Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage

Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage 

Ingram Gallery

The first major museum exhibition devoted to the subject, Multiplicity presents 75 major collage and collage-informed works that reflect the breadth and complexity of Black identity. Featuring an intergenerational group of artists, Multiplicity explores the varying ways collage is employed and how the technique suggests diverse conceptual concerns such as cultural hybridity, notions of beauty, gender fluidity, and historical memory. By assembling pieces of paper, photographs, fabric, and salvaged or repurposed materials, these artists create unified compositions that express the endless possibilities of Black-constructed narratives despite our fragmented society.

Artists range from established luminaries to emerging and mid-career figures, including Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Deborah Roberts, Tschabalala Self, Lorna Simpson, Devan Shimoyama, and Mickalene Thomas.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with scholarly essays and will travel to two yet-to-be announced venues.

Organized by the Frist Art Museum.

Image: Derek Fordjour. Three Bend Deep, 2019. Acrylic, charcoal, oil pastel, and foil on newspaper mounted on canvas; 63 x 103 x 2 1/4 in. Private collection. Courtesy of the artist and Petzel Gallery, New York.

Source: Frist Art Museum