Exhibitions

The art world has as much to do with access as it does with art. So a big part of the artist Faith Ringgold’s retrospective at the New Museum in New York, a sweeping survey spanning almost six decades, is organized around the fact that she didn’t have a lot of inroads. Looking back, her practice even flourished in spite of it.
This is because Ringgold never lost sight of who she was making work for. Her pieces are “very much coming from a Black womanist perspective, as opposed to a reactionary viewpoint,” artist Tschabalala Self, who first saw Ringgold’s work as a child in Harlem, told Artnet News. “Her works strongly exist within this aesthetic of Black American storytelling, and for the edification of that community, not from a didactic place of making work or explaining Black life to a non-Black audience.”
Ringgold’s retrospective is the first major New York museum show of her work since 1998, when the New Museum also presented her work. Another show was held at the studio museum in 1984.
Faith Ringgold, Picasso’s Studio: The French Collection Part I, #7 (1991). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
“The gaps between the first two retrospectives immediately gives you a sense of the reception and of the marginalization of her work,” Massimiliano Gioni, the current show’s co-curator, told Artnet News. But her art “always found new ways to exist in spite of the many complicated conditions she was in.” 
In the end, those complicated conditions are hard for anyone to ignore—even curators putting together a show about Ringgold’s life and work. In the years since her 1998 retrospective, Ringgold, now 91, was so alienated from the mainstream art world that she was forced to develop a practice that could exist and thrive outside it.
In her 1995 memoir, We Flew Over the Bridge, Ringgold reveals how, in the ‘70s, her career “started with a bang and ended with a whimper.” 
After launching her “American People” series in the ‘60s—hyper-realist paintings that zeroed in on the racial and gender strife characterizing Ringgold’s everyday life at a time when the art world was obsessed with work that was “cool, unemotional, uninvolved, and not ‘about’ anything,” as she wrote—she joined the stable at Spectrum Gallery on 57th Street, becoming the only Black artist represented there.
During her tenure, she pivoted to her “Black Light” series, a group of pieces that included agitprop-style texts and African-inspired portraits with even more overt Black Power messaging, to the point where she eliminated the use of white paint altogether. By 1970, she’d landed her second solo show at the gallery, still eager to see what the art world could ultimately do for her. 
By the end of the decade, she found her answer: not much. 
Faith Ringgold, Slave Rape #2: Run You Might Get Away (1972). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Tom Powel Imaging; courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
Feeling disheartened, Ringgold forged ahead, finding new opportunities. But even now, as the art world turns its eyes onto her work, many audiences still don’t know that she’s much more than a painter. For one, she was also a prolific sculptor.
On top of her teaching career, she conducted lectures and put on performances at colleges and universities, producing doll-like soft sculptures as props. These life-sized, often heavily adorned works also provided Ringgold with a way of capturing a small piece of the world that she was able to call her own.
“She created a whole system of support for herself that was not the traditional gallery [system] in New York,” Gioni said.
Faith Ringgold, The Wake and Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro (1975-89). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Ron Amstutz; courtesy Glenstone Museum, Potomac, Maryland.
Finding a Place Where You Belong
Growing up in Harlem in the 90s, Tschabalala Self knew about Ringgold, the children’s book author, but not about Ringgold, the artist. 
“Peripherally, I would see a lot of her work in the community—for example, if you go to a children’s bookstore,” Self said. “So with Tar Beach, I just automatically identified it with the landscape because it looked like my neighborhood.” (Tar Beach was the first book Ringgold wrote and illustrated. The children’s story tells the tale of a young girl yearning to explore the world beyond Harlem.)
Self, who has been so inspired by Ringgold’s life and art that she worked closely with Gioni to fundraise for the show, explained that Ringgold’s work, along with that of a number of other prominent Black artists, was woven into the tapestry of her neighborhood. The way it worked—and even still works—is that someone can have a strong, even critical presence in one community, while simultaneously being shunned by another. 
Faith Ringgold, Sonny’s Bridge (1986). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022
“If you grew up in Harlem and went to the African American Day Parade every summer,” Self said, “you didn’t realize that, that’s a David Hammons flag, right? You’re just thinking, ‘Oh, that’s a cool Pan-African American flag.’ It’s just an ubiquitous symbol in the neighborhood.”
The storytelling that Ringgold began with Tar Beach continued in her now-famous painted story quilts—which, by and large, depict profound moments of her life. 
The quilt version of Tar Beach, dating to 1988, resonates with Self not only because it reminds her of her childhood, but also because of its fantastical sensibility. 
“I think that’s so important to talk about, the relationship between the fantastical and Black American identity,” Self said. “There’s so much about Black American life that is surreal, and not necessarily in a positive way or negative way. But it’s important to just bring that fantasy into that work.”
Faith Ringgold, Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach (1988). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022.
Where Do We Go From Here?
Meet Willia Marie Simone. She is a fictional character Ringgold created in the ‘90s for her “French Collection” series. Willia is an expatriate studying art in Paris. Willia is the Black figure who never had a chance to be a central character within Modern art’s depictions of French life.
Extending this fabulation into her next series, Ringgold formulates a story, set stateside, about Willia Marie Simone’s daughter; a narrative that is, according to Gioni, the story of “non-white America and all these counter myths of origin.” One piece features a Black, dreadlocked Statue of Liberty.
In her 20s and 30s, Ringgold assumed the art world would help get her work the audience it deserved. From her “American People” series, to her highly political “Black Light” series, and then through to her performances, sculptures, and story quilts, Ringgold never lost sight of her goal to be honest about the racism and sexism she came up against constantly. And for her efforts, she ended up finding an audience all on her own.  
Faith Ringgold, American People Series #15: Hide Little Children (1966). © Faith Ringgold / ARS, NY and DACS, London, courtesy ACA Galleries, New York 2022. Photo: Todd-White Art Photography, London; courtesy Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, London.
In the end, her work reflects that trajectory. It’s easy to see now how Ringgold ultimately helped usher in an environment for contemporary artists such as Self, an environment that never existed for many of Ringgold’s peers. 
But Self is also realistic about the impact Ringgold’s work will have today. While we’re in the midst of a cultural shift around gender and race, one that reflects ideals that artist-activists like Ringgold fought long and hard for, there’s still a lot more work to do.
“With any kind of movement, when you’re trying to change the culture, it’s not a matter of completely solving the issue,” Self said. “It is about pushing it one step forward, and then hoping that the next group of people are going to be able to push it again.”
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

The craze for all things immersive meets Egyptomania in “Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience,” a new exhibition from the National Geographic Society celebrating the 100th anniversary of perhaps the most famous archaeological discovery of all time.
Visitors to the show will be transported back in time more than 3,000 years to the boy king’s brief life and reign (ca. 1332–1323 BCE), as well as to the moment when archaeologist Howard Carter opened the long-lost tomb in 1922 to find fabulous golden treasures buried along side the pharaoh.
“New technologies are making it possible to fully immerse people like never before in important stories from our past, allowing us to develop connections and understand history’s influence on our present and future generations,” Kathryn Keane, vice president of public programming for the National Geographic Society, said in a statement.
The immersive presentation will use projection mapping to bring to life the archives of the National Geographic Society and “invite visitors into the golden king’s world like never before,” per the exhibition description.
Harry Burton, Howard Carter, Arthur Callender and an Egyptian worker entering the innermost shrine to see King Tut’s sarcophagus for the first time. Photo courtesy the Griffith Institute, colorization by Dynamichrome.
To stage the show, National Geographic is teaming up with the Paquin Entertainment Group, the company behind “Beyond Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience” and “Beyond Monet,” part of the current glut of projected animated light shows. To date, iterations of the two experiences have reportedly attracted over 3 million visitors.
The Tut exhibition will debut in June at the National Geographic Museum in Washington, D.C., followed by a simultaneous showing in Boston that opens July 8 at SoWa Power Station, which previously hosted “Imagine Van Gogh.” Additional tour dates across North America will be announced in the coming months.
A view of the “Tutankhamun: Enter the Tomb” virtual reality experience. Image courtesy CityLights.
In Boston and other cities, audiences can also opt for another, similar experience, “Tutankhamun: Enter the Tomb,” narrated by actor Hugh Bonneville of Downtown Abbey fame.
That experience was originally part of the London stop of “Tutankhamun: Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh“, a much-hyped 10-city international tour billed as the the largest collection of the pharaoh’s treasures ever to travel outside of Egypt. It was forced to close due to lockdown restrictions during its appearance at London’s Saatchi Gallery.
The rest of the run, which was set to go through 2024, was ultimately cancelled over concerns that the exhibition was organized in violation of Egypt’s Antiquities Protection Law, which prohibits lending unique ancient artifacts to commercial enterprises.
“Beyond King Tut: The Immersive Experience” will be on view at the National Geographic Museum, 145 17th St NW, Washington, D.C., June 2022–February 2023; and SoWa Power Station, 550 Harrison Avenue, Boston, July 8–September 18, 2022. 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

A chatty crowd of people holding wine glasses milled about Goldsmiths, University of London, standing on piles of torn images. The exchanges among the seemingly cheerful group belied the seriousness of the artwork, on view in a solo exhibition titled “Please Enjoy Our Tragedies,” which documents the bleak final hours before a Burmese artist’s dangerous escape from Myanmar in May 2021 after a bloody military coup.
“This is my hello and my goodbye,” the anonymous artist behind the artwork, who goes by Sai, told Artnet News. “I want to try to reach out to people, to show them the evidence of what’s happening [in Myanmar]. Do people here give a fuck? Not really. But they give a fuck when art is rooted in tragedy, and hence the title of the show.”
“Mom was hoping that dad would be released soon,” the artist said. Photo by Vivienne Chow.
Sai, which means mister in the Shan language, said he cannot reveal his full name for safety reasons. His father, Linn Htut, was the chief minister of the Shan state in Myanmar and was a member of the now-jailed former leader Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, which was ousted during the February 2021 coup.
Linn Htut was since sentenced to 16 years in prison on four separate counts of corruption. Sai’s mother is living under 24-hour surveillance.
Sai, who studied at Goldsmiths on a fellowship in 2019, must soon bid farewell to the U.K.: his visa expires in May. Should he choose to return to Myanmar, his life may be at risk.
“My father may die, regardless of what I do,” he said. “My mother may die. I may die. But before that, we have to let people know that this has happened.”
Initially, he planned to campaign on his family’s behalf outside the country. But after trying to reach different human rights organizations and British members of Parliament, he said he felt like his cause had become hopeless.
Faces of Mynamar dictators on the floor. Photo by Vivienne Chow.
According to the latest United Nations human rights report published this week, the junta has been suppressing resistance violently. Those who have been detained have been tortured, suspended from ceilings, injected with drugs, or subject to sexual violence. Nearly 1,700 people have been killed since last year, according to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners.
“Atrocities happen every day. Villages are burned, women are being raped, children and babies are killed,” Sai said. “But still, our tragedies are disposable.”
The works on display mirror this narrative. Included are large-scale images and a video that Sai took of his seized family residence in Taunggyi in northern Myanmar, just before he fled the country.
The images are torn, piled up, and discarded on the floor. Beneath them are the exact same images, ripped from gallery walls.
“That’s why you see them lying on the floor. That’s how we are treated,” Sai said. “Everyone shoved us under the carpet. An image may have been torn, but it is still there.”
Sai said the display was inspired by movie posters: when a theatrical release period is over, they are taken down and replaced with posters for new releases. The artworks are accompanied by installations reflecting on the military’s economic empire and fabric sculptures made of political prisoners’ clothing.
“The fabrics that cover our faces are woven in the style of a traditional Shan carpet, created from the clothes of political prisoners abducted by the regime,” the artist said.
Sai said his ongoing series, “Trails of Absence,” is expected to be included in the European Cultural Center’s group show, “Personal Structures,” at Palazzo Bembo during the Venice Biennale.
But whether he will be in attendance isn’t his primary concern.
“I can’t be depressed,” he said. “Maybe one day I will be broken into pieces. But now I’m like a broken machine, and I can only keep going.”
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More

Heiress, entrepreneur, scammer, prisoner—Anna “Delvey” Sorokin has worn many hats in recent years. Now she can add another to her rack: professional artist. 
Tonight, an exhibition of artworks dedicated to the “Soho Scammer” will go on view in a pop-up exhibition on New York’s Lower East Side—and it will include five drawings made by Sorokin herself. 
Both self-portraits and self-parodies, Sorokin’s cartoon sketches find the convict musing on her own persona. One shows her sunning in a prison yard, glammed out in Miu Miu shades and a Tom Ford blouse. Another depicts her using JPay, a payment platform for inmates. She’s sitting in a chair emblazoned with the word “wanted,” a pair of handcuffs dangles from her hand. “Agent Provocateur tops and accessories,” reads a caption. 
“Free Anna Delvey” is the name of the show, which was curated by artists Julia Morrison and Alfredo Martinez. The latter, like Sorokin, has some experience with prison. Two decades ago, he served time for selling forged Basquiat drawings to collectors. 

While incarcerated, Martinez turned to art, making sardonic drawings that simultaneously spoke to his situation and the follies of the contemporary art world (one even ended up at MoMA)—a similar approach to Sorokin’s.  
When Martinez saw Sorokin’s sketches on her Instagram, he fell for them immediately.
“It caught me right in the feels, someone making sarcastic drawings in prison,” Martinez told Artnet News. 
For months, Martinez tried to get in touch with Sorokin about the work, but had no luck. Finally, he resorted to planting an item declaring his interest in Page Six—and sure enough, that got Anna’s attention. They’ve been communicating on and off ever since. (Sorokin, apparently, is an avid reader of the New York Post, which appears in one of her drawings.)

Martinez said that he’s acted as Sorokin’s assistant in the lead up to the show, which will be on view through March 24 in a nondescript building on Delancey Street. With her permission, he enlarged her pencil-on-paper prison drawings, and in one case, even used watercolors to add some flavor. 
“It’s a con artist turned artist, Alfredo Martinez, helping a fellow con artist make her debut in the art world from prison,” Morrison told the Art Newspaper.
As for the other artworks in the group exhibition, many are portraits of Sorokin. One depicts her as royalty, another as a bunny. Twenty-five percent of sales from the show will go toward Sorokin’s mounting legal fees, Martinez said. (He hadn’t yet decided how to price Sorokin’s own artworks.)
He clearly has an affinity for her—or perhaps an abiding respect. “She doesn’t let the fuckers get her down,” Martinez added.
In all likelihood, Sorokin won’t be able to attend her exhibition debut. Earlier this week, she was released from ICE detention, where she’d spent the better half of the last year, and is now set to be deported to Germany. 
Follow Artnet News on Facebook: Want to stay ahead of the art world? Subscribe to our newsletter to get the breaking news, eye-opening interviews, and incisive critical takes that drive the conversation forward. More