Naomi Beckwith

Franklin Sirmans

Bill Arning

Yona Bäcker

Tavia Amolo Ochieng' Nyongó

Clifford Owens

"Radical Presence" chronicles the emergence of black performance practices in contemporary art. Where hegemony has tended to define black performance art as an extension of theater, this publication provides a critical framework for discussing the history of black performance within the visual arts over the last 50 years. Over five decades of performance art practices by such artists as Benjamin Patterson, David Hammons, Senga Nengudi, Lorraine O'Grady, Adrian Piper and Ulysses Jenkins are presented along representatives of subsequent generations such as Carrie Mae Weems, William Pope.L, Terry Adkins, Sherman Fleming, Danny Tisdale, Lyle Ashton Harris, Clifford Owens, Kalup Linzy and Adam Pendleton, among others. This publication includes a DVD compilation of performance excerpts and is an essential tool for any understanding of the field.

Black Performance in Contemporary Art

Radical Presence

Thelma Golden

Kellie Jones

Chrissie Iles

The ultimate monograph on the work of celebrated artist Lorna Simpson, a trailblazer who continues to influence and inspire Lorna Simpson is a multimedia artist known for her pioneering approach to conceptual photography. In 1993 Simpson was the first African-American woman ever to show in the Venice Biennale and to have a solo exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, New York. This landmark book documents Simpson's career in its entirety, up to her most recent work. In doing so, it sheds light on the remarkable path that Simpson paved to global critical acclaim and art-world stardom.

Lorna Simpson - Revised and Expanded Edition

With a wealth of images and commentary, this is the essential career survey of Cave's socially responsive art The definitive volume on the ever-evolving and shape-shifting work of the Chicago-based artist, Nick Cave: Forothermore highlights the way Cave's practice has shifted and continues to shift in response to our history and current moment of cultural crisis. Including several new, never-before-seen works, the book shows an artist at the height of his power. Addressing topics ranging from art history to social justice, Nick Cave: Forothermore includes essays from Naomi Beckwith, Romi Crawford, Antwaun Sargent, Malik Gaines, Krista Thompson and Meida Teresa McNeal. Punctuating these contributions are interviews with the artist exploring his life, work and teaching practice, as well as a roundtable discussion between Cave and dancer Damita Jo Freeman, musician Nona Hendryx and publisher Linda Johnson Rice on Cave's art and influences, as well as pivotal cultural phenomena from Soul Train to Ebony magazine. Nick Cave: Forothermore reveals the way art, music, fashion and performance can help us envision a more just future. Nick Cave (born 1959) is an artist and educator working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums, including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body, initially created in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Cave has had major exhibitions at MASS MoCA (2016), Cranbrook Art Museum (2015), Saint Louis Art Museum (2014-15), ICA Boston (2014), Denver Art Museum (2013), Seattle Art Museum (2011) and the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (2009), among others. Cave lives and works in Chicago.

Nick Cave: Forothermore

Valerie Cassel Oliver

"An exploration of the life and work of the African American female artist, Howardena Pindell"--

What Remains to Be Seen

Howardena Pindell

Jennifer Higgie

Donatien Grau

This beautiful volume celebrates and explores Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's enigmatic paintings. Based in London, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye has emerged in recent years as a major talent in the international art scene, winning widespread acclaim for her large-scale, luminous portraits. Working in a luxuriously dark, muted palette offset by bursts of radiant color, Yiadom-Boakye paints subjects from her imagination, whose stories she sometimes elaborates through short fiction. Whether with a shy smile, leering, or evading one's gaze, Yiadom-Boakye's subjects consistently confront the viewer with a beguiling sense of intimacy and the implication of larger, hidden life. This volume surveys the artist's remarkable career to date through beautiful, full-page illustrations. Also featured are two critical essays that assess the artist's practice and distinctive approach to portraiture, an interview with the artist, as well as short stories by the artist that give life to her paintings.

Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Okwui Enwezor

Any Number of Preoccupations

Massimiliano Gioni

Glenn Ligon

Mark Nash

A timely and urgent exploration into the ways artists have grappled with race and grief in modern America In recent years, the world has seen the rise of white nationalism in America and the tragic persistence of violence against African-Americans. Featuring works by more than 30 artists and writings by leading scholars and art historians, this book -- and its accompanying exhibition -- gives voice to artists addressing concepts of mourning, commemoration, and loss and considers their engagement with the social movements, from Civil Rights to Black Lives Matter, that black grief has galvanized. Artists included: Terry Adkins, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kevin Beasley, Dawoud Bey, Mark Bradford, Garrett Bradley, Melvin Edwards, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Charles Gaines, Theaster Gates, Ellen Gallagher, Arthur Jafa, Daniel LaRue Johnson, Rashid Johnson, Jennie C. Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Deana Lawson, Simone Leigh, Glenn Ligon, Kerry James Marshall, Julie Mehretu, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Okwui Okpokwasili, Adam Pendleton, Julia Phillips, Howardena Pindell, Cameron Rowland, Lorna Simpson, Sable Elyse Smith, Tyshawn Sorey, Diamond Stingily, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, Nari Ward, Carrie Mae Weems, and Jack Whitten. Essays by Elizabeth Alexander, Naomi Beckwith, Judith Butler, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Massimiliano Gioni, Saidiya Hartman, Juliet Hooker, Glenn Ligon, Mark Nash, Claudia Rankine, and Christina Sharpe.

Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America

Fashion world leader Duro Olowu applies his creative process and cosmopolitan eye to a major exhibition drawn from Chicago's great art collections. Nigerian-born British fashion designer Duro Olowu is internationally renowned for his womenswear label launched in 2004 that speaks to a cosmopolitan sensibility informed by his international background and a confident eye for visual disciplines from art to film to popular culture. Olowu's global viewpoint has translated into wildly popular platforms and projects from Instagram postings to revelatory curatorial projects in London and New York that position him at the transcultural crossroads of art, culture, and fashion. Now Olowu turns his gimlet eye on Chicago to curate a show drawn from that metropolis's public and private art collections, anchored by the MCA's holdings. Published on the occasion of Olowu's largest curatorial project, Duro Olowu: Seeing elucidates the designer-cum-curator's creative process as he imagines relationships between artists and objects across time, media, and geography: Naomi Beckwith illuminates Olowu's curatorial process, driven by a voracious appetite for contemporary art and culture brought together in sharp juxtapositions. Valerie Steele situates Olowu's designs within the contemporary fashion world. Ekow Eshun focuses on Olowu's role within Britain's black and Afro-Caribbean creative community. Thelma Golden interviews Olowu about his work as designer, curator, and chronicler of culture and style across the worlds of museums and fashion. And Lynette Yiadom-Boakye creates new fiction for this volume. Publishing with Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago

Naomi Beckwith

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