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Presented by The Helis Foundation

February 22 – July 15, 2018
Kevin Beasley, Bronx Fitted (detail). 2015. © Courtesy of the artist and Casey Kaplan, New York; photo by Jean Vong

A Lineage of Visionary Black Artists

Pamela Joyner poses in front of Mark Bradford's 2014 work, No Time to Expand the Sea. The Pamela J Joyner and Alfred J Giuffrida Collection was started in 1999 and originally focused on abstract work by post-war and contemporary African-American artists. Photo by J Caldwell.
Pamela Joyner poses in front of Mark Bradford's 2014 work, No Time to Expand the Sea. The Pamela J Joyner and Alfred J Giuffrida Collection was started in 1999 and originally focused on abstract work by post-war and contemporary African-American artists. Photo by J Caldwell.

Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection offered a new perspective on the critical contribution that artists of African descent have made to the evolution of abstract art from 1940s to the present. The exhibition brought together a lineage of visionary black artists, beginning in the mid-20th century with Abstract Expressionist Norman Lewis. The exhibition traced a line to some of today’s most celebrated artists, including Kevin Beasley, Mark Bradford, Leonardo Drew, Sam Gilliam, Norman Lewis, Glenn Ligon, Shinique Smith, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye and many more.

Solidary & Solitary drew on the Pamela J. Joyner and Alfred J. Giuffrida Collection, which started in 1999 with a focus on abstract work by post-war and contemporary African-American artists, from 1945 to the present. In recent years, the collection’s focus has expanded to include artists from Africa and the global African diaspora.

Grand Scale, Bright Colors, Unexpected Materials

Mark Bradford, A Private Stranger Thinking about His Needs, 2016. Mixed media, dimensions variable. The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection. Photo by J Caldwell.

“This bold and colorful exhibition is filled with beauty and layers of meaning,” said Marshall N. Price, Nancy Hanks Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum, who serves as coordinating curator of the exhibition. “This is abstract art at its best—and a rare chance to see these works all together. Visitors will be thrilled with the grand scale, bright colors, unexpected textures and dynamic materials.”

In Solidary and Solitary, visitors discovered a wide range of materials and textures. For example, Kevin Beasley laboriously flattened New Era®  fitted Yankees caps and bandanas into the bright petals of a giant flower, veiling his hip-hop fashion references. Shinique Smith juxtaposed geometry and calligraphy in her collage of fabric and acrylic paint, called “No Key, No Question.” Leonardo Drew built an 8-foot-tall abstract relief sculpture, “Number 52S,” with intricate layer upon layer of wood pieces.

A monumental sculpture from the exhibition transformed the Nasher Museum’s Great Hall: a 25-foot-tall work made of paper and other materials by Mark Bradford.

FORM Presents: Nexus

Nexus, FORM’s latest visual project, explores the relationship between diverse modes of artistic expression from painting and sculpture to music and dance. The video thus meditates on the concept of creativity and the necessity of dialogue in realizing it. Nexus was filmed in the "Solidary & Solitary" exhibition at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University.

Installing Bradford's A Private Stranger Thinking about His Needs

This video documents the installation of a 25-foot sculpture by Los Angeles-based artist Mark Bradford. The work is on view as part of Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection.

Read more on YouTube

Only by understanding these histories—histories by black artists as much as about black artists—can we move forward towards a different and collectively imagined future.

Exhibition co-curator Katy Siegel, Eugene V. and Clare E. Thaw Endowed Chair in Modern American Art at Stony Brook University
Featured Featured Nasher in the News

Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner / Giuffrida Collection

"This touring exhibit at the Nasher is a spectacular corrective, highlighting the African-diaspora abstract artists who refined this new way of seeing." —Brian Howe

view article on IndyWeek | Published February 21, 2018

Traveling Around the Country

Nasher Museum Director Sarah Schroth (left) poses in the gallery among works by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye with (from left to right) collector Pamela Joyner, artist Shinique Smith and Marshall N. Price, Nancy Hanks Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Photo by J Caldwell.
Nasher Museum Director Sarah Schroth (left) poses in the gallery among works by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye with (from left to right) collector Pamela Joyner, artist Shinique Smith and Marshall N. Price, Nancy Hanks Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art. Photo by J Caldwell.

Solidary & Solitary opened at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in New Orleans in September 2017. From the Nasher Museum, the exhibition will travel to the Snite Museum of Art at the University of Notre Dame; the David and Alfred Smart Museum of Art at the University of Chicago, the Baltimore Museum of Art, the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Pérez Art Museum Miami.

The exhibition was co-curated by Christopher Bedford, Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art, and Katy Siegel, senior programming and research curator at the Baltimore Museum of Art and Thaw Chair in Modern American Art at Stony Brook University.

Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection was presented by The Helis Foundation and organized by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and The Baltimore Museum of Art.

Contributing sponsorship was provided by The Lambent Foundation and The Holt Family Foundation.

At the Nasher Museum, this exhibition was made possible by the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Fund for Exhibitions; Ann Chanler and Andrew Scheman; Katie Thorpe Kerr and Terrance I. R. Kerr; Lisa Lowenthal Pruzan and Jonathan Pruzan; and Gail Belvett.

Featured Featured Articles

Haiku in the Gallery

Five haiku poets of the Carolina African American Writers’ Collective found inspiration in the exhibition Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection. On the evening of February 22, 2018, they read ha...

Published

Support

Special guests and Nasher Museum members at the Sustainer level and up gather in the Great Hall for an exclusive celebration of Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection. Photo by J Caldwell.
Special guests and Nasher Museum members at the Sustainer level and up gather in the Great Hall for an exclusive celebration of Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection. Photo by J Caldwell.

Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection is presented by The Helis Foundation and organized by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and The Baltimore Museum of Art. Contributing sponsorship is provided by The Lambent Foundation and The Holt Family Foundation.

At the Nasher Museum, this exhibition is made possible by the Nancy A. Nasher and David J. Haemisegger Family Fund for Exhibitions; Ann Chanler and Andrew Scheman; Katie Thorpe Kerr and Terrance I. R. Kerr; Lisa Lowenthal Pruzan and Jonathan Pruzan; and Gail Belvett.

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