Gathered Together: Black Artists and the Collage Aesthetic explores the practice and visual strategies of collage, highlighting works in the Museums Collections of African American art. Derived from the French word coller (to glue), collage is a medium in which materials are cut or torn and layered together to create a single composition. This process offers artists an inventive means of constructing a work of art, often incorporating everyday materials and found objects such as newspapers, photographs, and fabric. Collage also has had an enduring impact on other forms of art, including painting and printmaking.
This exhibition presents the work of twenty-six Black artists who have engaged with the technique and aesthetic of collage from the 1970s to today. Working across figuration and abstraction, these artists examine a wide array of subject matter, from the profoundly personal to the social and political. Several of the artists were influenced by the pioneering work of Romare Bearden, who began using collage to register and deconstruct issues of race and identity during the civil rights movement. Along with Bearden, the exhibition presents the work of notable artists including Howardena Pindell, Benny Andrews, Betye Saar, and Sam Gilliam.
Guest Curator: Danielle Canter
