Casey Kaplan
JORDAN CASTEEL | PHILADELPHIA MUSEUM OF ART
In conversation: Ekow Ekshun, Jordan Casteel, and Thomas J. Price at the Philadelphia Museum of Art
Saturday, November 9 | 2:30 – 3:30 PM
Reserve tickets for the in-person event here | Register for the online event here
Artists Jordan Casteel and Thomas J Price reflect on their work in the exhibition The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure in conversation with curator Ekow Eshun.
London-based curator and writer Ekow Eshun is the originating curator of The Time is Always Now. Jordan Casteel is a New York-based painter who depicts her surroundings through landscapes and portraits of her community in Harlem and the Hudson Valley. Multidisciplinary artist Thomas J Price, who lives and works in London, draws attention to the psychological states of his fictional characters in celebrated large-scale figurative sculptures.
The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure features 28 Black and African diasporic contemporary artists who use figurative painting, drawing and sculpture to illuminate and celebrate the nuance and richness of Black contemporary life.
Curated by British writer and curator Ekow Eshun, The Time Is Always Now takes its title from an essay on desegregation by American writer and social rights activist James Baldwin. It highlights a sense of urgency around contemporary artistic expression, while acting as a reminder that Black artists exist within an always-evolving artistic lineage.
The more than 60 contemporary works featured in this exhibition unfold around three core themes: Double Consciousness, Past and Presence and Our Aliveness. Double Consciousness, a theory first introduced in 1897 by the African American sociologist W.E.B Du Bois, explores concepts of being, belonging and Blackness as a psychological state. Past and Presence explores the absence of Black figures in many mainstream narratives and shows how artists have responded. Our Aliveness features assertions and celebrations of Black assembly and gathering.
Traveling to the Philadelphia Museum of Art from the National Portrait Gallery in London, the Black and African diasporic artists in this exhibition work in the U.S. and the U.K. They include Michael Armitage, Claudette Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Ojih Odutola, and Amy Sherald. For the show’s U.S. premiere, additional artists working in Philadelphia, London, and New York have been added, including Jonathan Lyndon Chase, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Robert Lugo, Danielle Mckinney, Deborah Roberts, and Arthur Timothy.
The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure is on view at the Philadelphia Museum of Art from November 9, 2024 – February 9, 2025. More information can be found on the museum’s website.