Personal is political. At MAD Derrick Adams investigates leisure time for black Americans

“Sanctuary” is the title of the personal exhibition by Derrick Adams. Through 50 works of art, the artist reflects on personal themes such as access, mobility and freedom of black Americans.

Photo by Jenna Bascom courtesy of The Museum of Arts and Design

“Sanctuary” is Derrick Adams’ solo exhibition at the Museum of Arts and Design, featuring 50 works by the artist. Multimedia collage, assemblages, wood panels and large-scale sculptures that recreate the “safe” destinations for black Americans travelling in the middle of the last century. The corpus of the work is inspired by “The Negro Motorist Green Book”, a guide for black travelers written and published by the New York postal employee Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1967. During that time, in fact, in the United States there were the laws of racial segregation – “separate but equal” – by Jim Crow for black Americans. Adams draws on this source to meditate on political identity and the role of leisure time for blacks. Collage is a “modernist and typical hobbyist” artistic technique – says MAD curator Shannon R. Stratton and is “the appropriate and elegant medium for Adams’ political work. It is a sign of free time as a political and personal subject”. The exhibition is part of a broader museum program according to which “the personal is political”, starting from Derrick Adams and that in art began with the second wave of feminism.

Title:
Derrick Adams: Sanctuary
Curators:
Dexter Wimberly, Samantha De Tillio
Opening dates:
25 January – 12 August 2018
Museum:
Museum of Art and Design
Address:
2 Columbus Circle, New York

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