Summer Art Event: Portraiture Exhibition Featuring Black Artists Returns to Christie’s
As the profile of Black artists and their works continue to soar, propelled by the prominence of African art-specialized online art galleries and African art sales websites such as Aworanka African gallery aggregator, Christie’s New York’s will have in its packed summer art season schedule the return of the “Say it Loud: Visionaries of Self” portraiture exhibition featuring the work of Black artists from around the world.
The exhibition running from August 5-19 is a partnership between the auction house and art advisor and curator Destinee Ross-Sutton. It is coming as a successor to the “Say it Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)” virtual selling exhibition co-curated by Christie’s and Ross-Sutton last summer. The 2020 virtual edition had consisted of works, majorly portraiture art, by a group of established and emerging artists, and had a focus of offering a “positive spin on promoting these artists” in the midst of heightened awareness of racial and social disparities.
For the summer 2021 return of the exhibition, the curators aim to provide a necessary and ongoing global platform for amplifying and celebrating individual Black artists’ distinct perspectives, narratives, and lenses, with Christie’s backing the sale as part of their CSR Diversity Equity & Inclusion Initiatives, a company-wide effort to address systemic racism and discrimination. Along with the exhibition, the auction house is offering educational programming, including a course on business skills for artists.
“Now that we have your attention,” says Ross-Sutton about this year’s exhibition, “we intend the exhibition to show the full range of these people’s voices—not necessarily centered around their blackness, but of course their experiences as Black individuals help bring their voices out.”
The roll call of returning artists and new selections paints an impressive international mix of talents. Returning are Nelson Makamo, Khari Turner, Joshua Michael Adokuru, Isshaq Ismail, and The Love Child, while a selection of 17 emerging and established artists will join them as new additions. Some of these new additions are Gherdai Hassell, Sarah Dahir, Hebru Brantley, Johnson Eziefula, and acclaimed artist Zanele Muholi.
Together, this closely-knit group, which represents a rich diversity of individual voices, creative practice, and myriad cultural and social experiences through stimulating renderings of the human form, will contribute a total of 32 works presented in an online auction format with 100% of proceeds going directly to the artists and their representatives.
Meanwhile, a portion of remitted proceeds will go toward funding the Black Artist Collective, a foundation founded by co-curator Destinee Ross-Sutton to help promote and support in particular young and emerging African and LGTBQ+ artists of color. According to Ross-Sutton, she was moved to set up this initiative after an encounter with artists in Ghana and Nigeria who struggled to get the basic materials to do their work.
Returning to Christie’s for a second iteration of “Say it Loud” feels like a “victory lap in a way,” Ross-Sutton says. She further pointed out that it’s also an opportunity to assist emerging artists with learning what it takes to work with a global high-end arts institution.
The portraiture-focused summer art event for works by Black artists will be presented both online and in an exhibition at Christie’s Rockefeller Center galleries in New York.
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