Ava DuVernay’s ARRAY has been honored with the prestigious Peabody Institutional Award for Peabody’s 81st annual awards ceremony. The Institutional Awards spotlight institutions, organizations, and varied programs for their steadfast body of work and the impact that it generates within the media and the public at large. ARRAY, which was formed a decade ago by […]
Brooklyn-based artist Mickalene Thomas will showcase her new collection of work this fall in a series of exhibitions that will be featured in New York, London, Paris, and Hong Kong. In partnership with Lévy Gorvy, the exhibition series titled “Beyond the Pleasure Principle” will consist of paintings, installations, and video. Thomas’s artwork notably focuses on […]
Sunday marked the 21st annual BET Awards, which honors Black excellence in television, film, music, and sports. Focusing heavily on uplifting the voices of Black women, this year’s ceremony was hosted by actress Taraji P. Henson, who honored and paid tribute to Black queens throughout the show. “Tonight you’ll get 100% of our full Blackness,” […]
On Thursday night, history was made as 14-year-old Zaila Avant-garde became the first African-American winner of the Scripps National Spelling Bee. The winning word was “Murraya,” which is a species of shrub or small tree native to Asia and Australia. In a heartwarming clip below, watch Avant-garde dance with glee as she conquered the final […]
In a new segment with CBS Sunday Morning, the prominent multimedia artist Faith Ringgold spoke with Nancy Giles about her fruitful artistic career that has spanned seven decades. Widely known for her signature quilts which explore narratives that depict African American life, Ringgold’s 70 years of creative work found its humble beginnings in the early […]
In his illuminating portrait series “Infinite Essence: Celestial Liberation,” 30-year-old artist Mikael Owunna captures the soul of his subjects. Deeply spiritual and enthralling, the images feature the entire cosmos positioned within Black bodies. Some bodies are seen postured in a fetal position, floating in boundless space. There is a profound sense of inner peace within […]
While many are familiar with the empowering phrase “Black is beautiful,” its origins are less known by the general population. Popularized by Kwame Brathwaite in the 1960s, the New York-based photojournalist utilized the slogan in conjunction with his photography that documented Black life throughout the fashionable sixties. Nearly 60 years later, Brathwaite’s noteworthy photography is […]
The renowned, eight-time Olympic Atlanta-based artist Steve R. Allen is generating opportunities for the artistically inquisitive Black youth through a new and generous initiative, where Allen will gift his own multi-million dollar artwork to historically Black colleges and universities. Allen, who has five artworks that have found their permanent home at the Smithsonian Museum of […]
Professor and culinary historian Jessica B. Harris is known for her critically acclaimed books documenting the foods of the African Diaspora and her new Netflix series High on the Hog, but she’s also a deltiologist––a refined name for a postcard collector. Harris has traveled the world for nearly five decades, collecting vintage postcards from the […]
Prolific Ghanian artist Amoako Boafo recently spoke with Dazed about his new exhibition, Singular Duality: Me Can Make We, currently on view at LA’s Roberts Projects until November 6th. Boafo’s spirited, large-scale paintings honor Blackness in all of its glory, and they are directly inspired by real people within his own community: those who raise […]