PACE GALLERY IS PRESENTING a few of Adrienne Edwards’s “favorite things.” It’s how the curator describes works by black contemporary artists about whom she writes and has a social and intellectual connection, and modern standouts with whom she has been “obsessed” over the course of her academic and professional career. A veteran curator at Performa and a recently appointed curator at-large, visual arts at the Walker Art Center, Edwards is a Ph.D. candidate in performance studies at New York University. Her dissertation inspired the group exhibition at Pace, which considers blackness in abstraction. Bringing together the likes of Adam Pendleton, Ellen Gallagher, Terry Adkins, Lorraine O’Grady (top image), Carrie Mae Weems, and Fred Wilson, with Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, Sol Lewitt, Fred Sandback, and Ad Reinhardt, the show examines the power of the color black as an evocative force that spans mediums. It explores its persistent presence in art over the past 75 years, and its expressive, theatrical, and symbolic possibilities. It’s a unique show in many respects—its concept, venue, and mix of 29 artists. In advance of the show’s June 23 opening, Edwards (right) spoke with Culture Type about how “Blackness in Abstraction” came to be, the concepts behind […]
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