Growing up, Mickalene Thomas was conscious of the lack of depictions of black people in art history and even in the media of her time. As a result, she drew particular inspiration from black celebrities such as singer/actress Eartha Kitt and black characters such as Whoopi Goldberg’s Celie in…
Bethany Collins moved from one part of Chicago to another in March. “Moving day during a pandemic is definitely worse,” she tells me. But her new neighborhood offers a more walkable part of the city and a daily walk has become part of the quarantine regimen. Collins and I laugh…
Upon first glance, British-born artist Nicola Tyson’s portraits may call to mind words like ‘ghoulish’ and ‘child-like.’ While viewers may be able to discern a human figure, the bodies and features are so distorted that it’s impossible to determine what the subjects look like. This is because Tyson…
Even though CAM has been closed since March, a conversation with Paul Mpagi Sepuya makes me think even more about exhibitions without an audience. Sepuya’s summer survey in St. Louis is now documented in a gorgeous monograph, a selection from thirteen years of the artist’s photographic explorations within…
Sanford Biggers’s work has long focused on African and African American material culture and history. Biggers’s interest in quilting is rooted in the rich tradition of African American quilting, especially those produced by the women of Gee’s Bend—a small, isolated Black community in Alabama. Although each quilter has…