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Untitled (Cadmium),

Jean Michel Basquiat began his short but prolific career as a graffiti artist in the streets of New York. He adopted a deliberately street smart and seemingly naïve style, yet his art also contained sophisticated references to contemporary culture and art history. Basquiat drew his cryptic visual vocabulary from numerous sources ranging from ancient Egyptian […]

Church, Bobo, MS,

At Segregated Drinking Fountain, Mobile, Alabama,

She Mistook Kindness for Weakness (SMKFW),

Laden with personal symbols and obscure historical references, She Mistook Kindness for Weakness belongs to a series of paintings on velvet Schnabel made in the mid to late 1980s. His use of black velvet evokes the popular vernacular form of painting on velvet sold to tourists in Mexican border towns, including Brownsville, Texas, Schnabel’s hometown. […]

Untitled (From “New York Collection for Stockholm Portfolio”),

Helmet Mask,

The white paint on the face of this mask identifies it as a representative of ancestral and spiritual realms. In Kwese society, sacred masks perform at initiation ceremonies and on other occasions to promote social well-being, health, and abundance.

Mask,

From the watery Delta region of eastern Nigeria, this mask was probably made to celebrate the power of Mami Wata (Pidgin English for “Mother of Water”). Devotion to Mami Wata takes different forms in different places. Some of her common appearancess are as a mermaid, a woman with a snake around her shoulders, a Hindu […]

Memorial to Samuel Bullen, Savannah, Georgia,

“Apotheosis of George Washington” Textile,

“Apotheosis of Benjamin Franklin” Textile,