Mississippi Museum Of Art to Present 'Photography And The Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985'
The National Gallery of Art-organized show features works by Gordon Parks, Carrie Mae Weems, and over 100 artists.
Mississippi Museum of Art (MMA/the Museum) will present Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985, a landmark exhibition exploring the work of American and Afro-Atlantic diaspora photographers and artists working with photography in developing and fostering a distinctly Black visual culture and identity. Investigating the medium's role in the Black Arts Movement, which evolved concurrently with the American civil rights and international freedom movements, the exhibition reveals how artists developed strategies to engage communities and encourage self-representation during the turbulent decades of the mid-20th century.
Organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, where the exhibition debuted, it is on view at MMA from July 25 to November 8, 2026. Prior to MMA, Photography and the Black Arts Movement was presented at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.
The exhibition comprises approximately 150 works, spanning photography, video, collage, painting, installation, and other lens-based media, some of which have rarely or never been on public view. Among the over 100 artists included in the exhibition are Billy Abernathy (Fundi), Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Frank Bowling, Kwame Brathwaite, Roy DeCarava, Louis Draper, David C. Driskell, Charles Gaines, James E. Hinton, Danny Lyon, Gordon Parks, Adrian Piper, Nellie Mae Rowe, Betye Saar, Raymond Saunders, Jamel Shabazz, Lorna Simpson, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Photography and the Black Arts Movement is drawn principally from the National Gallery's collection-including more than 50 newly acquired works by Dawoud Bey, Kwame Brathwaite, Louis Draper, Ray Francis, Jeanne Moutoussamy-Ashe, Horace Ové, Jamel Shabazz, Malik Sidibé, Ming Smith, and Carrie Mae Weems, among others-and from lenders in the U.S., Great Britain, and Canada.
This expansive selection of work showcases the broad cultural exchange between writers, musicians, photographers, filmmakers, and other visual artists of many backgrounds, who came together in the mid-20th century to grapple with social and political changes, the pursuit of civil rights, and the emergence of the Pan-African movement through art. The exhibition also includes art from Africa, the Caribbean, and Great Britain to contextualize global engagement with the Black Arts Movement.
Images feature prominent civil rights leaders, artists, and musicians as well as everyday people, bringing together studio, press, and street photography with photographs that were originally created and circulated in fashion, commercial, political, and journalistic contexts. Structured around thematic sections-including explorations of community, fashion and beauty, the media, and ritual-the exhibition evokes a holistic vision of the period, its far-reaching cultural impact, and the breadth and texture of Black identity.
Photographs were a crucial tool used to communicate the events of the civil rights movement to a national and international audience. Artists and news media understood the power of photographs to address inequality and advocate for civil and human rights. Some works in the exhibition are by photojournalists who captured the speeches, marches, and sit-ins that indelibly recorded and helped define the era.
The Black Arts Movement was also instrumental in reshaping fashion, advertising, and media as tools of self-representation and cultural empowerment, prompting advertisers to engage Black audiences more thoughtfully by hiring Black photographers and models in their campaigns.
MMA's presentation is distinguished by a partnership with Jackson State University's Margaret Walker Center, which operates the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO) Learning Center. COFO was the epicenter of the modern civil rights movement in Mississippi and served as the organizational home for Freedom Riders in 1964. It was notably one of the only initiatives to successfully unify a coalition of activist organizations in the fight for civil rights that included the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and a host of local organizations.
To highlight COFO's pivotal contributions to the history of civil rights, MMA has produced supplementary wall labels in the exhibition's section on activism and provides expanded resources on its Bloomberg Connects app. In addition, MMA's presentation includes rarely seen photographs taken at Jackson State University (formerly Jackson State College) in 1973, during the inaugural Phillis Wheatley Poetry Festival, organized by poet Margaret Walker. The photographs capture leading Black women writers of the Black Arts Movement, including Audre Lorde, Alice Walker, Sonia Sanchez, and Nikki Giovanni, who gathered at the festival for readings, conversations, and cultural exchange.
MMA Associate Curator of Exhibitions Kaegan Sparks said, "Our goal of partnering with COFO and the Margaret Walker Center for this powerful presentation is to amplify the singular role that Mississippi played in galvanizing both the Civil Rights and Black Arts Movements. Photographers from Mississippi include Doris Derby and Roy Lewis. Documentation by Bob Fletcher, Doug Harris, Danny Lyon, and Tamio Wakayama vividly portray the aftermath of Freedom Summer and the formation of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in 1964-two civil rights milestones organized by COFO."
Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955-1985 is organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. It is curated by Philip Brookman, consulting curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, and Deborah Willis, university professor and chair of the department of photography and imaging at the Tisch School of the Arts and director of the Center for Black Visual Culture at New York University. The exhibition has been overseen at MMA by Kaegan Sparks, associate curator of exhibitions, and Chase Quinn, creative director and curator of special projects.
Exhibition Publication
Published by the National Gallery of Art in association with Yale University Press, the fully illustrated catalogue accompanying the exhibition examines the vital role photography played in the evolution of the Black Arts Movement, which brought together writers, filmmakers, and artists as they explored ways of using art to advance civil rights and Black self-determination. Edited by Philip Brookman and Deborah Willis, with a preface by Angela Y. Davis and contributions by Makeda Best, Margo Natalie Crawford, Romi Crawford, Cheryl Finley, Sarah Lewis, and Audrey Sands, the publication reveals how photographs operated across art, community building, journalism, and political messaging to contribute to the development of a distinctly Black art and culture. Essays by these distinguished scholars focus on topics such as women and the movement, community, activism, and Black photojournalism, and consider the complex connections between American artists and the African diaspora, and the dynamic interchange of Pan-African ideas that propelled the movement.
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