Faith Ringgold

Whether pairing the two inspires consternation or praise depends largely on how we conceive of the purpose of the Museum itself

It has the world’s finest modern art collection. But now the revered museum is rebalancing its walls – massively boosting work by women and artists of colour

The museum’s unparalleled collection spreads out in an enlarged space with updated stories to tell.

When the Museum of Modern Art reopens on Oct. 21 after a $450-million, 47,000-square-foot expansion, it will finally, if still cautiously, reveal itself to be a living, breathing 21st-century institution, rather than the monument to an obsolete history — white, male, and nationalist — that it has become over the years since its founding in 1929.

Designed by Diller Scofidio + Renfro in collaboration with Gensler, the renovated space includes an additional 165,000 square feet of gallery space, while making the artwork more accessible to the public.

In 1990, Verso Press republished Black Macho and the Myth of the Superwoman—a now-notorious critique of the 1960s-era Black Power Movement by Michele Wallace, a feminist writer and also the daughter of artist Faith Ringgold—with a new introduction in which the author reflected on lessons learned in the years after her book’s original publication in 1978. “It is my conviction that the only way to avoid repeating the mistakes of the past is to openly discuss them,” Wallace wrote. “Whether in nations, families, or individuals, the practice of being on speaking terms with your past lives is the only thing that makes it possible to trust yourself or anyone else. … The thing that still remained to be worked out was my relationship to my family as a writer and as a woman.”

From one great American institution to another, six works from Glenstone are taking a trip along the Potomac to be displayed at the Reach, the Kennedy Center’s new expansion, which opens to the public this weekend. Starting on September 7th, the works, ranging from aluminum paintings to mixed media on wood, will be on view alongside four other permanent pieces.

WORKS BY MORE THAN 60 ARTISTS, including Faith Ringgold, are featured in “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power.” Nearly all the artists are black, except Virginia Jaramillo, Andy Warhol (1928-1987), and Alice Neel (1900-1984), who contributed a portrait of Ringgold to the landmark exhibition.

FOR ITS FIFTH ANNUAL GALA in New York, the Smithsonian’s Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden is paying tribute to 42 artists, an “intergenerational vanguard” including Jordan Casteel, Faith Ringgold, Amy Sherald, Deborah Roberts, and David Hartt.

At London’s Serpentine Gallery, Faith Ringgold tells stories of race and self-discovery which have too often gone untold.