Brooklyn Museum Presents A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration
The exhibition features newly commissioned works by 12 acclaimed Black contemporary artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, Theaster Gates, and more.
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration at the Brooklyn Museum brings together 12 contemporary artists to consider the complex impact of this period on their lives, as well as on social and cultural life.
Between 1915 and 1970, in the wake of racial terror during the post-Reconstruction period, millions of Black Americans fled from their homes to other areas within the South and to other parts of the country. This remarkable movement of people, known as the Great Migration, caused a radical shift in the demographic, economic, and sociopolitical makeup of the United States.
Co-organized by the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art, the exhibition includes newly commissioned works ranging from large-scale installation, immersive film, and tapestry to photography, painting, and mixed media. Featured artists are Akea Brionne, Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Larry W. Cook, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates Jr., Allison Janae Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Robert Pruitt, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, and Carrie Mae Weems.
The Brooklyn Museum’s presentation centers Brooklyn as another important site in the Great Migration, highlighting historical and contemporary census data about the borough’s migration patterns. Visitors are encouraged to share their own personal and familial stories of migration through an oral history “pod” available in the exhibition galleries.
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration is on view through June 25, at the Brooklyn Museum in New York.
For more information, visit brooklynmuseum.org.
