by October Gallery
By Michelle Z. Donahue “Access + Ability,” at the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum “It’s a wide-open field, there for the taking,” says Cara McCarty about the innovative designs featured…
Tales of Mansa Musa, Prince Nicolau, Queen Ranavanolla III and the one-eyed Queen Amanirenas have been told over and over to elevate African history, sense of pride and identity. Aside…
By Brendan L. Smith From left, artist Kehinde Wiley, artist Amy Sherald, National Portrait Gallery Director Kim Sajet, Smithsonian Secretary David Skorton, former First Lady Michelle Obama, former President Barack…
If you showed up at Sisters Chapel at Atlanta’s Spelman College last Friday hoping to divine some sort of 2020-themed meaning from Kamala Harris’s address, you were amply rewarded. The…
By Michelle Z. Donahue “Manifestipi,” (installation detail) 2016 by ITWÉ Collective. Courtesy of ITWÉ and Collection Majudia. (Photo by Joshua Voda/National Museum of the American Indian) When ‘Manifestipi’ first debuted…
Facebook0 Twitter0 Mail Debbie Elliott , NPR “Birmingham Alabama Smithfield Bombing damage, 1949. Party living on the first floor the Curry home sits on his bed pointing to damage to…
On February 12, 2018, the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery unveiled its commissioned portraits of former President Barack Obama and Mrs. Michelle Obama by artists Kehinde Wiley and Amy Sherald, respectively.…
Facebook0 Twitter0 Mail Eric Foner , The Nation Frederick Douglass. Featured Image Let me begin on a personal note. Over half a century ago, my uncle, the historian Philip S.…
By Grace Aldridge Foster “Nine to Five” by Josh Kline, 3D-printed sculptures in plaster, ink-jet ink, and cyanoacrylate; janitor cart, 2015. This sculpture is in the National Portrait Gallery exhibition…
Not a lot of black people know who Charles White is—which is equal parts heartbreaking and confusing, because it’s hard to overstate his importance as a black artist. White was…