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Native Voices, 1950s to Now: Art for a New Understanding

February 22 – May 17, 2020

Contemporary Indigenous art comes front and center in Native Voices, 1950s to Now: Art for a New Understanding. The exhibition features over 70 artworks from the 1950s to today, including paintings, photography, video, sculptures, performance art, and more, all created by Indigenous U.S. and Canadian artists. Listed as one of the ‘most promising museum shows around the world’ by ARTNews and "one of the 10 US art shows you have to see" by AFAR Magazine, Native Voices will broaden your definition of contemporary art with a new understanding of Indigenous art. Native Voices, 1950s to Now: Art for a New Understanding is organized by Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas. Support for this exhibition and its national tour is provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Sotheby’s Prize. SPONSORED BY: The Thomas W. Briggs Foundation and Debi and Galen Havner

2020 Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards

January 25 - February 23

The Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards is an annual juried student exhibition presented by the Brooks and Brooks Museum League. As an affiliate of the Alliance for Young Artists and Writers, the Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards honors exemplary art by students in seventh through 12th grades, recognizing their outstanding achievements in a competitive annual exhibition and providing cash prizes and scholarship opportunities. The Mid-South Scholastic Art Awards began in 1966 as the Junior Mid-South Exhibition. Since 1989, the Brooks has been proud to partner with the Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, a national non-profit organization, to host the regional competition and exhibition for Memphis and the Mid-South area.

A Journey Towards Self-Definition: African American Artists in the Permanent Collection

On view through May 10, 2020

This exhibition brings together paintings, photographs, textiles, and sculpture by mainly self-taught African American artists from the museum’s permanent collection, spanning from the beginning of the twentieth century to the present day. Each work explores the artist’s experiences as a person of color in the United States: while many were inspired by simple moments of everyday life, others drew from transformative experiences including imprisonment or religious visions. These artists, many of whom were born or practiced in the South, operated outside of the mainstream art world as defined by New York galleries and museums. For many, there was no choice, as the majority of the artists in this exhibition grew up during segregation and were unable to access higher education. Instead, these artists created the space to discover their craft themselves, defining and asserting their own artistic identity and vision in the process.

Rotunda Projects: E.V. Day - Divas Ascending

On view through July 5, 2020

Artist E.V. Day has repurposed costumes from the New York City Opera archives to make Divas Ascending, a series of sculptures that transform familiar icons of women’s empowerment and entrapment into new objects that confound conventional readings of these clichés. Using tension to suspend, stretch, and shred garments and to create forms that the artist likens to futurist abstract paintings in three dimensions, Day has created work that transforms rigid symbols into a range of emotions: anxiety, ecstasy, liberation, and release. E.V. Day American, b. 1967 Manon – Ghost Angel, 2009 Costume of Manon from Massenet’s Manon made of tulle, silk, embroidery and lace worn by Beverly Sills from New York City Opera. Costume suspended with monofilament and stainless steel hardware on steel armature. ©2009, all rights reserved E.V. Day

Drawing Memory: Essence of Memphis

Currently on view

Victor Ekpuk, a Nigerian American artist, painted a mural for the new African art galleries in March 2017. His art is inspired by nsibidi, a sacred means of communication among male secret societies in southeastern Nigeria.

Carroll Cloar Gallery

Currently on view

In honor of Carroll Cloar and to commemorate the museum’s hundredth anniversary, the Brooks Museum created a gallery dedicated to his art.

Arts of Global Africa

Currently on view

The arts of Africa are as varied as the continent itself, which encompasses over fifty independent countries and thousands of languages. This diversity is reflected in the exceptional works of art on view, most of which are on long-term loan from the Newark Museum’s extensive African art collection. Bringing together historic and contemporary works in a range of different media, the selection of works presents an expansive vision of Africa’s artistry.