Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin
WHAT: A traveling exhibition featuring the work of Detroit-based creative, Sabrina Nelson, opens at The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History with a reception on James Baldwin's 100th birthday, August 2nd, 2024. Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin is a traveling exhibition featuring more than forty works by Detroit-based creative, Sabrina Nelson. Co-curated by Detroit natives Ashara Ekundayo and Omo Misha in honor and in celebration of his centennial, this exhibition provides an intimate experience of James Baldwin's life and legacy.
The exhibition also kicks off a series of programming, hosted at The Wright Museum, including an August conversation featuring Sabrina Nelson and her son, artist Mario Moore (more details to follow). In addition, The Wright Museum in partnership with the City office of Arts, Culture, and Entrepreneurship (Detroit ACE) will host an opening reception and highlight other key city-wide activities and events in the coming months.
FRONTLINE PROPHET: JAMES BALDWIN provides an intimate, multi-sensory experience of the man, and a space for us all to contemplate his legacy, not through a single lens, but a kaleidoscope of imagery, writing, collaborations, poetry, technology, and dedicated programming. Curated by Ashara Ekundayo and Omo Misha, the exhibit kicked off in New York for Baldwin's 99th birthday in 2023 and traveled to New Orleans and Oakland, California, before making its way to Chicago and finally home, to Detroit. Highlighting over forty compositions and four sketchbooks created by artist Sabrina Nelson over eight years, Frontline Prophet: James Baldwin has continued to evolve as it travels, ultimately, to the American University of Paris, France.
WHERE: The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History 315 Warren Ave., Detroit MI 48201 (313) 494-5800
WHEN: Friday, August 2nd, 2024, opening reception (5:30pm)
Exhibition dates: August 2, 2024 - February 28, 2025.
WHY: Sabrina Nelson has immersed herself in the subject of Baldwin since attending 'A Language to Dwell In a James Baldwin' conference in Paris in 2016. There, she audited lectures and performances while creating live art throughout the conference. Sabrina began sketching Baldwin as a means of cementing her own understanding and expressing the many facets of the remarkable human she was discovering.
She devoured the great writer's speeches and books and embarked upon a year-long study that resulted in a total of 91 drawings and has since filled multiple sketchbooks with Baldwin images, ink renderings, writings, and musings, adding large-format paintings and mixed media compositions, as well as visual collaborations with poets and writers, to develop the current exhibition.
WHO: Sabrina Nelson has been a professional interdisciplinary artist for over 37 years, exhibiting throughout the United States and in Paris, France. She works in a range of media and styles - from painting, drawing and sculpture, to art installations, performances and collaborations. Nelson is also an educator, lecturer, and 'artivist'-using her art as a medium for activism. For more than two decades, she has held professional appointments with the College for Creative Studies, College of Art & Design in Arts Administration and the Detroit Institute of Arts Education Department. She has taught African American Art History at CCS and Oakland University, served on the Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp faculty and as guest curator for the Carr Center and the Detroit Music Hall Performing Arts Center. She is a 2021-2022 Kresge Arts Fellow and earned her BFA in Fine Arts from CCS in 1991. Nelson and her work have been featured extensively in the media, including on PBS in 2020 and 2022.
Co-curators, Ashara Ekundayo and Omo Misha are practiced creative allies of Nelson's who are committed to sharing this exhibition around the world. Ekundayo is a Detroit and Oakland CA based cultural worker and curator and the founder of the international philanthropic platform Artist As First Responder and the principal at AECreative Consulting Partners, LLC. Her creative practice is rooted in joy-informed pedagogies and the study and creation of Black archives, site-responsive ceremony, and artist-based strategies that illuminate the specific expertise of Black womxn of the African Diaspora. A Detroit and New York-based curator and arts administrator, Omo Misha has served numerous New York institutions including the United Nations, CHRISTIE'S and City College Center for the Arts, while operating Detroit's Irwin House Gallery.
About the Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
The Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History was founded in 1965 and is in the heart of Midtown Detroit's Cultural Center. The Wright Museum's mission is to open minds and change lives through the exploration and celebration of African American history and culture. And Still We Rise: Our Journey Through African American History and Culture - the museum's 22,000 square foot, immersive core exhibit - is one of the largest, single exhibitions surveying the history of African Americans. The Wright Museum houses over 35,000 artifacts and archival materials and offers more than 300 public programs and events annually.
Media Contacts:
Char Yates, Dir. Media Relations
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
cyates@thewright.org
313.494-5839
Kelly Miner, Marketing & Communications Manager
Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History
kminer@thewright.org
313.494.5865
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