[January 10, 2024, Montclair, NJ]–The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) announces the grand opening of its landmark exhibition, Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM. With over 70 works in various mediums by 59 ground breaking artists, Century is the largest and most comprehensive show of its kind at MAM, underscoring a longtime commitment since the 1940s to the curation and appreciation of artworks by Black artists. Curated by Adrienne L. Childs and nico w.okoro (see Curators’ bios), Century is complemented by a fully illustrated catalogue featuring multiple essays that offer insightful explorations of the rich historical and cultural context of Black art. The exhibition has been coordinated at MAM by Chief Curator Gail Stavitsky.

With focus on the depth, breadth, and variety of art by African Americans, Century explores art as a living, generative force in Black life, spanning generations. From the iconic lens of James Van Der Zee, capturing the Black Red Cross March, Harlem (1924), to Nanette Carter's contemporary abstraction Destabilizing #2 (2022), Century encapsulates a spectrum of powerful perspectives and diverse approaches within the realm of historic, modern, and contemporary Black art.

Century is organized around six major themes that highlight concerns, visions, and practices that emerge from this rich grouping of artists. Works by Dawoud Bey, Adger Cowans, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gordon Parks, and others highlight the importance of Black Portraiture over the past hundred years and its central role in the project of crafting Black identities while subverting reductive, often racist, portrayals of Blackness. African Diasporic Consciousness brings together objects by Willie Cole, Melvin Edwards and others that work—both explicitly and implicitly—to transmit cultural values, practices, symbols, and philosophies that have persisted and thrived across vast distances from a shared homeland. Archival Memory considers the capacity of objects by Sanford Biggers, Tomashi Jackson, Todd Gray, Deborah Willis and others—constructed, found, or reimagined—to collectively document and preserve this consciousness.

Also considered are the languages of Abstraction—exemplified by the work of Alvin Loving, Howardena Pindell, and others—that have been meaningful tools for conceptualizing both personal and collective expressions best communicated by form and color. Black Mythologies explores how artists like Nick Cave, Lorna Simpson, and Saya Woolfalk use the power of myth and spiritual expression to access histories and memories, imagine possible futures, and mine the complex contours of Black life. Black Joy and Leisure celebrates the construction of unapologetically Black social spaces, where radical rest and unfettered leisure are expressed without inhibition by artists such as William Edmondson, Carmen Cartiness Johnson, and Faith Ringgold. 

Century also provides visitors with opportunities to see how early photography–for instance Van Der Zee–informs the work of later photographers like Dawoud Bey and Deana Lawson. Van Der Zee’s work documenting “New Negro” identity in the 20s and 30s is additionally a foundation for the later work of mixed media artist Whitfield Lovell, for example. Viewers can also see how early Black practitioners of abstraction such as Beauford Delaney, Norman Lewis, and Sam Gilliam paved the way for 20th/21st century artists such as Julie Mehretu and Jack Whitten. Also featured in the show are works by Ben Jones and Janet Taylor Pickett, co-founders of MAM’s African American Cultural Committee (AACC).

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Overview of the catalogue Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM

The catalogue features an introduction by MAM Trustee Chairman of the AACC William S. Jiggetts. Founded in the 1980s, AACC members have played vital roles in the evolution of the Century project. The main essays in the catalogue are as follows: 

• Adrienne L. Childs, “Enchantment: Black Women Artists and the Mythic Imaginary”
• nico. w. okoro, “Colored People’s Time: On the Aesthetics of Black Spatiotemporal Resistance”
• Camille Brown [Assistant Curator, Phillips Collection], “Deciphering the Black Madonna: Representations of Motherhood in Black Art”
• Antoinette D. Roberts [Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art Baltimore Museum of Art], “Call-and-Response: The Black Female Nude in the Work of Adger Cowans and Carrie Mae Weems”

Also featured in the catalogue is a selective timeline highlighting exhibition and acquisitions of Black art at MAM from 1946 to the present, by Gail Stavitsky. 

Curators’ Bios

Adrienne L. Childs, PhD is an independent scholar, art historian, and curator. She is Senior Consulting Curator at the Phillips Collection in Washington D.C. Recent exhibitions include “The Colour of Anxiety: Race, Sexuality and Disorder in Victorian Sculpture” at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England (2022–23) and “Riffs and Relations: African American Artists and the European Modernist Tradition” at the Phillips Collection (2020–21). Her book “Ornamental Blackness: The Black Figure in European Decorative Arts” is forthcoming from Yale University Press. In April 2022, the High Museum of Art awarded Childs the 2022 Driskell Prize in recognition of her contribution to African American art and art history.

nico w. okoro, MA is an independent arts consultant, curator, educator, and writer, and is the author of Museum Metamorphosis: Cultivating Change Through Cultural Citizenship, published by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers and the American Alliance of Museums Press in 2022. She is a visiting critic at the Yale School of Art and a board member at the National Academy of Design. okoro’s recent exhibitions include Made Visible: Freedom Dreams at Creative Arts Workshop (2023), Somewhere in Advance of Nowhere at the Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art (2022), RED at Welancora Gallery (2022), Home Body at Sapar Contemporary (2021), and Treacherous with Old Magic at Future Fairs (2020). She has recently supported strategic initiatives at the Art Bridges Foundation, the Association of Art Museum Curators, the Legacy Museum, and the New Britain Museum of American Art. Prior to that, okoro served as inaugural executive director at NXTHVN (2019–20), director of public programs and community engagement at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2014–19), curatorial director at Rush Arts Gallery (2007–10), and curatorial assistant at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2006–07).

Exhibition co-curators Childs and okoro have observed that the Century exhibition “celebrates Black art as a dynamic force that recognizes and represents a variety of lived experiences—a force that heals, activates memory, reveals and questions histories, illuminates the present moment, and serves as a source of pure pleasure.” MAM Chief Curator Gail Stavitsky notes that, “for many years, the Montclair Art Museum has been committed to the development of a permanent collection of American art that reflects this country’s rich multicultural diversity. Initiated in 1973 with the acquisition of William Edmondson’s sculpture “Po’ch Ladies (ca. 1932-41), this endeavor has gathered momentum, resulting in a major collection of work by Black artists from the late nineteenth century to the present.”

Key Highlights of Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM include:

• Works by renowned artists such as Romare Bearden, Lois Mailou-Jones, Jacob Lawrence, Gordon Parks, Betye Saar, Lorna Simpson, Kara Walker, Charles White, Kehinde Wiley, Philemona Williamson, and Deborah Willis
• Thematic sections providing a nuanced exploration of the multifaceted experiences of Black Americans
• A diverse array of artistic media, ranging from paintings and sculptures to photographs, prints, videos, and mixed-media works
• Century emerges as a must-see exhibition for those seeking a profound understanding of Black art and its enduring contributions to American culture
• A fully illustrated, 142-page catalogue with essays by exhibition co-curators Adrienne L. Childs and nico w. okoro, as well as Camille Brown, and Antoinette D. Roberts.

Artists Represented in Century:

MAM Gallery Hours:
Fridays 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Saturdays 10 a.m.–6 p.m.
Sundays 11 a.m.–5 p.m.

Gaelen Lecture, Saturday April 14, 2024
Artist panel moderated by Century co-curators Adrienne L. Childs and nico w. okoro.

Additional Programs and Group Tours

Public programs and studio classes for kids, families, and adults are scheduled during the exhibition. Weekly Sunday Studio family programs include a guided art-making activity with a MAM art educator based on artwork currently on view in our galleries. Multi-week studio classes and spring break camp through the Yard School of Art will use works from the Century exhibition as sources of inspiration for students of all ages. Visit montclairartmuseum.org/learn-create for more information.

Tours of the exhibition are available for adult and community groups, including businesses, places of worship, friend and family groups, and more. For more information, visit montclairartmuseum.org/tours.

About the Montclair Art Museum (MAM)

^{The Montclair Art Museum (MAM) boasts a renowned collection of American and Native American art that uniquely highlights art-making in the United States over the last 300 years. Works in MAM's Native American art collection span the period of ca. 1200 C.E. to the present day. The Vance Wall Art Education Center encompasses the Museum’s educational efforts, including award-winning Yard School of Art studio classes, lectures and talks, family events, tours, and the mobile MAM Art Truck. MAM exhibitions and programs serve a wide public of all ages, from families and seniors to artists, educators, and scholars.}

^{All MAM programs are made possible, in part, by funds from the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, The Vance Wall Foundation, the Geraldine R. Dodge Foundation, and Museum members.}