As Black History Month draws to a close, we shine a light on one of New York's remarkable exhibits celebrating Black culture and its profound connection with art. This exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum is the product of the vision of two influential figures in the music industry: Alicia Keys and Swizz Beatz (Kasseem Dean) who have been passionately collecting works for over two decades, and who are now eager to share their extraordinary collection with the world. This collection, which features 98 artworks by Black American, African, and African diasporic artists including Gordon Parks, Kehinde Wiley, Jean-Michel Basquiat and Hassan Hajjaj to name a few, explores many themes including Black identity and creativity. This celebration of Black artists and culture, according to Ms. Keys “want(s) you to see that you are also a giant, that you are special, incredible, unique, one of a kind.” Make sure you experience the exhibit before it closes on July 7th!

Artist Abigail DeVille’s “Light of Freedom” at Madison Square Park is meant to reflect the “despair and the exultation of a turbulent period of pandemic and protest.” In the piece, DeVille has filled a torch (a reference to the Statue of Liberty’s torch which was on view in Madison Square Park from 1876 to 1882) with a bell (to summon freedom) and mannequin arms (as if to beseech viewers.) The scaffold surrounding the torch prevents access physically and metaphorically but its golden color summons “the glory of labor and the luminosity in the struggle that can lead to change.” DeVille describes creating the piece: “In my research, I have found that the first Blacks to be brought to New York City were eleven Angolans in 1626. That makes people of African descent the second-oldest group of settlers in New Amsterdam, after the Dutch. Unfortunately, history has erased the contributions and victories of this group. I want to make something that could honor their lives and question what it means to be a New Yorker, past, present, and future.”