Mississippi Museum of Art and Baltimore Museum of Art Announce A Movement In Every Direction: Legacies of The Great Migration

The Great Migration is co-organized by MMA and BMA with support provided by the Ford Foundation. Its presentation in Jackson, Mississippi is sponsored by the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation, Kellogg Foundation, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and Trustmark National Bank.

Mark Bradford (b. 1961, Los Angeles, CA) has a wide-ranging conceptual practice and is best known for his multimedia abstract paintings and collages with scavenged materials and weathered and incised surfaces that often reveal the atrocities and struggles of race and poverty. His profound insight and inventiveness have established him as one of the most significant and influential artists of his generation. Bradford has been widely exhibited internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts in 2014 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009. In 2017, Bradford represented the U.S. at the 57th Venice Biennale with Tomorrow Is Another Day, co-organized by the BMA and Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. Other major projects include Pickett’s Charge, a monumental, site-specific installation for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC., and We The People, a commission for the U.S. Embassy in London comprised of 32 10-foot-by-10-foot panels featuring select text from the United States Constitution. Bradford received his BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and lives and works in Los Angeles.

Akea Brionne Brown (b. 1996, New Orleans, LA) is a photographer, writer, curator, and researcher who investigates the implications of historical racial and social structures in relation to the development of contemporary black life and identity within America. Focusing on the ways history influences the contemporary cultural milieu of the American black middle class and the history of urban and suburban planning, she explores current political and social themes related to historical forms of oppression, discrimination, segregation, and black identity. Brown received the Visual Task Force Award from the National Association of Black Journalists. Her work is featured in the Smithsonian’s Ralph Rinzler Collection and Archives and Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Library. She was the 2018 Documentarian of Color by Duke, and her series, Black Picket Fences, was acquired for their permanent collection. Brown was also named the 2019 Janet & Walter Sondheim Winner. In 2019, Brown co-founded Shades Collective. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and she currently lives in Baltimore, MD.

Zoë Charlton (b. 1973, Eglin AFB, FL) creates figure drawings, collages, and installations that depict her subject’s relationship to culturally loaded objects and landscapes. She participated in residencies at Artpace (TX), the McColl Center for Art + Innovation (NC), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (ME). Charlton received a Pollock-Krasner grant (2012) and Rubys Artist grant (2014) and was a 2015 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize finalist. She co-founded ‘sindikit, an artist project space in Baltimore and holds a seat on the Maryland State Arts Council. Charlton received her BFA from Florida State University (1993) and MFA from University of Texas at Austin (1999). She is an Associate Professor of Art at American University and resides in Baltimore, MD.

Larry Cook (b.1986, Silver Spring, MD) is a conceptual artist working across photography, video, and installation. Based in Washington, DC, Cook received his MFA from George Washington University (2013) and his BA in Photography from SUNY Plattsburgh (2010). Cook has exhibited his work nationally at MoMA PS1 (2020), UTA Artist Space (2020), the National Portrait Gallery (2019), and internationally at Weiss Berlin in Germany (2020). Cook has held artists-in-residences at Light Work and The Nicholson Project, among others. Cook is currently an Assistant Professor of Photography at Howard University.

Torkwase Dyson (b. 1973, Chicago). Working in multiple mediums, Dyson describes herself as a painter whose forms address the continuity of ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. She merges ideas such as site and built environments and nature and culture under the rubric of environmentalism. Fascinated with transformations, ambiguities, and environmental changes that place these subjects in relation to each other, her practice investigates our connections to imagination, materiality, geography, and belonging. In 2016, Dyson was elected to the board of the Architecture League of New York as Vice President of Visual Arts. She received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (1999) and an MFA from Yale School of Art in painting and printmaking (2003). Dyson is now based in New York.

Theaster Gates (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) lives and works in Chicago. Gates creates works that engage with space theory and land development, sculpture, and performance. Drawing on his background in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces left behind. His work contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist. In 2010, Gates created the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit platform for art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation on Chicago’s South Side. Gates has exhibited and performed internationally at major museums including, most recently, Tate Liverpool, UK (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2019). Recent honors include the Nasher Prize for Sculpture; Urban Land Institute’s Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development; and a World Economic Forum 2020 Crystal Award for his leadership in creating sustainable communities. He is a professor at the University of Chicago, Department of Visual Arts and Harris School of Public Policy and Distinguished Visiting Artist and Director of Artist Initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College.

Allison Janae Hamilton (b.1984 Lexington, KY) is a multi-disciplinary artist working in sculpture, installation, photography, and video who fuses land-centered folklore and personal family narratives into mythologies that address the social and political concerns of today’s changing Southern terrain. The artist’s commitment to the land is driven by her own migrations from Kentucky to Florida, Tennessee, and New York, where she currently lives. Hamilton’s work connects the landscape with the lived experience it carries, positioning it as critical to understanding both history and contemporary culture. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally including monographs at MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2018) and Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, GA (2018). Hamilton has also participated in fellowships and residencies, including with the Whitney Independent Study Program, New York, NY; Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; and Fundación Botín; Santander, Spain. She is the recipient of the Creative Capital Award and the Rema Hort Mann Foundation Grant. Hamilton holds a PhD in American Studies from New York University and an MFA in Visual Arts from Columbia University.

Leslie Hewitt (b. 1977, St. Albans, NY) uses a hybrid approach to photography and sculpture to revisit the still-life genre from a post-minimalist perspective. Hewitt’s assemblages often include personal mementos as well as books and vintage magazines that reference the Black literary and popular culture ephemera of her youth. Interested in the mechanisms behind the construction of meaning and memory, she challenges both by evoking connections and meaning in her juxtapositions. Hewitt earned a BFA from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York (2000) and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University (2004).

Steffani Jemison (b. 1981, Berkeley, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions and special projects at LAXART, Los Angeles (2013); RISD Museum, Providence (2015); the Museum of Modern Art, NY (2015); Mass MoCA, North Adams, MA (2016); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2017); Nottingham Contemporary (2018); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2019); and the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati (2021), among others. Her work is in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum, New York; the Stedelijk Museum, Netherlands; and the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York. Since 2016, Jemison has been a part of the musical collaborative Mikrokosmos with Justin Hicks.

Robert Pruitt (b. 1975, Houston, TX) is known for his drawings, videos, and installations examining the historical and contemporary experiences of African Americans and the Black body and identity. Using references to hip hop, science and science fiction, technology, comic books, Black political struggles, and traditional cultures, he creates a series of fictional portraits with an ambiguous but shared narrative that suggests a radical black past, present and future. Pruitt was a participating artist in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and has had solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (2006), The Studio Museum in Harlem (2013), and the California African American Museum (2019). Pruitt received his BA from Texas Southern University (2000) and MFA from the University of Texas at Austin (2003) and lives and works in New York City.

Jamea Richmond-Edwards (b. 1982, Detroit, MI) is an interdisciplinary artist that creates monumental scale assemblages and immersive installations. Invested in exploring the materiality of collage and improvisational gestures, her recent works include self-portraiture that dwells within the realm of imagination and mythos. Born and raised in Detroit, she draws inspiration from her childhood growing up during the crack and aids epidemic that created devastating and lasting effects in Black and Indigenous American communities across the US. “I didn’t have to visit a museum to understand art. My generation inherited the artistic and cultural legacy of the Motown Era that our parents experienced firsthand in the city”. Richmond-Edwards received her BA from Jackson State University (2004) and MFA in painting from Howard University (2012). Her works are included in the collections of the United States Embassy, The Rubell Family Collection, and Studio Museum of Harlem.

Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953, Portland, OR) examines issues of race, class, and gender identity. Primarily working in photography and video—but also exploring everything from verse to performance—Weems has said that regardless of medium, activism is a central concern of her practice; specifically, looking at history as a way to better understand the present. She rose to prominence with her “Kitchen Table Series” in the early 1990s, examining tropes and stereotypes of African American life. The recipient of numerous honors and awards, she was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2013.  Weems received her BFA from the California Institute of the Arts (1981) and MFA from University of California, San Diego (1984). She currently lives and works in Syracuse, NY, and is Artist in Residence at Syracuse University.

Image Top row, left to right: Jessica Bell Brown, Photo: Michael Avedon Ryan N. Dennis, Photo: Charles Williams, 2020 Steffani Jemison, Photo: Nottingham Contemporary 2017 Leslie Hewitt, Photo: Richard Renaldi Torkwase Dyson, Photo: Gabe Souza Akea Brionne Brown, Photo: Akea Brionne Brown Mark Bradford, Photo: Sim Canetty-Clarke, © Mark Bradford, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth Robert Pruitt, Photo: Autumn Knight, 2020 Bottom row, left to right: Larry W. Cook, Photo: Nakeya Brown Deana Lawson, Photo: Sikkema Jenkins & Co., New York Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Photo: Jamea Richmond-Edwards Carrie Mae Weems, Photo: Audoin Desforges, 2020 Theaster Gates, Photo: Sara Pooley Zoë Charlton, Photo: E. Brady Robinson Photography Allison Janea Hamilton, Photo: Frankie Alduino