Art has always served as a mirror towards society. For Black artists in particular, every canvas, print, and performance becomes a way to carve space in spaces that have too often tried to close the door. This fall, museums and galleries across the country are presenting exhibitions that highlight the stories that center Black culture in all its depth and complexity.
Few shows embody that spirit more vividly than Lord, I gotta keep on (movin’), South African artist Athi-Patra Ruga’s dazzling installation at the Leslie-Lohman Museum of Art. Ruga conjures a fictional queer Black nation called Azania, populated by femme figures drawn from history and family alike. His use of textiles, glass, and video creates a universe where myth collides with liberation, reminding audiences how imagination can rewrite the world we inherit.
History itself is re-examined in Edmonia Lewis: Indelible Impressions at Stanford’s Cantor Arts Center. Lewis, who was of Black and Native American ancestry, carved a career in 19th-century Rome against impossible odds. Her finely wrought Neoclassical sculptures stand as evidence of both her artistic brilliance and her refusal to be defined by the limits of her era. Seeing her work gathered anew is less about nostalgia than about recognizing her rightful place in the canon. In New York, Data Consciousness: Reframing Blackness in Contemporary Print takes inspiration from W. E. B. Du Bois’ data visualizations of Black American life, reimagined here by five artists who explore what it means to make art in an age of surveillance. Their works push back against the coldness of technology, asserting presence, autonomy, and creative resistance.