37 artists explore art and mourning in America

Image: Kerry James Marshall (b. 1955, Birmingham, AL). Memento #5, 2003. Acrylic and glitter on unstretched canvas banner. 107 5/8 x 157 1/2 in (274.3 x 396.2 cm). The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, Missouri. Purchase: acquired through the generosity of the William T. Kemper Foundation –Commerce Bank, Trustee

The New Museum is up for a big task. A new intergenerational exhibition will bring together artists who have have addressed the concept of mourning, commemoration, and loss as a direct response to the national emergency of racist violence experienced by Black communities across America. Scheduled to go on view from February 17 until June 6th, 2021,“GRIEF AND GRIEVANCE: ART AND MOURNING IN AMERICA” brings works spanning a variety of media from video, painting, sculpture, installation to photography, sound, and performance. Everything the audience will see was made in the last decade, in addition to a series of new commissions created in response to the concept of the exhibition. Comprising all three main exhibition floors of the New Museum, as well as the Lobby gallery and public spaces, the exhibition comprises diverse examples of artists exploring American history from the civil rights movement of the 1960s to issues of police violence in the United States in the 1990s and today.