Black Contemporary Art

Amy Sherald The lesson of falling leaves, 2017 Collection: The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles

Though Senga Nengudi’s R.S.V.P. is abstract, its forms suggest a body or body parts—limbs, breasts, buttocks, appendages, wombs. Store-bought nylon pantyhose filled with sand, knotted, stretched, and tacked to the wall mimic the elasticity of skin, tender at life’s beginnings and then sagging with age and strain. It is particularly piercing that the crotch of the pantyhose, splayed out vulnerably at the sculpture’s center, bears dramatic forces of tension and suspension. The cultural associations of the hosiery and its color identify the body alluded to as black and feminine. Yet the body in question also belongs to viewers: the title of the work, a commonly used French acronym, entreats viewers to “please respond.” Nengudi frequently used her R.S.V.P. series in choreographed performances, where the sculptures served as restraints, props, and costumes.

Remy Jungerman Peepina Devil Maroon A8 (and detail), 2011 27,5 39 inch (70 x 100 cm) 

Sasha Huber & Petri Saarikko Black Lives Matter, 2017 7:19 min

Thierry Tian Sio Po  L'image de l'occidentale dans la peinture caribéenne, 2010, 120x 150, Acrylique, aluminium, tôle, terre, vernis sur toile

Florine Démosthène Prelude To the Capture

Manuel Mathieu  Irma, 2017 90" x 75"

Victoria Santa Cruz (Peru 1922-2014 Peru) Still from Me gritaron negra (They shouted black at me), 1978 Documentation of performance, excerpted from the documentary Victoria--Black and Woman, 1978. Director: Torgeir Wethal; producer: Odin Teatret Film Video. Video, black and white, sound; 3:58 min. OTA-Odin Teatret Archives

Sonya Clark (Born 1967, Washington, D.C.) Twenty-one, 1998 Cloth and thread 5 ¼ x 28 inches Collection: Cranbrook Art Museum

Images: PHAT (Nathaniel Belcher, Stephen Slaughter), Harlem Ghetto Fabulous, 2003. Courtesy of the artists; Delta, Exothermic, 2010, Eindhoven, Netherlands. Courtesy of the artists; and Olalekan Jeyifous, Surface Armatures, 2014, Brooklyn. Courtesy of the artist