A major nationwide touring exhibition, Solidary and Solitary: The Pamela J Joyner and Alfred J Giuffrida Collection, offers a new perspective on the critical contribution black artists have made to the evolution of visual art from 1940s through to the present moment. Curated by noted art historians Christopher Bedford and Katy Siegel, this is the first large-scale public exhibition to bring together a lineage of visionary black artists.
Ranging across 70 years, the exhibition reveals a rich and complex history woven from the threads of artistic debates about how to embody blackness; social struggle and change; migrations and the international African diaspora. Highlights include large-scale works by an array of artists that fuse the social and the abstract in visceral ways, including Jack Whitten, Julie Mehretu, and Kevin Beasley, among many others. Placing a spotlight on individuals’ pursuit of creative freedom in different eras and geographical contexts, the exhibition also features several artists’ careers in depth, among them Norman Lewis, Sam Gilliam, Jennie C. Jones, Serge Alain Nitegeka and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye.
The tour commenced at the Ogden Museum of Southern Art in Fall 2017 and will tour the following institutions until 2020: Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Snite Museum of Art at the Notre Dame University, The Baltimore Museum of Art and University of California, Berkeley.
