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A museum exhibition opening in the nation’s capital this summer explores the ways that Black artists use the century-old medium of collage to treat subjects ranging from national heritage to sexual orientation, from notions of beauty to fragmentation and reconstruction. 
“Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage” is billed as the first major museum exhibition devoted to contemporary collage and exploring the wide range of Black experience and identity in the U.S.
Paul Anthony Smith, The Tales of Tourism (2022-2023). Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, © Paul Anthony Smith.
Taking place at the Phillips Collection, in Washington, D.C., it comprises more than 60 works by a multigenerational cohort of some 45 artists. The show was organized by the Frist Art Museum, in Nashville, Tennessee.
Derek Fordjour, Airborne Double (2022). Courtesy of the artist, David Kordansky Gallery, and Petzel Gallery. Photo: Daniel Greer. © Derek Fordjour.
“Multiplicity” includes a pantheon of stars including Sanford Biggers, Mark Bradford, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Howardena Pindell, Lorna Simpson, Mickalene Thomas, and Kara Walker. 
Lester Julian Merriweather, Moment (from #BetterGardensAndJungles) (2017). Courtesy of the artist, © Lester Julian Merriweather.
“Twenty-first-century collage is an arguably understudied and undervalued medium, especially in museum exhibitions,” explained Katie Delmez, senior curator at the Frist Art Museum and the exhibition’s curator. “‘Multiplicity’ is an opportunity to spotlight the formal complexity and vibrancy of the technique and to assert its contributions to the field through the lens of some of today’s leading artists.”
Kara Walker, Divining Rod (2007). Courtesy Sikkema Jenkins & Co., © Kara Walker.
Collage originated with French Cubists and German Dada artists a century ago, and the tradition has been taken up in innovative ways by African-American artists such as Romare Bearden, David C. Driskell, Jacob Lawrence, and Faith Ringgold. Some of the artists in “Multiplicity,” like Mutu and Deborah Roberts, principally work in collage, while it’s just a part of the practice of many of the others. 
Howardena Pindell, Untitled #3C (2009). Courtesy of the artist and Garth Greenan Gallery, © Howardena Pindell.
“The exhibition asserts that collage parallels how identity is constructed with a multitude of elements that create a singular whole,” said Adrienne L. Childs, senior consulting curator at the Phillips Collection and organizing curator for the presentation in Washington. “The process of merging form and content aptly represents Black life. The artists create multifaceted works through the meaningful use of objects from their own lives that reflect their experiences and concerns.”
Lorna Simpson, 4 Walls (2023). Courtesy of the artist and Hauser & Wirth, © Lorna Simpson.
A catalog further explores some of the ideas in the exhibition and includes essays by contributors such as UCLA African art assistant professor Tiffany Barber, Boston University art historian emerita Patricia Hills, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts curator Valerie Cassel Oliver, and Duke University art historian Richard J. Powell.
“Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage” will be on view at the Phillips Collection, 1600 21st Street, NW, Washington, D.C.m July 6–September 22.
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Amid the bustle of the Los Angeles International Airport, travelers can’t be faulted for missing an exhibition of works by the region’s most prominent artists. “Luminaries of Light & Space” celebrates the loose group of West Coast artists who, beginning in the 1960s, sought to expand perceptual experiences through light, color, and volume.
On view since 2022, the show features works by artists including Peter Alexander, Larry Bell, Gisela Colón, Laddie John Dill, Fred Eversley, John McCracken, Helen Pashgian, Hap Tivey, and DeWain Valentine. A singular highlight is Light + Shadow + Reflection + Color (#3 x 6’ D Four Fold) (2016), one of the last projects by the late Robert Irwin, an installation of his signature fluorescent lights.
Robert Irwin, Light + Shadow + Reflection + Color (#3 x 6’ D Four Fold) (2016). Photo: SKA Studios, LLC, courtesy of Los Angeles World Airports.
For Laura Whitcomb, who curated the show, LAX serves as a fitting venue for the show because of the ties between Light and Space artists and the aerospace industry. Eversley, Bell, Tivey, Dill, Colón, and Turrell were all children of chemists, physicists, and aerospace designers.
Peter Alexander, Pyramid (1969). Photo: SKA Studios, LLC, courtesy of Los Angeles World Airports.
“While the artists of the Light & Space Movement explored innovations of materiality forged by the aerospace industry in the 20th century, this installation extends the story of the movement into a new generation of creatives using sustainable materials and renewable energy,” reads the exhibition’s description.
Hap Tivey, Flame (2021). Photo: SKA Studios, LLC, courtesy of Los Angeles World Airports.
The show was scheduled to run through November 2025, but plans are underway to extend it ahead of the 2028 Olympics, set to be held in L.A. It’s the first cultural installment of “many” planned to enhance flying experience at LAX ahead of the Olympics.
In fact, at the center of the exhibition is a commission titled Torch by Hap Tivey, which already echoes the Olympic flame that traditionally opens every iteration of the games. Whitcomb called it the “stabilizing anchor” of the show, “signifying the center of a futuristic altar where all faiths come together through the language of geometry.”
Installation view of “Luminaries in Light and Space.” Photo: SKA Studios, LLC, courtesy of Los Angeles World Airports.
Investing in public art is a big boon for airports. In fact, in a document from the Airports Council International notes that such dedication to public art can be seeded by local ordinances requiring a certain percentage of construction budget to be dedicated to art.
According to Whitcomb, “millions of passengers” have already seen the works on view in the 60-foot-long installation, which is presented with an auditory component produced by Dublab called Orchestrina, featuring 30 L.A. composers.
“By presenting Light & Space on a global stage, the installation underscores Los Angeles’s commitment to showcasing local artistic achievements to a worldwide audience,” Whitcomb said.
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On a sweltering day at the end of June, the gallerist Stephen Markos stood in front of a rather arcane and eldritch patinated copper totem. A barely discernible African mask peered out from inside the faintly glowing, cloudy resin component that capped off its sarcophagus-like carcass.
Alex Locadia, I See You light object with jewelry box (1989). Photo: Luiz Corzo. Courtesy of Superhouse.
“He was one of the first artists to bring Afro-futurism into functional art furniture,” Markos said about Alex Locadia and his 1989 work I See You. The piece’s sepulchral qualities faded away when Markos unlatched and lowered the hidden frontispiece to reveal a compartment containing a time capsule of the era. Bargain bling (sourced from street vendors) hung from rusty nails: gold-plated fronts, sunglasses, and thick chains.
“If Blacks had come to this country as Europeans, with their culture intact, what would Black Modernism look like?” is the question the artist asked when describing this early period of his work. Part lamp, part jewelry box, the sculpture is a standout of the group exhibition “The Odd Couple: American Art Furniture 1980-Now.”
Detail of the interior of Alex Locadia’s I See You. Photo: Luiz Corzo. Courtesy of Superhouse.
The show runs until August 17 at Superhouse, the influential and quirky 6th-floor art-and-design gallery in New York’s Tribeca. It veers from austere to irreverent. Howard Meister’s black stained-wood Nocturnal Chair is imposing with its towering straight back. The late Dan Friedman’s 1989 crimson compartmented coffee table Red Car (Strategic Orbital Simulator) would have blended in well with the retro futuristic décor at Pee-Wee’s Playhouse. Ficus Interfaith is a duo that specializes in terrazzo. One can dine atop trompe l’oeil billiards on their Pool Table.
An installation view of “The Odd Couple.” Photo: Luiz Corzo. Courtesy of Superhouse.
Pippa Garner seems to be everywhere these days with work in the Whitney Biennial and a recent White Columns solo outing. “She’s having a major renaissance!” Markos said. Garner’s rather dowdy standing lamp is ingeniously bisected. The upper component connected to the wall with an industrial rig and seemingly hovers ghost-like (with exposed wires) above its lower portion.
Howard Meister, Nocturnal Chair (1980) (L) and Pippa Garner, Lampoon (1982- 2021) (R). Photo: Luiz Corzo. Courtesy of Superhouse.
“These artists are playing with different levels of functionality,” said Markos, who also founded the gallery. He has an intimate connection with all of the artists and has shown them before.
“But I’ve never brought them together in quite this way,” he said. “Some of the historical work would be considered craft, or part of the studio craft movement. Other work would be considered functional art. Both groups showed at different galleries, but they didn’t really mix all that much, even though they were making at the same time—socially either. There was a divide between craft and art. I’m using ‘art furniture’ as an umbrella term to describe all of that material.”
James Hong, Tropic of Cancer dining table (1981). Photo: Luiz Corzo. Courtesy of Superhouse.
A commonality in the offerings is it’s hard to guess a piece’s provenance by sight. Everything looks like it’s from a different era, from ancient to slightly off-kilter from its decade. The transparent Zen of James Hong’s minimal glass dining table is grounded with marine elements. The Rhode Island-based artist Elizabeth Browning Jackson utilized industrial materials, such as automotive paints, vinyl, and fiberglass in her early work. Her amorphous 1986 cherry-red Crown of Thorns vanity has moveable angular components that match its metallic legs and hide various compartments. She fabricated it a local Newport surf shop. The piece’s confluence of vectors and construction techniques exemplify the theme of “The Odd Couple.”
Elizabeth Browning Jackson, Crown of Thorns vanity, stool, hand mirror, and comb (1986). Photo: Luiz Corzo. Courtesy of Superhouse.
“I wanted to bring together what has traditionally been these three separate pillars: craft, functional art, and contemporary design,” Markos said. “They’re always shown separately. There are these divides. I want to break that down. And I wanted to show how similar they really are. How the current work that artists are making right now really has a legacy of what was happening in the eighties and nineties.”

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