The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure
The Time Is Always Now is a traveling exhibition featuring 28 Black and African diasporic artists celebrating the complexity of Black contemporary life through figurative painting, drawing, and sculpture. Curated by Ekow Eshun, the exhibition explores themes of Double Consciousness, Past and Presence, and Our Aliveness, offering a vibrant dialogue on Black identity, history, and resilience. Philadelphia Museum of Art, 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19130. Runs through February 9th, 2025.
This exhibition takes place at the Philadelphia Museum of Art located at 2600 Benjamin Franklin Parkway, Philadelphia, PA 19130. Runs through February 9th, 2025.
Exhibition Description
"The more than 60 contemporary works featured in this exhibition unfold around three core themes: Double Consciousness, Past and Presence and Our Aliveness. Double Consciousness, a theory first introduced in 1897 by the African American sociologist W.E.B Du Bois, explores concepts of being, belonging and Blackness as a psychological state. Past and Presence explores the absence of Black figures in many mainstream narratives and shows how artists have responded. Our Aliveness features assertions and celebrations of Black assembly and gathering. Traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Black and African diasporic artists in this exhibition work in the U.S. and the U.K. They include Michael Armitage, Claudette Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Amy Sherald. For the show’s U.S. premiere, additional artists working in Philadelphia, London, and New York have been added, including Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Roberto Lugo, Danielle Mckinney, Deborah Roberts, and Arthur Timothy." - PMA
Gallery
