of Art (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Jordan Casteel, Fallou, 2018, Oil on canvas, 90 x 78 inches

“Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys” is a groundbreaking exhibition that marks the first major showcase of the Dean Collection, owned by renowned musicians and cultural icons Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) and Alicia Keys.

Organized by the Brooklyn Museum, “Giants” highlights nearly 100 significant works by Black diasporic artists, including Gordon Parks, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, and more. The exhibition reflects the Deans’ passion for supporting established and emerging artists while fostering important dialogues about art, culture, and identity.

“Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys” is organized by Kimberli Gant, Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Indira A. Abiskaroon, Curatorial Assistant, Modern and Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum.

View Event →
Nov
10
to Mar 2

Group Exhibition | Kindred Worlds: The Priscila & Alvin Hudgins Collection | Hudson River Museum

  • Hudson River Museum (map)
  • Google Calendar ICS

Jordan Casteel, MTA, 2018, Oil on canvas, 48 x 32 inches

Drawn from the private collection of Priscila and Alvin Hudgins III, Kindred Worlds reveals the couple’s deep and enduring devotion to the arts—not solely as a mode of creative expression but also as an intimate form of world-making.

Every art collection functions as its own universe, shaped by the vision and personal commitments of its collector. Drawn from the private collection of Priscila and Alvin Hudgins III, Kindred Worlds reveals the couple’s deep and enduring devotion to the arts—not solely as a mode of creative expression but also as an intimate form of world-making. Before coming to the Hudson River Museum, most of these paintings adorned the dining, living, and bedroom walls of the Hudgins family home in Yonkers. Meals were shared under richly painted canvases, bedtime stories told beside vibrant watercolors. For the Hudgins, building their collection was a way of building home and community—a practice that Priscila and Alvin take up in more ways than one, as they have become great friends with many of the artists featured in this exhibition. In turn, many of these artists have included images of Hudgins family members in their works. Together, the artworks demonstrate a dynamic amalgamation of relationships between collector and artist, artist and subject, subject and kin.

That’s not to say that these artworks do not have stories of their own to tell. Themes of myth and memory pervade the collection, as artists take up different visual strategies to convey personal histories. Here, artists such as Bony Ramirez, Laurena Finéus, and Naudline Pierre reinterpret classical techniques in order to create otherworldly renditions of femininity, Blackness, and migration. Others experiment with the materiality of art itself. Artists including Chase Hall and David Hammons use coffee beans, cotton, and grease as mediums, invoking specific histories of oppression and resilience—often in relation to the enduring and forceful presence of colonial structures.

Intimate vignettes provide another throughline across the collection. Drawing inspiration from childhood memories, ethnographies, and family photographs, many of the artists explore how ideas of “home” and “kinship” take on new and unexpected meanings when represented on the canvas. Jordan Casteel, for example, created her MTA series after observing the restful weariness of subway travelers, who find a moment for themselves in the comforting curve of plastic seats. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Raelis Vasquez turned to his family albums for solace, translating his photographs into painted scenes of quiet connection.

And, of course, there’s the ever-present presence of the Hudgins family themselves. We invite you to walk through the exhibition and locate images of Hudgins family members—captured, for example, in Henry Taylor’s gestural brushstrokes and Derrick Adams’s punchy, joyous color palette. Presented to the public as a collection for the first time, these selected works document the Hudgins family’s abiding support of the arts and their vital legacy of Black American collectorship, one that continues to prioritize the success of Black and Brown artists and ensure a more equitable and expansive vision of American art.

View Event →