Faith Ringgold

From Michael Rakowitz’s recreations of bombed artefacts at the Whitechapel Gallery, to Faith Ringgold’s story quilts at the Serpentine Gallery

The iconic American artist Faith Ringgold takes London by storm in a powerful new show at the Serpentine Gallery.

Ringgold is the subject of the Serpentine Galleries' summer exhibition and to coincide with the opening, Matchesfashion.com has also dedicated a room at 5 Carlos Place to celebrate her work.

With its potent depictions of racial violence and African American empowerment now more palatable to the mainstream, the explicit political content in Faith Ringgold’s early work is increasingly de rigueur.

ACA GALLERIES is showing for the first time at The Armory Show and the storied dealer has dedicated its entire booth to Faith Ringgold. There are three paintings from her Black Light Series (1967-69) on display, graphic political prints from the early 1970s, figurative sculptures made in 1978, story quilts including “Change 2” (1988) and “Tar Beach #2” (1990), and paintings on fabric from 2010 called tankas that feature portraits of Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, and Martin Luther King Jr.

A selection of booths and works from this year's fair that caught AD's eye

In 1926, the historian Carter G. Woodson instituted Negro History Week. The second-ever African American recipient of a Ph.D. from Harvard (after W.E.B. DuBois), Woodson wanted to acknowledge the vibrant cultural achievements of African American individuals that were rippling through the country. At the time, Harlem was brimming with poets such as Langston Hughes and Claude McKay, while Louis Armstrong and Fats Waller were developing Chicago’s jazz scene. In 1976, President Gerald Ford officially transformed Woodson’s initiative into the month-long celebration we honor to this day: Black History Month.

A capsule collection spotlighting Ringgold’s iconic ‘The United States of Attica’ artwork.

An impressive synthesis of influences, along with an obdurate resistance to being told what she can or cannot do, forms the bedrock of Ringgold’s art.

More than 300 people gathered at the Brooklyn Museum last night to listen to 87-year-old Faith Ringgold speak about her extraordinary career and activism, which included fighting for major New York City museums to feature work by black artists in the 1960s. Two of her artworks appear in the Brooklyn Museum’s recently opened retrospective, “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, which features black artists who explored themes of race, identity, and activism from the years 1963 to 1983.