Brighter Days is bound to transform what we imagine possible with monuments.
Melvin Edwards
Posted inArt
In Baltimore, Generations Traces a Lineage of Abstraction Among Black Artists
Most shows can’t or don’t hold these very separate aspects in synchronous rotation: sober assessment of an art historical lineage and a feeling of intimacy. This one does.
Posted inArt
The Pioneering Painted Sculptures of Melvin Edwards
Edwards’s sculptures, on display at Alexander Grey Associates in New York, establish him as a master of his various crafts with with an acute sense of rhythm and movement.
Posted inArt
The Open-Ended Narratives of a Small Museum
What if Abstract Expressionism never happened?
Posted inArt
How Black Modern Artists Defied a Singular Narrative in 1971
1971: A Year in the Life of Color studies two exhibitions essential to the ongoing relationship between black American artists and modernism.
Posted inArt
At the Marrakech Biennale, a Conversation Between Postcolonial Identities
MARRAKESH — Set outside the institutional white cube, in restored ancient sites and the ruins of a 16th-century palace, the sixth edition of the Marrakech Biennale, Not New Now, arrives like a breath of fresh air.
Posted inArt
Fresh Air and Artistic Forms Outside Art Basel Miami Beach
MIAMI BEACH — Wandering for hours around the convention center housing Art Basel Miami Beach tends to make one long for fresh air.
Posted inArt
Will Some Bright Morning Ever Arrive?
NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ — In 1963, while living in Los Angeles, Melvin Edwards welded “Some Bright Morning” out of different pieces of steel scrap metal, including a heavy chain and a dagger-like fragment extending from a circular, collar-like form.
Posted inArt
Man of Steel: The Welded Transfigurations of Melvin Edwards
Melvin Edwards’ welded relief sculptures conjure up human anguish and human advancement often within the same work. His art delivers the mythmaking spirit of abstract sculpture into the domain of identifiable histories. He has built a long, wide-ranging career around that apparent incongruity.
Posted inArt
The Fantastic and Revelatory Story of Art and Black LA
On first glance, some may wonder why MoMA PS1, a New York contemporary art museum, has just opened a historical exhibition of art from Los Angeles. But as MoMA PS1 curator Peter Eleey explained at the press preview last week, the show in question, Now Dig This! Art and Black Los Angeles 1960–1980, actually has a connection to the New York institution.