The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure
Edited with text by Ekow Eshun. Text by Bernardine Evaristo, Esi Edugyan, Dorothy Price.
Black figuration and portraiture as realized in the works of Amy Sherald, Jordan Casteel and other contemporary artists
“There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now,” wrote James Baldwin. Published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, The Time is Always Now is edited by curator Ekow Eshun, former director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The book brings together 22 contemporary African diasporic artists working primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States, whose practices—whether through painting, drawing or sculpture—foreground the Black figure. Acknowledging the paradox of race as both a “socially constructed fiction” and a “lived reality,” as Eshun writes, The Time is Always Now celebrates these Black figurative artworks against a background of heightened cultural visibility. Through a three-part structure, this book examines Black figuration as a means to address the absence and distortion of Black presence within Western art history. Each artist receives a detailed biographical profile alongside reproductions of their included works. The catalog is also supplemented by three original essays from Dorothy Price, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Critical Race Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art; Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize–winning author of Girl, Woman, Other; and Esi Edugyan, two-time Giller Prize winner for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black. Artists include: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Noah Davis, Godfried Donkor, Kimathi Donkor, Denzil Forrester, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Chris Ofili, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jennifer Packer, Thomas J. Price, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, Henry Taylor, Barbara Walker.
Featured image is reproduced from 'The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure.'
PRAISE AND REVIEWS
Financial Times: How To Spend It
Jackie Wullschläger
A double triumph: art that urges us to look at society differently and Black painters telling fresh stories so inventively that they are reviving the western figurative tradition.
Air Mail
Clara Molot
The final works, however, are like a few stars in the night sky—the more you stare, the more you realize how much has yet to come into view.
Guardian
Laura Cummings
The representation of Black figures in art runs back through the centuries, but so often as a succession of models, masks, ciphers or types – only there to signify something other than themselves. The Time Is Always Now marks a momentous shift in western culture. In all of these works – made in the 21st century, by 22 great British and American artists – each Black figure is free to be their own unique and singular person.
Hyperallergic
Olivia McEwan
All the works on display here are astounding from a technical perspective, and for the powerful aesthetic and emotional punch they deliver.
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Kerry James Marshall’s 2009 “Untitled (Painter)” is reproduced from new release The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure, published to accompany the critically acclaimed survey on view now at National Portrait Gallery, London. Called “tremendous” and “stunning from first to last” by The Guardian, this must-see exhibition brings together 22 contemporary African diasporic artists, including Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Jordan Casteel, Noah Davis, Lubaina Himid, Titus Kaphar, Wangechi Mutu, Lorna Simpson and Henry Taylor, to name a few. “Through the arts, we are dignified with the entire range of emotions experienced by every other human being on the planet, when we have often been treated as less than fully human because demeaning and reductive concepts of Blackness have been constructed, categorized, perceived and perpetuated in majority white societies for centuries,” Bernardine Evaristo writes. “Through the arts, we throw it all up into the air. We write our poems, plays, scripts. We dance, design. We compose and create music. We make art from our cultures, communities, individuality, imagination. Our creativity strives to burst free from the edicts of those who police its borders, because our aliveness recognizes no borders. It is its own free state.” continue to blog
FORMAT: Hbk, 9.75 x 11.75 in. / 192 pgs / 67 color. LIST PRICE: U.S. $45.00 LIST PRICE: CANADA $65 ISBN: 9781855145580 PUBLISHER: National Portrait Gallery AVAILABLE: 3/19/2024 DISTRIBUTION: D.A.P. RETAILER DISC: TRADE PUBLISHING STATUS: Active AVAILABILITY: In stock TERRITORY: NA ONLY
The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure
Published by National Portrait Gallery. Edited with text by Ekow Eshun. Text by Bernardine Evaristo, Esi Edugyan, Dorothy Price.
Black figuration and portraiture as realized in the works of Amy Sherald, Jordan Casteel and other contemporary artists
“There is never a time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment, the time is always now,” wrote James Baldwin. Published in conjunction with the eponymous exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery, London, The Time is Always Now is edited by curator Ekow Eshun, former director of the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London. The book brings together 22 contemporary African diasporic artists working primarily in the United Kingdom and the United States, whose practices—whether through painting, drawing or sculpture—foreground the Black figure. Acknowledging the paradox of race as both a “socially constructed fiction” and a “lived reality,” as Eshun writes, The Time is Always Now celebrates these Black figurative artworks against a background of heightened cultural visibility. Through a three-part structure, this book examines Black figuration as a means to address the absence and distortion of Black presence within Western art history. Each artist receives a detailed biographical profile alongside reproductions of their included works. The catalog is also supplemented by three original essays from Dorothy Price, Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art and Critical Race Art History at the Courtauld Institute of Art; Bernardine Evaristo, Booker Prize–winning author of Girl, Woman, Other; and Esi Edugyan, two-time Giller Prize winner for her novels Half-Blood Blues and Washington Black.
Artists include: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Hurvin Anderson, Michael Armitage, Jordan Casteel, Noah Davis, Godfried Donkor, Kimathi Donkor, Denzil Forrester, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Titus Kaphar, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Chris Ofili, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Jennifer Packer, Thomas J. Price, Nathaniel Mary Quinn, Lorna Simpson, Amy Sherald, Henry Taylor, Barbara Walker.
