from “le détroit” · the strait
The Carr Center's Black History Month group show, BLACK: A Built Language Across Culture and Knowledge, runs free through February 29 with work from eleven Detroit-based Black artists.
The Carr Center opened its Black History Month group exhibition, BLACK: A Built Language Across Culture and Knowledge, on January 19. The show is free and runs through February 29 at the gallery inside the Park Shelton in Midtown.
Gallery director Tia Nichols brought in Detroit artist Daniel Geanes to co-curate and gave him control over the artist list. Geanes selected eleven Detroit-based Black artists working across painting, photography, mixed media, and sculpture. Along with Geanes, the show features William Matthews, Trae Isaac, Torrence Jayy, Skylar Turner, Quadre Curry, Desawna "Sis" Buford, Giovanni Gulley, Tiera Knaff, Brian Nickson, and Marlo Broughton.
The title doubles as an acronym for the show's premise. "It just stuck out to me organically and it encompassed everything that I wanted the exhibit to be about," Geanes told Metro Times. The selected work ranges from portraiture and abstraction to pieces that fold Detroit's culture and Black identity in pop media into the frame.
A formal opening reception is set for Friday, January 26, from 6 to 8 p.m., with programming built around the show throughout February. Admission is free.
The Carr Center was founded in 1991 as the Arts League of Michigan and is named for the late Virgil Carr, an arts advocate and community leader who was president and CEO of United Way of Detroit. The organization describes its mission as preserving, presenting, promoting, and developing African and African American cultural arts traditions, and it counts itself among the leading presenters of African American arts across disciplines in the country. Oliver Ragsdale Jr. is its president and CEO. The gallery has been anchored at the Park Shelton in Midtown since the fall of 2019.
The exhibition lands on theme for the year. The Association for the Study of African American Life and History, which founded Black History Month, set 2024's national theme as African Americans and the Arts.
The Carr Center Gallery is on the first floor of the Park Shelton, 15 E. Kirby Street, in Midtown.
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