NEWS + NOW FALL 2025

Jennie C. Jones is having a moment - and so is abstraction, particularly among artists of color who were long excluded from mainstream art histories for choosing abstraction as their language. Known for her refined blend of sound and abstraction, Jones transforms minimalist forms into quiet instruments of perception. Her rooftop commission at The Met is getting major buzz, while two concurrent shows at the Pulitzer Arts Foundation in St. Louis, place her front and center as both artist and curator. There, her dual exhibitions—A Line When Broken Begins Again and Other Octaves — spotlight her mastery of painting, sculpture, and sound installation while paying homage to the artists and the avant-garde and Black experimental traditions that inform her work. 

Across fashion capitals and creative circles, design is in deep dialogue with history, heritage, and self-definition. In Savannah, André Leon Talley: Style Is Forever opens this month at SCAD and pays lavish tribute to the late fashion icon’s unparalleled eye and cultural legacy.  Just three hours north, the High Museum is hosting Dutch duo Viktor&Rolf's first major U.S. retrospective. For over 30 years, they've blurred the line between haute couture and high art with theatrical, technically dazzling creations worn by icons like Cardi B and Lady Gaga. Now more than 100 of their most daring, avant-garde designs are on view thru Feb. 8, 2026; a must-see show for fashion lovers and art obsessives alike.

At New York’s Museum of Arts and Design, Douriean Fletcher: Jewelry of the Afrofuture reimagines adornment as energetic portals. Her sculptural pieces in brass, gold, and shell bridge spirituality and science fiction. Presenting more than 150 works from the artist’s collection, the show tells the inspiring story of Fletcher’s evolution from self-taught metalsmith to being chosen as special jewelry designer for Marvel Studios’ Black Panther film franchise. Next month, Lagos Fashion Week will once again set the pace for pan-African style - merging sustainability, innovation, and the bold aesthetics driving fashion’s most exciting future. If you're not following the Lagos Fashion Week street style hashtag on social media, you're missing out one of the most stylish events of the season!

Photos: Chanel by Karl Lagerfeld, scarlet silk taffeta cape. SCAD Permanent Collection. Photo (detail) by Allen Cooley (SCAD M.F.A., photography, 2009).  Messenger Collection, gold and semi-precious stones, c. 2021, Brittany Johnson. (L-R) Rolf Snoeren and Viktor Horsting attend Viktor&Rolf. Fashion Statements Exhibition Opening on 10.08.25 at The High Museum Of Art. Exhibition On View thru Feb. 8, 2026 at High Museum in Atlanta, GA. (Photo by Derek White/Getty Images for High Museum of Art)  Lagos FW 2024, Oshobor finale.

Lorna Simpson, Kerry James Marshall, and Rashid Johnson headline the season’s must-see exhibitions, each commanding critical acclaim for work that redefines the visual language of the Black experience. Lorna Simpson: Source Notes at The Met invites viewers into dreamlike spaces where ink-washed figures, archival photos, and abstraction blur the line between past and present. On view thru Nov. 2, 2025, this focused exhibition of 30 paintings, explore significant new developments in recent work that advance her incisive explorations of gender, race, identity, representation, and history. Also on view at The Met, Divine Egypt, an immersive show of 250 works of art and objects exploring how deities were depicted. 

In London, Kerry James Marshall: The Histories at the Royal Academy marks the artist’s first-ever UK retrospective. On view thru Jan 18, 2026, the show features 70 of his masterful, large-scale paintings that center Black life in the canon of Western art. Across the Atlantic, Rashid Johnson: A Poem for Deep Thinkers transforms the Guggenheim’s spiraling rotunda into an emotional landscape of plants, black soap, tile, and steel, where personal symbolism meets collective memory. The show, on view thru January 19, 2026, has drawn rave reviews for its lush materiality and cathartic scale.  Together, these exhibitions showcase three artists in full command of their power - each rewriting art history in real time and making this a landmark season for contemporary art.

Photos: Lorna Simpson, Blue Dark, 2018. Ink and screenprint on gessoed fiberglass, 102 x 144 x 1 3/8 in. © Lorna Simpson. Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth. Photo: James Wang. Kerry James Marshall, Untitled (Studio) 2014, Acrylic on PVC panels, 83 5/16 × 119 1/4 in., Purchase, The Jacques and Natasha Gelman Foundation Gift, Acquisitions Fund and The Metropolitan Museum of Art Multicultural Audience Development Initiative Gift, 2015,© Kerry James Marshall. Rashid Johnson, The Broken Five, 2019, ceramic, mirrored glass, spray paint, wood, brass, oil stick, black soap, and wax. © Rashid Johnson

Two powerful exhibitions this fall trace the enduring influence of Black thought and creativity across time and place. In Our Time: Eleven Artists + W.E.B. Du Bois at the Pratt Manhattan Gallery invites a new generation of artists to engage with the towering legacy of W.E.B. Du Bois - the iconic scholar, activist, and visionary - whose ideas on race, culture, and democracy remain strikingly relevant today. Through research-based and socially engaged practices, the artists reinterpret Du Bois’s intellect as living dialogue, connecting his radical modernism to our present moment. In Atlanta, Black Zeitgeist: Atlanta, the Visual Arts, and the National Black Arts Festival  brings together Hammonds House Museum and the National Black Arts Festival to honor the city’s pivotal role in shaping the Black creative renaissance. Featuring masterworks by Romare Bearden, Elizabeth Catlett, Faith Ringgold, Mildred Thompson, and others, the exhibition celebrates the legacy of cultural visionaries who made Atlanta a nexus of artistic excellence and political imagination - where art has always been both archive and act of resistance.

Now in its twelfth year, 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair remains the only international art fair dedicated exclusively to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. Fresh from its London edition, the fair brings together leading galleries, curators, and collectors to showcase the continent’s rich and diverse creative voices. As it prepares to open its Marrakech edition in February 2026, 1-54 continues to expand the global conversation around African art—championing emerging and established artists who are shaping the future of modern visual culture.