The Donna and Jim Barksdale Galleries The Mississippi Museum of Art is pleased to be…Learn More

12 artists trace their legacies through the Great Migration.

America’s most-acclaimed artists explore the Great Migration from the South through painting, sculpture, film and sound. Join us for this immersive meditation on ancestry, place, and possibility.

About the Exhibition
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration explores the profound impact of the Great Migration on the social and cultural life of the United States from historical and personal perspectives. Co-organized with the Baltimore Museum of Art, the exhibition features newly commissioned works by 12 acclaimed Black artists across a variety of media. The Great Migration (1915-1970) saw more than six million Black Americans leave the South for cities across the United States. Informed by research, explorations, and conversations, the artists’ works explore themes of perseverance, self-determination, and self-reliance, along with the impacts this historical phenomenon continues to have today.

Featured Artists

Akea Brionne
Akea Brionne (b. 1996, New Orleans, LA) is a photographer, writer, curator, and researcher who investigates the implications of historical racial and social structures in relation to the development of contemporary black life and identity within America. Focusing on the ways history influences the contemporary cultural milieu of the American black middle class and the history of urban and suburban planning, she explores current political and social themes related to historical forms of oppression, discrimination, segregation, and black identity. Brown received the Visual Task Force Award from the National Association of Black Journalists.

Her work is featured in the Smithsonian's Ralph Rinzler Collection and Archives and Duke University’s David M. Rubenstein Library. She was the 2018 Documentarian of Color by Duke, and her series, Black Picket Fences, was acquired for their permanent collection. Brown was also named the 2019 Janet & Walter Sondheim Winner. In 2019, Brown co-founded Shades Collective. She received her BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art and she currently lives in Baltimore, MD.

The real reason I started to use the camera in the way that I have is because I wanted my story to be told.

- Akea Brionne

Mark Bradford
Mark Bradford (b. 1961, Los Angeles, CA) has a wide-ranging conceptual practice and is best known for his multimedia abstract paintings and collages with scavenged materials and weathered and incised surfaces that often reveal the atrocities and struggles of race and poverty. His profound insight and inventiveness have established him as one of the most significant and influential artists of his generation. Bradford has been widely exhibited internationally and is the recipient of numerous awards, including the U.S. Department of State’s Medal of Arts in 2014 and a MacArthur Fellowship in 2009.

In 2017, Bradford represented the U.S. at the 57th Venice Biennale with Tomorrow Is Another Day, co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. Other major projects include Pickett’s Charge, a monumental, site-specific installation for the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., and We The People, a commission for the U.S. Embassy in London comprised of 32 10-foot-by-10-foot panels featuring select text from the United States Constitution. Bradford earned his BFA and MFA from the California Institute of the Arts and lives and works in Los Angeles.

Zoë Charlton
Zoë Charlton (b. 1973, Eglin AFB, FL) creates figure drawings, collages, and installations that depict her subject’s relationship to culturally loaded objects and landscapes. She participated in residencies at Artpace (TX), the McColl Center for Art + Innovation (NC), and the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture (ME). Charlton received a Pollock-Krasner grant (2012) and Rubys Artist grant (2014) and was a 2015 Janet & Walter Sondheim Prize finalist.

She co-founded 'sindikit, an artist project space in Baltimore and holds a seat on the Maryland State Arts Council. Charlton earned a BFA from Florida State University (1993) and MFA from University of Texas at Austin (1999). She is a Professor of Art at American University and resides in Baltimore, MD.

Larry W. Cook
Larry W. Cook (b.1986, Silver Spring, MD) is a conceptual artist working across photography, video, and installation. Based in Washington, D.C., Cook earned his MFA from George Washington University (2013) and his BA in photography from SUNY Plattsburgh (2010).

He has exhibited his work nationally at MoMA PS1 (2020), UTA Artist Space (2020), the National Portrait Gallery (2019), and internationally at Weiss Berlin in Germany (2020). He held artists-in-residences at Light Work and The Nicholson Project, among others. Cook is currently a Assistant Professor of Photography at Howard University.

Torkwase Dyson
Torkwase Dyson (b. 1973, Chicago, IL). Working in multiple mediums, Dyson describes herself as a painter whose forms address the continuity of ecology, infrastructure, and architecture. She merges ideas such as site and built environments and nature and culture under the rubric of environmentalism.

Fascinated with transformations, ambiguities, and environmental changes that place these subjects in relation to each other, her practice investigates our connections to imagination, materiality, geography, and belonging. In 2016, Dyson was elected to the board of the Architecture League of New York as Vice President of Visual Arts. She received a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University (1999) and an MFA from Yale School of Art in painting and printmaking (2003). Dyson is now based in New York

Theaster Gates Jr
Theaster Gates Jr (b. 1973, Chicago, IL) lives and works in Chicago. Gates creates works that engage with space theory and land development, sculpture, and performance. Drawing on his background in urban planning and preservation, Gates redeems spaces left behind. His work contends with the notion of Black space as a formal exercise defined by collective desire, artistic agency, and the tactics of a pragmatist. In 2010, Gates created the Rebuild Foundation, a nonprofit platform for art, cultural development, and neighborhood transformation on Chicago’s South Side.

Gates has exhibited and performed internationally at major museums including, most recently, Tate Liverpool, UK (2020); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2020); Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2019); and Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2019). Recent honors include the Nasher Prize for Sculpture; Urban Land Institute’s Prize for Visionaries in Urban Development; and a World Economic Forum 2020 Crystal Award for his leadership in creating sustainable communities. He is a professor at the University of Chicago, Department of Visual Arts and Harris School of Public Policy, and the Distinguished Visiting Artist and Director of Artist Initiatives at the Lunder Institute for American Art at Colby College.

Allison Janae Hamilton
Allison Janae Hamilton (b. 1984 in Kentucky, raised in Florida) has exhibited widely across the U.S. and abroad. Her work has been the subject of institutional solo exhibitions at Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art (MASS MoCA) and Atlanta Contemporary. Select recent group exhibitions include there is this We, Sculpture Milwaukee; The Dirty South: Contemporary Art, Material Culture, and the Sonic Impulse, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (traveling); Shifting Horizons, Nevada Museum of Art; Enunciated Life, California African Art Museum; More, More, More, TANK Shanghai; Indicators: Artists on Climate Change, Storm King Art Center.

I wanted to make work that is a mirror to an experience like mine, to consider…the history and reality…through the lens of people that are…forgotten about.

- Allison Janae Hamilton

Leslie Hewitt
Leslie Hewitt (b. 1977, St. Albans, NY) uses a hybrid approach to photography and sculpture to revisit the still-life genre from a post-minimalist perspective. Hewitt’s assemblages often include personal mementos as well as books and vintage magazines that refer to the Black literary and popular culture ephemera of her youth.

Interested in the mechanisms behind the construction of meaning and memory, she challenges both by evoking connections and meaning in her juxtapositions. Hewitt earned a BFA from the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, New York (2000) and an MFA in sculpture from Yale University (2004).

Steffani Jemison
Steffani Jemison (b. 1981, Berkeley, CA) is an interdisciplinary artist based in Brooklyn, NY. Her work has been the subject of solo exhibitions and special projects at LAXART, Los Angeles (2013); RISD Museum, Providence (2015); the Museum of Modern Art (2015); MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA (2016); Jeu de Paume, Paris (2017); Nottingham Contemporary, UK (2018); the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2019); and the Contemporary Art Center Cincinnati (2021), among others.

Her work is in numerous public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art; the Whitney Museum; the Stedelijk Museum; and The Studio Museum in Harlem. Since 2016, Jemison has been a part of the musical collaborative Mikrokosmos with Justin Hicks.

"I would describe my interests as formal, in the sense that I'm engaged with histories of forms, rather than with representation, rather than with reference as a starting point."

- Steffani Jemison

Robert Pruitt
Robert Pruitt (b. 1975, Houston, TX) is known for his drawings, videos, and installations examining the historical and contemporary experiences of African Americans and the Black body and identity. Using references to hip hop, science and science fiction, technology, comic books, Black political struggles, and traditional cultures, he creates a series of fictional portraits with an ambiguous but shared narrative that suggests a radical Black past, present, and future.

Pruitt was a participating artist in the 2006 Whitney Biennial and has had solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Arts Museum in Houston (2006), The Studio Museum in Harlem (2013), and the California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2019). Pruitt received his BA from Texas Southern University (2000) and MFA from the University of Texas at Austin (2003). He lives and works in New York City.

I’ve shifted some thinking toward revisiting the world I came from, Houston. I’m interested in trying to concretize some of those ephemeral things that I saw, felt, or heard.

- Robert Pruitt

Jamea Richmond-Edwards
Jamea Richmond-Edwards (b. 1982, Detroit, MI) is an interdisciplinary artist who creates monumental scale assemblages and immersive installations. Invested in exploring the materiality of collage and improvisational gestures, her recent works include self-portraiture that dwells within the realm of imagination and mythos. Born and raised in Detroit, she draws inspiration from her childhood growing up during the crack and AIDS epidemic that created devastating and lasting effects in Black and Indigenous American communities across the US.

“I didn’t have to visit a museum to understand art. My generation inherited the artistic and cultural legacy of the Motown Era that our parents experienced firsthand in the city.” Richmond-Edwards received her BA from Jackson State University (2004) and MFA in painting from Howard University (2012). Her works are included in the collections of the United States Embassy, The Rubell Family Collection, and The Studio Museum in Harlem.

"I’m going back South because I was not feeling at home. I’m currently building a home in Mississippi, trying to reclaim some of what I felt was lost."

- Jamea Richmond-Edwards

Carrie Mae Weems
Carrie Mae Weems (b. 1953, Portland, OR) examines issues of race, class, and gender identity. Primarily working in photography and video, but also exploring everything from verse to performance. Weems has said that regardless of medium, activism is a central concern of her practice; specifically, looking at history as a way to better understand the present. She rose to prominence with her “Kitchen Table Series” in the early 1990s, examining tropes and stereotypes of African American life.

The recipient of numerous honors and awards, she was named a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in 2013. Weems received her BFA from the California Institute of the Arts, Santa Clarita (1981) and MFA from the University of California, San Diego (1984). She currently lives and works in Syracuse, NY, and is Artist in Residence at Syracuse University.

"This project centers on the unending search for my grandfather, Frank Weems. All my current efforts are focused on unpacking his story and what became of him."

- Carrie Mae Weems

THE 17TH PRESENTATION IN THE ANNIE LAURIE SWAIM HEARIN MEMORIAL EXHIBITION SERIES

In The Donna and Jim Barksdale Galleries for Changing Exhibitions

“There is no intellectual or emotional substitute for the experience of confronting an original masterpiece.” - Paul Mellon, 1983

Offering 74 works by 19th-and 20th-century masters, Van Gogh, Monet, Degas and Their Times: The Mellon Collection of French Art from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts showcases French Impressionist paintings, along with masterpieces from every important school of French art—from Romanticism through to the School of Paris. Taken together, these works exemplify the Mellons’ personal vision and highly original collecting strategies, which provide a context for understanding this unique collection of French art. The exhibition includes works by Pierre Bonnard, Paul Cézanne, Edgar Degas, Paul Gauguin, Édouard Manet, Claude Monet, Henri Rousseau, and Vincent van Gogh.

This exhibition is organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Its presentation in Jackson, Mississippi, is sponsored by the Robert M. Hearin Support Foundation.

ADMISSION
$15/Person
$13/Advance Purchase until April 3
$13/Seniors & Groups of 10+
$10/College Students with School ID

Free for Members
Free for children ages 5 and under
Free for K-12 students on Tuesdays and Thursdays thanks to Feild Co-operative Association, Inc. & BlueCross BlueShield of Mississippi

To run concurrently with Van Gogh, Monet, and their Times, the Mississippi Museum of Art will feature a gallery of French works of art from the collection, donated and purchased over several decades in the late 20th century.

The focus on everyday life in works of art was a sudden and almost radical shift in Western art during the1800s. Many artists turned away from the academic narratives of history and religion, instead looking around them for subjects such as street scenes, industry, social life, and transportation. This impulse to depict moments from their own lives echoed an era when Paris was experiencing rapid technological growth and modernization. Often their work not only challenged how art could be made but also shed light on the nuances of modern life.

This selection of works of art from the Museum’s permanent collection reveals how modern life was interpreted by this new wave of artists, among them Édouard Manet, Edgar Degas, and Mary Cassatt. This moment in art history marked a steady movement towards abstraction as artists established new theories and new ways of seeing, while taking their subject matter from the rapidly-advancing world they lived in.

Curated by Elizabeth Abston, Spectacles of Modern Life will be on view in the William B. and Isabel R. McCarty Foundation Gallery