A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration

A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration

The Donna and Jim Barksdale Galleries

The Mississippi Museum of Art is pleased to be the first to present A Movement in Every Direction:  Legacies of the Great Migration. Co-organized with the Baltimore Museum of Art, the exhibition will unveil newly commissioned works across media by 12 acclaimed Black artists, including:

Akea Brionne

Mark Bradford

Zoë Charlton

Larry W. Cook

Torkwase Dyson

Theaster Gates

Allison Janae Hamilton

Leslie Hewitt

Steffani Jemison

Robert Pruitt

Jamea Richmond-Edwards

Carrie Mae Weems

The Great Migration (1915-1970) saw more than six million Black Americans leave the South for cities across the United States. An incredible movement of people, the Great Migration transformed nearly every aspect of Black life, in both rural towns and urban metropolises. The impact of the Great Migration was profound– spurring a flourishing Black culture and transformed social and cultural life throughout the United States.

A Movement in Every Direction:  Legacies of the Great Migration asks these artists to explore their families’ connections to the South. Through research, exploration, and conversations, the artists’ works explore themes of perseverance, self-determination, and self-reliance, along with the impacts this historical phenomenon continues to have today.

 

Artists

Akea Brionne (b. 1996, New Orleans, LA) is a photographer, writer, curator, and researcher who investigates the implications of historical racial and social structures in relation to the development of contemporary black life and identity within America. Focusing on the ways history influences the contemporary cultural milieu of the American black middle class and the history of urban and suburban planning, she explores current political and social themes related to historical forms of oppression, discrimination, segregation, and black identity. Brown received the Visual Task Force Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. Her work is featured in the Smithsonian’s Ralph Rinzler Collection and Archives and Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Library. She was the 2018 Documentarian of Color by Duke, and her series, Black Picket Fences, was acquired for their permanent collection. Brown was also named the 2019 Janet & Walter Sondheim Winner. In 2019, Brown co-founded Shades Collective. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and she currently lives in Baltimore, MD.

Mark Bradford (b. 1961, Los Angeles, CA) has a wide-ranging conceptual practice and is best known for his multimedia abstract paintings and collages with scavenged materials and weathered and incised surfaces that often reveal the atrocities and struggles of race and poverty. His profound insight and inventiveness have established him as one of the most significant and influential artists of his generation. Bradford has been widely exhibited internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts in 2014 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009. In 2017, Bradford represented the U.S. at the 57th Venice Biennale with Tomorrow Is Another Day, co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. Other major projects include Pickett’s Charge, a monumental, site-specific installation for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and We The People, a commission for the U.S. Embassy in London comprised of 32 10-foot-by-10-foot panels featuring select text from the United States Constitution. Bradford earned his BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and lives and works in Los Angeles.

Zoë Charlton (b. 1973, Eglin AFB, FL) creates figure drawings, collages, and installations that depict her subject’s relationship to culturally loaded objects and landscapes. She participated in residencies at Artpace (TX), the McColl Center for Art + Innovation (NC), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (ME). Charlton received a Pollock-Krasner grant (2012) and Rubys Artist grant (2014) and was a 2015 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize finalist. She co-founded ‘sindikit, an artist project space in Baltimore and holds a seat on the Maryland State Arts Council. Charlton earned a BFA from Florida State University (1993) and MFA from University of Texas at Austin (1999). She is an Associate Professor of Art at American University and resides in Baltimore, MD.

Larry W. Cook (b.1986, Silver Spring, MD) is a conceptual artist working across photography, video, and installation. Based in Washington, D.C., Cook earned his MFA from George Washington University (2013) and his BA in photography from SUNY Plattsburgh (2010). He has exhibited his work nationally at MoMA PS1 (2020), UTA Artist Space (2020), the National Portrait Gallery (2019), and internationally at Weiss Berlin in Germany (2020). He held artists-in-residences at Light Work and The Nicholson Project, among others. Cook is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Howard University.

Torkwase Dyson (b. 1973, Chicago, IL). Working in multiple mediums, Dyson describes herself as a painter whose forms address the continuity of ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. She merges ideas such as site and built environments and nature and culture under the rubric of environmentalism. Fascinated with transformations, ambiguities, and environmental changes that place these subjects in relation to each other, her practice investigates our connections to imagination, materiality, geography, and belonging. In 2016, Dyson was elected to the board of the Architecture League of New York as Vice President of Visual Arts. She received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (1999) and an MFA from Yale School of Art in painting and printmaking (2003). Dyson is now based in New York.

Theaster Gates (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) lives and works in Chicago. Gates creates works that engage with space theory and land development, sculpture, and performance. Drawing on his background in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces left behind. His work contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist. In 2010, Gates created the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit platform for art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation on Chicago’s South Side. Gates has exhibited and performed internationally at major museums including, most recently, Tate Liverpool, UK (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2019). Recent honors include the Nasher Prize for Sculpture; Urban Land Institute’s Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development; and a World Economic Forum 2020 Crystal Award for his leadership in creating sustainable communities. He is a professor at the University of Chicago, Department of Visual Arts and Harris School of Public Policy, and the Distinguished Visiting Artist and Director of Artist Initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College.

Allison Janae Hamilton (b. 1984 in Kentucky, raised in Florida) has exhibited widely across the U.S. and abroad. Her work as been the subject of institutional solo exhibitions at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and Atlanta Contemporary. Select recent group exhibitions include there is this We, Sculpture Milwaukee; The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (traveling); Shifting Horizons, Nevada Museum of Art; Enunciated Life, California African Art Museum; More, More, More, TANK Shanghai; Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, Storm King Art Center. Work by the artist is held in public collections, including Hood Museum of Art, The Menil Collection, Nasher Museum of Art, Nevada Museum of Art, and Speed Museum of Art, among others. Hamilton has participated in a range of fellowships and residencies, including the Whitney Independent Study Program, NY; Studio Museum in Harlem, NY; and Fundación Botín, Santander, Spain. She is the recipient of the Creative Capital Award and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant. Hamilton holds a PhD in American Studies from New York University and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University. She lives and works in New York.

Leslie Hewitt (b. 1977, St. Albans, NY) uses a hybrid approach to photography and sculpture to revisit the still-life genre from a post-minimalist perspective. Hewitt’s assemblages often include personal mementos as well as books and vintage magazines that refer to the Black literary and popular culture ephemera of her youth. Interested in the mechanisms behind the construction of meaning and memory, she challenges both by evoking connections and meaning in her juxtapositions. Hewitt earned a BFA from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York (2000) and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University (2004).

Steffani Jemison (b. 1981, Berkeley, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions and special projects at LAXART, Los Angeles (2013); RISD Museum, Providence (2015); the Museum of Modern Art (2015); MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2016); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2017); Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2018); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2019); and the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati (2021), among others. Her work is in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum; the Stedelijk Museum; and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Since 2016, Jemison has been a part of the musical collaborative Mikrokosmos with Justin Hicks.

Robert Pruitt (b. 1975, Houston, TX) is known for his drawings, videos, and installations examining the historical and contemporary experiences of African Americans and the Black body and identity. Using references to hip hop, science and science fiction, technology, comic books, Black political struggles, and traditional cultures, he creates a series of fictional portraits with an ambiguous but shared narrative that suggests a radical Black past, present, and future. Pruitt was a participating artist in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and has had solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (2006), The Studio Museum in Harlem (2013), and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2019). Pruitt received his BA from Texas Southern University (2000) and MFA from the University of Texas at Austin (2003). He lives and works in New York City.

 Jamea Richmond-Edwards (b. 1982, Detroit, MI) is an interdisciplinary artist who creates monumental scale assemblages and immersive installations. Invested in exploring the materiality of collage and improvisational gestures, her recent works include self-portraiture that dwells within the realm of imagination and mythos. Born and raised in Detroit, she draws inspiration from her childhood growing up during the crack and AIDS epidemic that created devastating and lasting effects in Black and Indigenous American communities across the US. “I didn’t have to visit a museum to understand art. My generation inherited the artistic and cultural legacy of the Motown Era that our parents experienced firsthand in the city.” Richmond-Edwards received her BA from Jackson State University (2004) and MFA in painting from Howard University (2012). Her works are included in the collections of the United States Embassy, The Rubell Family Collection, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953, Portland, OR) examines issues of race, class, and gender identity. Primarily working in photography and video, but also exploring everything from verse to performance.  Weems has said that regardless of medium, activism is a central concern of her practice; specifically, looking at history as a way to better understand the present. She rose to prominence with her “Kitchen Table Series” in the early 1990s, examining tropes and stereotypes of African American life. The recipient of numerous honors and awards, she was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2013.  Weems received her BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita (1981) and MFA from the University of California, San Diego (1984). She currently lives and works in Syracuse, NY, and is Artist in Residence at Syracuse University.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a two-volume publication. The first volume will encompass a critical reader highlighting pivotal scholarly work around aspects of the Great Migration, from the shaping of American cities to its impact on Black spirituality, music, art, and culture. The second volume will offer a capsule presentation of exhibition content, including curatorial essays, artist entries, and newly commissioned essays by writers Kiese Laymon, Jessica Lynne, Sharifa Rhodes-Pitts, and Dr. Willie J. Wright.

A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration is co-organized by MMA and BMA with support provided by the Ford Foundation, Henry Luce Foundation, Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Teiger Foundation. Its presentation in Jackson, Mississippi, is sponsored by the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation, W.K. Kellogg Foundation, Lucy and John Shackelford Fund of the Community Foundation for Mississippi, The Selby and Richard McRae Foundation, Trustmark National Bank, Mississippi Arts Commission, Mississippi Humanities Council, Visit Mississippi, Visit Jackson, Butler Snow, Mississippi Department of Archives and History, The Westin Jackson, the Ramey Agency, H. F. McCarty, Jr. Family Foundation, Claudia and Robert Hauberg, Brian Fenelon, Ross & Yerger, and Hope Credit Union. 

Have a migration story that you’d like to share? Email marketing@msmuseumart.org.

Image Captions 

First slide, left to right: 

Torkwase Dyson, Photo: Gabe Souza 

Mark Bradford, Photo: Sim Canetty-Clarke, © Mark Bradford, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth 

Akea Brionne, Photo: Akea Brionne  

Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Photo: Jamea Richmond-Edwards  

Steffani Jemison, Photo: Nottingham Contemporary 2017 

Second slide, left to right: 

Robert Pruitt, Photo: Autumn Knight, 2020

Leslie Hewitt, Photo: Richard Renaldi 

Carrie Mae Weems, Photo: Audoin Desforges, 2020

Theaster Gates, Photo: Sara Pooley 

Larry W. Cook, Photo: Nakeya Brown 

Last slide, left to right, top to bottom:

Zoë Charlton, Photo: E. Brady Robinson Photography

Allison Janea Hamilton, Photo: Frankie Alduino

Co-curators:

Ryan N. Dennis (she/her), MMA Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Museum’s Center for Art and Public Exchange

Jessica Bell Brown, BMA Associate Curator of Contemporary Art

 

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