The Carr Center's BLACK group exhibition opened Friday and runs through February 29. The full title is BLACK: A Built Language Across Culture and Knowledge. Gallery director Tia Nichols asked Detroit artist Daniel Geanes to co-curate, and gave him final say on the artist list.
He picked eleven Detroit-based Black artists working in a range of styles and personal idioms. The eleven are Geanes, William Matthews, Trae Isaac, Torrence Jayy, Skylar Turner, Quadre Curry, Desawna "Sis" Buford, Giovanni Gulley, Tiera Knaff, Brian Nickson, and Marlo Broughton. The work covers painting, photography, mixed media, and sculpture.
Some of it deals with Black love, some with politics, some with the texture of growing up Black in Detroit. Nichols wanted the show to anchor the Carr's Black History Month programming around contemporary Detroit voices, partnering with Black creatives on the curation rather than handing out solo slots. The opening reception is Friday January 26 from 6 to 8 p.m. Programming runs throughout February.
Free admission. The Carr Center was incorporated in 1991 as the Arts League of Michigan. It is named after Virgil Carr, the late arts advocate and former president and CEO of United Way of Detroit, and it has been one of the country's leading organizations presenting African American arts across disciplines for over thirty years.
The gallery has been at the Park Shelton in Midtown since 2019, when it reopened after a downtown move. Oliver Ragsdale Jr. runs it. The 2024 Black History Month theme is African Americans and the Arts.
The Carr Center's BLACK fits the brief tightly. Geanes, who has been showing in Detroit for years, curated the show to surface artists who don't always get institutional space for solo work. Detroit was the right place and February was the right time, in his framing.
Both points are hard to argue with. The exhibition runs through February 29 alongside As I See, the third installment of the Carr's generational artists series, which is also up.
15 East Kirby Street, first floor of the Park Shelton, Midtown.
