The Cleveland Museum of Art Presents the Exhibition Currents and Constellations. A Display of work by Black artists who embrace and challenge art history
Currents and Constellations: Black Art in Focus features nine thematic groupings of works by Black artists, five in the Julia and Larry Pollock Focus Gallery and four in the permanent collection galleries. The exhibition places Black American art and artists at the center of discussions about the relevance of art history to contemporary practice. Works from the Cleveland Museum of Art’s (CMA) permanent collection and significant loans are presented in conversation, exploring the ways emerging and mid-career Black artists embrace and challenge art history. On display are works by Sanford Biggers, Elizabeth Catlett, Richard Hunt, Dawoud Bey, Lorna Simpson, Jack Whitten, Darius Steward, Kenturah Davis, Mario Moore and Torkwase Dyson, among others. Currents and Constellations, a free exhibition, is on view through June 26, 2022.
“Currents and Constellations features a series of thematic vignettes that emphasize how Black artists have drawn from conventional art historical narratives to generate new ones,” said William M. Griswold, director of the Cleveland Museum of Art. “The exhibition creates conversations among contemporary art and historical objects in our encyclopedic collection, inviting visitors to bring their own interpretations to these multifaceted objects.”
The Practice #2, fromBare Arms, 2019. Darius Steward (American, b. 1984)- photo courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
In the exhibition, “currents and constellations” is used as a navigational phrase that helps visitors explore the meanings of complex artworks, especially those that engage histories suppressed or erased from conventional narratives. The phrase marks both direct art historical links, or currents, which represent connections supported by written or recorded archival research, and indirect connections, or constellations, which represent what’s missing from an archive or account. Together, “currents and constellations” describes the interpretive potential of an artwork. The exhibition’s nine thematic groupings illuminate some of the ways that Black artists address essential perspectives, questions and ideas.
“Through multiple, overlapping themes, visitors are encouraged to consider the vast network of relations borne of a single artwork, to experience the ways that Blackness, broadly speaking, may impact an artist’s process or content and to see challenging artworks as an invitation to delve more deeply,” said Key Jo Lee, director of academic affairs and associate curator of special projects.
Two Generations, 1979. Elizabeth Catlett (American, 1915–2012)- courtesy of the Cleveland Museum of Art
The thematic groupings in the focus gallery include Black Cartographies, where each artwork uniquely maps Black experiences and histories; Turning Away and Turning Toward, both of which engage the history of portraiture; The Sacred Mundane, featuring works by artists who show how what they cherish might seem common or mundane; and Resistance in Black & White, where artists address different forms of oppression.
The four groupings in the permanent collection galleries generate new conversations with works in other parts of the CMA’s collection, including American painting and sculpture, Abstract Expressionism, German Expressionism and contemporary art.