“Buoyant” – A Curious Collector Art Conversation with artist Derrick Adams

Contemporary artist Derrick Adams has spent his career presenting stories of the Black lived experiences that often go untold. Now, the Baltimore native shares his own story. Celeste Davis, curator and programmer of the Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum, will talk with Adams about his Buoyant exhibition; his artistic and personal journey; how artists Jacob Lawrence and Romare Bearden influenced his practice; and how he hopes his work shapes representation in art for the next generation.

The Museum of Fine Arts is currently presenting Derrick Adams: Buoyant, the artist’s first major solo museum exhibition and the final stop of this exhibition. The exhibition is drawn from his Floaters series of paintings held within private collections, and will be on view through November 29, 2020. In his Floaters series, the multi-disciplinary artist depicts exuberant images of Black joy and leisure, putting forth a more nuanced and comprehensive narrative of Black experiences. Derrick Adams earned his MFA from Columbia University, his BFA from Pratt Institute, and is a Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Marie Walsh Sharpe alumnus. A recipient of numerous grants and awards, his artwork is in the permanent collections of public institutions, including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY; Studio Museum, NY; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, NY. Buoyant is organized by the Hudson River Museum, in association with the MFA, St. Petersburg, and curated by James E. Bartlett, founder of OpenArt and former Executive Director of the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts (MoCADA), in Brooklyn, New York, and Laura Vookles, Chair of the Hudson River Museum’s Curatorial Department. The MFA, St. Petersburg is the city’s first and largest art museum, and works to engage, educate and excite the community by collecting, exhibiting, and preserving works of art for the enjoyment of all.

The Curious Collector is Celeste Davis , who has curated exhibitions at the Woodson Museum, such as Willie Daniels, Florida Highwayman, and is the producer and host of the museum’s monthly Saturday series, Curious Collector – Conversation Café. Davis earned her English degree from Spelman College and an MFA from The George Washington University. She has a certificate in Fine Art and Furniture Appraisal from New York University. Davis is a past member of the St. Petersburg Art Advisory Committee and community liaison for Fairground. The Dr. Carter G. Woodson African American Museum is located in St. Petersburg’s historic Jordan Park community. Its mission is to preserve, present, interpret and celebrate African American art and history.

About Derrick Adams

Derrick Adams is a Baltimore-born, Brooklyn, New York-based artist whose critically admired work spans painting, collage, sculpture, performance, video, and sound installations. His multidisciplinary practice engages the ways in which individuals’ ideals, aspirations, and personae become attached to specific objects, colors, textures, symbols, and ideologies. His work probes the influence of popular culture on the formation of self-image, and the relationship between man and monument as they coexist and embody one another. Adams is also deeply immersed in questions of how African American experiences intersect with art history, American iconography, and consumerism. Most notably in his Floaterseries, he portrays Black Americans at leisure, positing that respite itself is a political act when embraced by black communities. The radicality of this position has materialized in Adams’ work across his Deconstruction Worker, Figure in the Urban Landscape, and Beauty World series.

In formal terms, Adams’ practice is rooted in Deconstructivist philosophies related to the fragmentation and manipulation of structure and surface, and the marriage of complex and improbable forms. His tendency to layer, hybridize, and collage not only images and materials, but also different types of sensory experiences, link the artist to an estimable lineage of pioneers ranging from Hannah Höch and Henri Matisse, to William H. Johnson and Romare Bearden. In Adams’ art, the process can also be understood as an analog: “Everything that we are is based on a specific construction,” he once remarked.

Adams received his MFA from Columbia University and BFA from Pratt Institute. He is an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture and Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation’s Studio Program.

Adams is a recipient of a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency (2019), a Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship (2018), a Studio Museum Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize (2016), and a Louis Comfort Tiffany Award (2009). He has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including Where I’m From — Derrick Adams (2019) at The Gallery in Baltimore City Hall; Derrick Adams: Sanctuary (2018) at the Museum of Arts and Design, New York; and Derrick Adams: Transmission (2018) at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver. Adams’ work has been presented in numerous important public exhibitions, including Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth. (2019) at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati; PERFORMA (2015, 2013, and 2005); The Shadows Took Shape (2014) and Radical Presence (2013–14) at The Studio Museum in Harlem; The Channel (2012) at the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Greater New York (2005) at MoMA PS1; and Open House: Working In Brooklyn (2004) at the Brooklyn Museum. His work resides in the permanent collections of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Studio Museum in Harlem, the Whitney Museum of American Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, and the Birmingham Museum of Art.