This month marks the 100th anniversary of America's first national observance of Black history (February was designated Black History Month 50 years later, in 1976). Art galleries and institutions worldwide have mounted exhibitions that underscore the distinct contributions of Black and African diasporic people while exploring elements of interiority and selfhood still too often treated as afterthoughts. These presentations commemorate the complexity and beauty of Black American and African diasporic history while offering visionary possibilities for shaping Black futures.
Wadsworth Jarrell: “Somethin’ Else” at Jenkins Johnson Gallery
Wadsworth Jarrell's artworks are tenacious and exuberant, and, above all, offer an alternative visual backdrop for Afrodiasporic liberation struggles in the U.S. and across the globe. Known for his vivacious paintings and working across sculpture and printmaking, Jarrell is a cofounder of the artist collective AFRICOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists), founded in 1968 during the Black Liberation Movement. “Somethin’ Else,” the artist's first solo exhibition at Jenkins Johnson Gallery, dives into Jarrell's practice, which evolved from a more figurative style early in his career to one that later incorporated abstraction as he began to work in sculpture and engage with color and texture in increasingly complex ways.
Works such as Quarter to Five (1964) blend figuration and abstraction from a transitional period in Jarrell's practice, preceding the formation of AFRICOBRA. Meanwhile, works like Jazz at Massey Hall (1999) characterize Jarrell's more mature period and underscore the crucial role that jazz played in freedom movements throughout the 20th century. Across media, the artist employs rich, vibrant color palettes that make his works truly burst with life. The show features notable works produced as recently as 2018, including those shown in the monumental traveling exhibition “Soul of a Nation.” The exhibition coincides with a recently opened retrospective of Wadsworth and Jae Jarrell at the Albany Museum of Art.
Wadsworth Jarrell, Homage to a Giant, 1970
On view through February 26, 2026.
Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu: “Manuscripts of Tradition” at Jack Shainman Gallery
In “Manuscripts of Tradition,” Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu returns home by way of oil paintings and works on paper. The exhibition at Jack Shainman Gallery continues themes central to the artist's practice, including portrayals of members of the Igbo community where she is from and the subversion of stereotypes surrounding Africa and the diverse groups of people who live across the continent. Raised in the Anambra state of Nigeria, Chiamonwu's works examine the "contemporary relevance" of the cultural and mythological forms of her hometown.
In earlier works, Chiamonwu employed vivid color and precise details to transform family and community members into deities and mythological figures, representing the complexity of life in Africa while preserving the importance of local customs and identity. While working with the same formal techniques, this new group of dazzling portraits sees the artist depict her family and friends in the more subtle splendor of their quotidian lives. Through works that highlight her loved ones, Chiamonwu asserts a form of representation antithetical to the commonplace and problematic portrayals of African individuals. Instead, she presents depictions that are not only "confident and celebratory" but also decenter the values and comparisons to Western standards.
Ifeyinwa Joy Chiamonwu, Mgbeke (A Woman born in Eke Market Day), 2025
On view February 20 through March 28, 2026.
“Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination,” at MoMA
A stunning presentation of images by photographers working in Central and West African cities during the mid–20th century, “Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination” poses the question: Can a photographic portrait inspire political imagination? The exhibition delves into how photographers and the individuals they documented—often everyday citizens—were instrumental in building Pan-African solidarity during the mid-1900s. It features photographers including Jean Depara and Sanlé Sory, who took portraits of residents from Bamako, Bobo-Dioulasso, and Kinshasa during a period when the impacts of decolonization were felt across the African continent, and the U.S. Civil Rights movement was ramping up. Malick Sidibé's iconic photographs of couples dancing joyously are featured, along with works by Seydou Keïta, who is also the subject of an expansive solo exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum. “Ideas of Africa” also includes photographers James Barnor and Kwame Brathwaite, both of whom played an important part in shaping Africa as a political idea while living in Europe and North America.
Sanlé Sory, Le Voyageur (The Traveler), 1970–85.
On view through July 25, 2026.
Ming Smith: “Jazz Requiem—Notations in Blue” at Portland Museum of Art
Ming Smith's photographs are such a gift to encounter. A new exhibition at the Portland Museum of Art, Jazz Requiem—Notations in Blue, highlights the time the artist spent traveling in Europe and the influence it had on her work, then and now. Like countless Black artists, Smith experienced wider reception—especially during the formative years of her photography practice—in Europe. From her extensive works of self-portraiture to striking images of iconic musicians, performers, and artists, Smith is known to capture the intricacies of Black experiences with nuance, problematizing the objectifying tendencies inherent to photography.
“Jazz Requiem—Notations in Blue” also highlights the prominent role that the performing arts, particularly jazz and dance, play in Smith's work. Deeply moved by the "intuitive expression" inherent in these practices, the artist's photographs often evoke a sense of movement, even when her subjects are not literally moving. She tends to incorporate blur and abstraction into her imagery, not merely for aesthetic purposes, but as a reflection on how Black Americans are “rendered simultaneously invisible and hyper visible by society.” Today, Smith continues to cement her legacy as a pioneering figure who paved the way for other Black women photographers working in a heavily white male–dominated space.
Shani Crowe: “Red, Black & Green” at Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art
Chicago-based artist Shani Crowe's new exhibition “Red, Black, & Green,” is a monument to the Pan-African flag, which symbolizes Afrodiasporic identity, unity, and freedom. The show explores the ideology and movement of Pan-Africanism, as popularized by figures such as Jamaican political activist Marcus Garvey. The works span portraiture, tapestry, beading, and performance, typically boasting the three colors in the exhibition's title, which represent the Black Liberation Flag, first created by Garvey and his Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) in 1920.
Crowe's use of materials, which range from plastic pony beads and nylon cord to natural materials such as cowrie shells, is a central component of the presentation. One photograph, SIS FLAG (2022), shows six figures lying side by side, with only their right profiles, from the torso upward, in frame. The lengthy braids extending from each figure's head are in corresponding shades of red, black, and green, forming the flag once more from their adorned crowns. RBGoals (2022) is a multimedia sculpture that uses the same color palette for the basketball hoop and backboard. The work also calls to mind conceptual artist David Hammons, known for his 1990 work African American Flag and for multiple sculptures that incorporate basketball hoops, such as Higher Goals.
Shani Crowe, Red, Black, and Green, 2022.
On view through March 29, 2026.
Bre Andy: “Waiting Room, Long Story” at Long Story Short Paris and Cierra Britton Gallery
In “Waiting Room,” a new exhibition presented by Long Story Short Paris and Cierra Britton Gallery, Bre Andy paints tender moments of quietude. Andy's debut international solo exhibition examines the waiting room as a “liminal space” and a “state of transition.” Beyond considering physical points of transition, the works take up the notion of a more metaphorical “waiting room,” bearing in mind the pauses ahead of moving into a new phase of life and selfhood. Within these 11 new works, including two charcoal-on-paper drawings, the artist depicts calm interior scenes and domestic settings, everyday objects such as crumpled papers and ashtrays, and women in deep contemplation, both individually and in pairs.
If and When? (2026) shows a figure lounging comfortably and lying flat on her stomach across a brown couch with her gaze cast casually down at her hand. Meanwhile, Point To B (2026) features two figures resting in a bed with speckles of greenery peaking out from the window frame behind them. As the woman in the background rests against her pillow, gazing up at the ceiling, the foregrounded figure sits up, resting her palms on her lap and looking just beyond the frame of the canvas. Together, these works reflect the many ways women carve out time and space to be with themselves in stillness.
Bre Andy, Point To B, 2026.
On view through February 28, 2026.
“Giving you the best that I got”—California African American Museum
“Giving you the best that I got” is an important survey of representations of Black motherhood throughout visual culture. From the experiences of pregnancy to the ongoing relationship between mother and child, the exhibition reflects on the sacred bond inherent within this universal dynamic. It takes a closer look at the particular experiences of Black mothers, addressing the extensive degree to which they remain underdocumented and underrepresented in contemporary art. In addition to highlighting imagery of Black women and matrilineal narratives, the show also features work that honors them through “themes of nostalgia, care, and cultural inheritance.” The presentation includes works by artists such as Carrie Mae Weems, Jamel Shabazz, and Derrick Adams, as well as rising stars like Danielle Mckinney, Helina Metaferia, and Ciarra K. Walters.
Curated by independent curator and gallerist, Dominique Clayton, “Giving you the best that I got” is co-presented by the California African American Museum and Art + Practice as part of a five-year collaboration between the two organizations. Art + Practice hosted several related, community-centered programs alongside the exhibition, including a family workshop and multiple conversations on maternal and infant health and doula work.
Lanise Howard, With Open Arms (Loving You), 2025
On view through March 7, 2026.
Firelei Báez at MCA Chicago
Marking the artist's first mid-career survey in North America, Firelei Báez brings together her notable drawings, paintings, and installations spanning the last two decades, drawing out the expansiveness of her oeuvre. Organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston and now at MCA Chicago, the exhibition delves into Báez's work, which often explores themes of folklore, fantasy, sci-fi, and mythology. The artist also works to destabilize fixed assumptions about the construction of race, gender, and nationality, and explores the “legacies of colonial rule across the Americas and the African diaspora, in the Caribbean, and beyond.”
Much of Báez's work interrogates the past, present, and future simultaneously, often superimposing archival or historical visual material in a nod toward alternate histories. For example, Man Without a Country (aka anthropophagist wading in the Artibonite River) (2014–15) is a sprawling multimedia work composed primarily of 225 deaccessioned book pages, which she alters by layering with new imagery. The artist speaks to this element of her work, stating: “My works are speculative propositions, meant to create alternate pasts and potential futures, questioning history and culture in order to provide a space for reassessing the present.”
Firelei Báez, Sans-Souci (This threshold between a dematerialized and a historicized body), 2015.
