Newark Express: Blues People

Feb 20 - Apr 14, 2024
Express Newark, Newark NJ

In the Paul Robeson Gallery, multidisciplinary artist Derrick Adams plays with the real estate term protesting gentrification, by reimagining “The Holdout,” a house-like social sculpture with a curated radio station that he initially exhibited at Aljira: A Center for Contemporary Art in Newark in 2015. Experimenting with the format of a pirate radio station and live guest DJ sets, Adams highlights conversations with renowned artists and local activists about displacement, economic development, and land ownership. MORE

Sanctuary

Jan 26 - Apr 14, 2024
Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT

Sanctuary consists of 50 works of mixed-media collage, assemblage on wood panels, and sculpture that reimagine safe destinations for the black American traveler during the mid-twentieth century. The body of work was inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual guidebook for black American road-trippers published by New York postal worker Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1967, during the Jim Crow era in America. MORE

Come As You Are

Sep 14 - Oct 28, 2023
Gagosian, Beverly Hills CA

Come As You Are displays Adams’ continued development of pictorial vignettes centering the Black figure. The exhibition’s title offers encouragement to be present without the need to conceal one’s true self, dreams, and aspirations—a prompt to shed the pressures of adaptation and conformity. Adams counters hackneyed narratives by presenting figures in moments of carefree leisure, inspired by his belief in the constructive power of scenes that uplift and support Black culture. MORE

“…and friends.”

Feb 24 - Apr 1, 2023
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago IL

"…and friends” reflects on the inflated, abstracted nature of contemporary American and African American reality as seen through television and media. Referencing a range of early educational TV programming usually meant to teach compassion and friendship, Adams aimed to revisit previously explored themes centered on the power of media influence, both overt and concealed. MORE

I Can Show You Better Than I Can Tell You

Jan 13 - Mar 11, 2023
The FLAG Art Foundation, New York NY

I Can Show You Better Than I Can Tell You, a solo exhibition by Derrick Adams, comprises a cycle of sixteen large-scale works from Adams’s new series Motion Picture Paintings, 2020-22, which extend the artist’s signature deconstructed, cubist-style portraits in a new cinematic direction. Freeze framed moments—drawn from movies, media, and the artist’s imagination—are emblazoned with a variety of graphic texts reminiscent of film titles. "Black life is a movie,” says Adams, “a psychological thriller, situational comedy, romance, adventure drama, suspense, and horror all rolled into one.” MORE

Sweet Spot

Nov 10 - Dec 15, 2022
LGDR HK, Hong Kong

Sweet Spot unveils several new works from Adams’ latest series, Motion Picture Paintings, that pays homage to the Black figure and draws inspiration from the artists’ personal observations and imagination as well as Black films of the 1990s. With these works, Adams beckons the viewer to see what he sees: Blackness in its marvelously varied forms of storytelling, positionality, and excellence, rather than in the burdensome stereotypes that have traditionally saturated the media. The specific group of paintings exhibited in Hong Kong exists in the “Sweet Spot,” as they are distinguished and exceptional for the tender intimacy and emotional depths they impart. MORE

LOOKS

Dec 05, 2021 - May 29, 2022
Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland OH

A collaboration between Cleveland Clinic and the Cleveland Museum of Art (in celebration of Cleveland Clinic’s centennial), Derrick Adams: LOOKS contain nine monumental paintings inspired by wig shops in the artist’s Brooklyn neighborhood. It is the desire to be unique and stand out—through the practice he refers to as “costuming”—that Adams aims to make normal to the broader public. “I see people with these wigs on,” he says, “and I think, you look like a superhero.” MORE

Packaged Black: Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas

Oct 02, 2021 — May 01, 2022
Henry Art Gallery, Seattle WA

Packaged Black brings together the work of artists Derrick Adams and Barbara Earl Thomas in a collaborative, multi-media installation developed from their shared dialogue about representation, Black identity, and practices of cultural resistance. MORE

Style Variations

Mar 20 - Apr 24, 2021
Salon94, New York NY

Style Variations is a collection of ten epic portraits variously and colorfully painted over the forms of a mannequin bust. Through costuming and fashioning, Adams’ monumental portrait series celebrates radical Black joy and self-actualization. MORE

Sanctuary

Feb 23 - Jun 6, 2021
The Momentary, Bentonville AR

Sanctuary consists of mixed-media collage, assemblage on wood panels, and sculpture presented in an installation that reimagine safe destinations for the Black American traveler during the mid-twentieth century. The body of work was inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual guidebook for Black American road-trippers published by New York postal worker Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1967, during the Jim Crow era in America. MORE

The Last Resort

Feb 19 - Mar 27, 2021
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago IL

Culminating the artist’s series Floaters, which began in 2015, the collection of large-scale works on paper present the final chapter in Adams’ feeling investigation into depictions of Black leisure. Across a five-year output, the water that surrounds the figures in the Floaters illustrates almost no indication of environment beyond blueness. No distinction is made between swimming pool, lake, or sea. A levitation in atmosphere, the artist notes, “that could just as well be sky.” MORE

We Came to Party and Plan

Mar 7 - Oct 18, 2020
Hudson River Museum, Yonkers NY

Conceived during Adams’ summer 2019 residency at the Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, We Came to Party and Plan brings to life the complex exchanges that take place in spaces of celebration. Within the immersive installation, intimate portraits convey a multifaceted agenda. “When we get together, it isn’t just to have a party. We might be planning a revolution at the same time.” MORE

Buoyant

Mar 7 - Aug 23, 2020
Hudson River Museum, Yonkers NY

Buoyant is Adams’ first museum exhibition of his Floaters series, a collection of vividly painted portraits depicting Black people in various states of rest and play, buoyantly floating on calm waters. Executed between 2016 and 2019, Floaters depicts a world where joy, love, leisure, and even prosaic normalcy play central roles, methodically filling the many voids and omissions in popular visual culture. MORE

Transformers

Feb 10 - Apr 4, 2020
Luxembourg & Dayan, London UK

Transformers presents large-scale works from Beauty World, a series that Adams began in 2019. Investigating the physical and cultural construction of the human form and its role in shaping identity, the exhibition explores Black feminine empowerment achieved through versatile acts of styling, camouflaging, and costuming.  MORE

Patrick Kelly, The Journey

Jan 14, 2020 - Jan 10, 2021
SCAD Museum of Fashion + Film, Atlanta GA

Patrick Kelly, The Journey emerges from Adams’ extensive exploration into the archive of the influential African-American fashion designer Patrick Kelly (1954–90). Immersing himself at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in New York, Adams references Kelly’s legacy as a formalist who infused social context and humor into his creations. MORE

Where I’m From

Sep 20 - Nov 22, 2019
Baltimore City Hall, Baltimore MD

Where I’m From draws from scenes in Adams’ childhood in Park Heights and other city neighborhoods. Turning images from old family photo albums into large-scale works, the exhibition explores everyday life in Black Baltimore during the ’80s.

The Ins and Outs: Figures in the Urban Landscape

May 31 - Jul 3, 2019
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago IL

Speaking to a legacy of perseverance in the Black community, The Ins and Outs: Figures in the Urban Landscape unfold the twists and turns, joys and struggles of navigating life in an urban context. A continuation of Adams’ Deconstruction Worker series (2010–), the constructed portraits seek to empower viewers with fulfillment and dignity, proposing that awareness of one’s own cultural capital can be foundational to Black autonomy. MORE

Beauty World

May 1 - 5, 2019
Vigo Gallery, Focus/Frieze NY, Randall’s Island Park, NY

Beauty World explores Black feminine empowerment, achieved through acts of versatility, camouflaging and costuming, associated with beautification and roleplaying in the public space. The work is meant to draw attention to specific social rituals - which never needed to be contextualized or understood, to be credible or worthy - to those who don’t participate. It is a celebration, highlighting the extraordinary effort of those who do take part in beautification - for any and all reasons. MORE

New Icons

Mar 7, 2019 - Apr 20, 2019 
Mary Boone Gallery, New York NY

New Icons combines specific images from the emoji library to make reference to an individual that, because of their radical nature, Adams feels is important to American popular culture. Subjects include Grace Jones, Colin Kaepernick, and Sister Souljah. MORE

Interior Life (Curator: Francesco Bonami)

Feb 26 - Apr 20, 2019 
Luxembourg & Dayan Gallery, New York NY

Inspired by a tenet of Catholic theology that describes "a life which seeks God in everything,” Interior Life is a mediation on the intimate spaces of one’s mind and home, each an analog for the other. MORE

People Person

Sep 8 - Oct 27, 2018 
Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris France

Transmission (Curator: Nora Abrams)

Jun 8 - Aug 26, 2018 
Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver CO

Illustrating Adams’ ongoing study of racial identity, Transmission offers a future that fuses sci-fi elements with historically significant objects. From a close study of the archives at Chicago’s Stony Island Arts Bank, each body of work highlights a particular strain of Adams’ sharp yet unexpectedly playful representations of figures both real and imagined, from the past and the future. MORE

Sanctuary (Curator: Dexter Wimberly)

Jan 25 - Aug 12, 2018 
Museum of Arts and Design, New York NY

Sanctuary consists of mixed-media collage, assemblage on wood panels, and sculpture presented in an installation that reimagine safe destinations for the Black American traveler during the mid-twentieth century. The body of work was inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book, an annual guidebook for Black American road-trippers published by New York postal worker Victor Hugo Green from 1936 to 1967, during the Jim Crow era in America. MORE

Black White and Brown

Dec 5, 2017 - Feb 28, 2018 
Primary Gallery, Miami FL

Presented together as a collection for the first time, Black White and Brown highlights an important part of Adams’ conceptual framework: the semiotic consideration of the institutional presentation of artworks. Living within a lexicon of intentionality, these works (dis)assemble emblems of cultural identity, social-political commentary, and formalized structures. MORE

Figures in the Urban Landscape

Nov 8, 2017 - Jan 8, 2018 
Tilton Gallery, New York NY

As a natural evolution of Adams’ Deconstruction Worker series, Figures in the Urban Landscape create faceted figures that now move further in the direction of more fully-formed figures, asserting his position on the subjects of portraiture and identity. With these works, the figure and the landscape are reflective of each other, posing questions, such as, “Where am I? Where does this road lead?” Offering answers, “I am central to the narrative. I constructed the environment around me.” MORE

Repose

Oct 28 - Dec 9, 2017 
UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles CA

Repose explores ideas of celebration, highlighting the Black figure in the context of contemporary culture and leisure. With a nod to cultural perseverance, the display gives perspective to the creative output and outlet of Black Americans as a reaction to the joys and struggles of just being. MORE

Future People

Jun 6 - Sep 18, 2017
Stony Island Arts Bank, Chicago IL

Future People imagines the future as a place of discovery and adventure. Utilizing Stony Island Arts Bank’s archive by incorporating or making reference to images, music and text from the Johnson Publishing Library, the Glass Lantern Slides Collection, the Edward J. Williams Collection of objects of “negrobilia,” and the Frankie Knuckles Vinyl Collection, Future People focuses on past, present and future ideas depicting black culture’s interest in futurism and its roots in Africa. (Collage, video and sculpture installation with performance).

Patrick Kelly, The Journey

May 3 - Oct 20, 2017
Studio Museum in Harlem, inHarlem series at Countee Cullen Library, New York NY

Based on extensive research into the archive of the influential African-American fashion designer Patrick Kelly (1954–1990) housed at the Schomburg Center, Patrick Kelly, The Journey responds to Kelly’s legacy as a formalist who imbued social context and humor into his creations. MORE

Network

Mar 2 - Jun 11, 2017
California African American Museum, Los Angeles CA

Network riffs on late 20th-century African American television iconography while at the same time critiquing consumerism and capitalism, raising questions about race, class, and gender as expressed in popular culture at large, and television entertainment in particular. Throughout the exhibition, Adams challenges the popular, omnipresent TV media machine, transforming its banality into something imposing and complex—in many ways engaging, intense, and playful, just like television itself. (Collage, sculpture and video installation with performance). MORE

Deconstruction Worker Portraits

Mar 2 - 5, 2017
Tilton Gallery, Independent Art Fair, New York

Tell Me Something Good

Feb 24 - Apr 15, 2017
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago IL

Pulling from the visual vocabulary of Adams’ childhood and upbringing, Tell Me Something Good depicts figures inspired by prominent African-American television and comedy stars like Eddie Murphy, Kenan Thompson, LeVar Burton, and Whoopi Goldberg. These nine works are a part of the LIVE and IN COLOR series. MORE

Kabinett: Derrick Adams

Dec 1 - 4, 2016
Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Art Basel Miami Beach, FL

Float

Nov 18 - Dec 17, 2016
Vigo Gallery, London UK

Float is a series of large-scale works on paper exploring ideas of celebration, highlighting the Black figure in the context of contemporary culture and leisure. With a nod to cultural perseverance, the display gives perspective to the creative output and outlet of Black America as a reaction to the joys and struggles of just being. MORE

ON

Jun 10 - Jul 17, 2016
Pioneer Works, Brooklyn NY

Installation and performance. Through large-scale, boldly colored mixed media collages, performance, sound pieces, and illuminated sculptures, ON continues Adams’s investigation of consumerism and the dramatization of black figures in entertainment and popular culture. MORE

Culture Club

May 18 - Jun 24, 2016
Project for Empty Space, Newark NJ

Solo project in conjunction with one year residency. Through a series of figurative mixed media painting-collages and installations, Culture Club explores ideas of celebration, highlighting the Black figure in the context of contemporary culture and leisure. MORE

Crossroad: A Social Sculpture

Feb 4 - May 14, 2016
Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, Omaha NE

Installation and performance. Using a radio station attached to a life-size, interactive game board, Crossroad: A Social Sculpture calls for visitors to move across to the beat of the music. The installation includes selections from jazz, blues, rock, classical, R&B, rap, and pop. Adams hopes to to temporarily dissolve cultural boundaries of knowledge that may separate one person from another. MORE

Black and White and In Color

Jan 9 - Mar 19, 2016
Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris France

The Holdout (Curator: Dexter Wimberly)

Feb 12 – Apr 25, 2015
Aljira, A Center for Contemporary Art, Newark NJ

A social sculpture with curated radio station.