Queens, Gods, and Devotees: Frances M. Maguire Art Museum

Featuring over 30 paintings, sculptures, photographs, prints, and fiber works from ca. 1900 to the present, Queens, Gods, and Devotees foregrounds earthly and divine greatness, and their associated devotional objects and ritual practices. Spanning continents, cultures, and eras, many of these images of exalted figures and concepts related to spirituality and worship are specific to the Black American experience, or are re-imagined in a Black cultural context. References to Greek mythology, the Judeo-Christian tradition, ancient cultures, and traditional African spiritual practices appear alongside one another, offering viewers the opportunity to find parallels and distinctions in how greatness, power, and majesty have been represented in African American art, as well as how reverence and veneration have been envisioned.

Celebrated figures from the Bible as well as powerful religious and mythological figures derived from African and ancient traditions appear throughout the galleries. Contemporary Black men and women are often elevated as sacred in their daily lives, or are engaged in spiritual practices derived from a range of African and ancient traditions. In several of the works on view, the visual language of abstraction addresses ancient African spiritual systems, the cosmos, and the afterlife, or communicates perspectives on culture and history, which are often intertwined with notions of prayer and worship. The wide variety of cultures, histories, and traditions that these artists collectively draw upon in their work calls attention to the universality of devotional human experience across time and place.

Curated by Susanna Gold, PhD, this exhibition includes 20th-c work by celebrated artists including Romare Bearden, Henry Ossawa Tanner, Richmond Barthé, Betye Saar, John Biggers, and others. Among the artists of the 21st-century selections are Willie Cole, Shinique Smith, Tawny Chatmon, Imo Nse Imeh, and Sharif Bey, as well as local area artists Barbara Bullock, Curlee Holton, Lavett Ballard, Sterling Shaw, and Claes Gabriel.