Solidary & Solitary: The Joyner/Giuffrida Collection

On view in the O’Shaughnessy Galleries

Drawing on the Joyner/Giuffrida Collection, this exhibition celebrates Modern and contemporary artists of African descent, many of whom were historically overlooked by collectors, critics, scholars, galleries, and museums.  A central theme is the power of abstract art as a profound political choice and as a declaration of freedom.  These artists not only resisted racist imagery, but also, pressure to create positive representations of black Americans.

Ranging across 70 years, Solidary & Solitary reveals a rich and complex history woven from the threads of artistic debates about how to embody blackness; social struggle and change; migrations and the international African diaspora.

“There is no museum collection in the world that can tell this story,” observed Christopher Bedford, the Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director of the Baltimore Museum of Art and co-curator of the exhibition with Katy Siegel, Baltimore Museum of Art Senior Programming & Research Curator and Thaw Chair in Modern Art at Stony Brook University.  “Which is why Katy and I have made it our mission to make this singular activist private collection accessible to the public . . .to address blind spots in our shared cultural heritage.”  Dr. Siegel added, “as the exhibition title suggests, these artists confront with bravery and creativity a tension we all feel, most especially African Americans, between the ‘solitary’––being specifically, uniquely and only oneself––and the ‘solidary’ of a group’s collective social identity.

Public Reception:  5:00–7:30 pm on Friday, October 26, 2018.

The evening will include an opportunity to hear remarks by the art collectors, Pamela J Joyner and Alfred J Giuffrida 

Presented by The Helis Foundation

Organized by the Ogden Museum of Southern Art and The Baltimore Museum of Art

Image: Norman Lewis (American, 1909–1979), Afternoon, 1969, oil on canvas, 72 x 88 inches, © Estate of Norman W. Lewis, courtesy of Michael Rosenfeld Gallery LLC, New York, NY, photo courtesy of Art Institute of Chicago