Then Is Now: Contemporary Black Art in America

The newly renovated Bruce Museum is pleased to open with the exhibition Then Is Now: Contemporary Black Art in America (4/2/23- 7/9/23), which explores how artists of our time critically engage with the past and present. Spanning generations, these artists observe how individual and collective histories inform a present understanding of identity, memory, and heritage. The exhibition begins with works made in or around 1968, a critical year in United States history, and culminates with examples made as recently as 2021, encompassing the historical legacies of slavery and the era of the Civil Rights Movement to the racial reckonings of the present day. Other works showcase artistic approaches to personal and familial histories, and a final grouping of objects take up the history of art, revealing how artists reimagine art historical precedents in order to subversively center Black experiences and narratives. Drawn primarily from private collections within the community of Greenwich and beyond, this exhibition will include approximately two dozen paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, textiles, and video art by such artists as Emma Amos, Radcliffe Bailey, Elizabeth Catlett, Mel Edwards, Barkley Hendricks, Jammie Holmes, Steve Locke, Alison Saar, Betye Saar, Dread Scott, Hank Willis Thomas, Mickalene Thomas, Charles White, and Kehinde Wiley.