Art
Electric Images: Ming Smith’s Transcendent Photography
Evidence, the inaugural show at Nicola Vassell Gallery, emphasizes Smith’s track record as a photographer who both loves and riffs on the language of her medium.
Rachell Morillo
Art
Laura Aguilar’s Liberatory Gaze
Aguilar was a rare photographer who never erased herself, shifting the ethics of photographer-subject dynamics.
Art
Grief and Grievance Honors the Weight and Wake of Racial Violence
A prophetic document of our time, the New Museum exhibition calls attention to the weight of Black death not because it is new or salacious but because it remains urgent.
Art
Behind the Mask: Photographers Reflect on Black Vulnerability
We Wear the Mask treads a fine line between opacity and revealing truth in its rawest form.
Art
The Living Legacy of the Kamoinge Workshop, a Force in Black Photography
The influential collective created a rigorous yet non-hierarchical sphere of influence, which challenges the very tidiness of retrospectives like Working Together.
Film
Michaela Coel’s I May Destroy You Is a Brilliant Meditation on Consent
Chronicling a young writer’s experience in the aftermath of a sexual assault, the series captures the pain, absurdity, and murkiness of rape culture, refusing to ever tie a neat bow.
Film
Queen & Slim Traverses Trauma on Repeat but Never Delves Deeper
This is a film that wants to contend with Black grit and intellectualism, to walk the street and sit in the ivory tower. But in failing to acknowledge the nuances of each, it flattens and compounds these different facets of Blackness into nameless characters.
Performance
Kia LaBeija Shelters a Queer, Black Femme Story of Collective Liberation
The strength in LaBeija’s Performa debut comes from her ability to use Oskar Shlemmer’s Bauhaus ballet as an outline, while organically combining the talents of people in her community.
Art
How Socialism Shaped Africa Between Independence and the End of the Cold War
After the End offers a selection of works from artists with personal relationships to, and experiences of, socialism in countries such as Angola, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique.
Film
Pose Is a Much-Needed Ode to Legacy in the Black and Latinx LGBTQ Community
The groundbreaking television show's second season speaks to the immense power of chosen family.