Dorrance Galleries
Main Building
Kind of Blue by Claudette Johnson (2020) © Claudette Johnson. Courtesy of the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London. Photo: Andy Keate.
This exhibition features 27 Black and African diasporic contemporary artists who use figurative painting, drawing and sculpture to illuminate and celebrate the nuance and richness of Black contemporary life.
Curated by Ghanaian-born and U.K. based writer and curator Ekow Eshun, The Time Is Always Now takes its title from an essay on desegregation by American writer and social rights activist James Baldwin. It highlights a sense of urgency around contemporary artistic expression, while acting as a reminder that Black artists exist within an always-evolving artistic lineage.
The more than 60 contemporary works featured in this exhibition unfold around three core themes: Double Consciousness, The Persistence of History and Our Aliveness. Double Consciousness, a theory first introduced in 1897 by the African American sociologist W.E.B Du Bois, explores concepts of being, belonging and Blackness as a psychological state. The Persistence of History explores the absence of Black figures in many mainstream narratives and shows how artists have responded. Our Aliveness features assertions and celebrations of Black assembly and gathering.
Traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Black and African diasporic artists in this exhibition work in the U.S. and the U.K. They include Michael Armitage, Claudette Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Amy Sherald. For the show’s U.S. premiere, additional artists working in Philadelphia, London, and New York have been added, including Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Danielle Mckinney, and Arthur Timothy.
This exhibition is organized by the National Portrait Gallery, London, in collaboration with the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure is made possible by the Robert Montgomery Scott Endowment for Exhibitions, Kathleen C. and John J. F. Sherrerd Fund for Exhibitions, Lois G. and Julian A. Brodsky Installation and Exhibition Fund, Jill and Sheldon Bonovitz Fund for Exhibitions, Jaimie and David Field, Barbara A. Podell and Mark G. Singer, Vesna Todorović Sacks and Howard J. Sacks, Karen Goodman Tarte, and Arthur M. Kaplan and R. Duane Perry.
All exhibitions at the PMA are underwritten by the Annual Exhibition Fund. Annual support is provided by Andrea Baldeck, M.D.; Julia and David Fleischner; Robert Hayes; and Mark W. Strong and Dana Strong.
The organizing curator is Ekow Eshun, guest curator for the National Portrait Gallery, London, and the supporting curator is Sarah Howgate, Senior Curator of Contemporary Collections at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
In Philadelphia, the exhibition is curated by Erica F. Battle, John Alchin and Hal Marryatt Curator of Contemporary Art, with Yocari De Los Santos, Constance E. Clayton Fellow.