Afrofuturism: 225 West 17th Street, New York, NY

On the occasion of the cultural icon Sun Ra’s birthday, Ethan Cohen Gallery has the pleasure to invite you to AFROFUTURISM, an exhibition featuring seven seminal visual artists working in Afrofuturism including: Ellsworth Ausby, Nanette Carter, Renee Cox, Ernest Frazier, Algernon Miller, Tyrone Mitchell, and Joe Overstreet.

 

Organized by Ethan Cohen Gallery and Algernon Miller the exhibition is concurrent with Algernon Miller’s debut solo exhibition with the gallery “Afrofuturism and Beyond”. The presentation includes artworks which narrate the underlying concepts of Afrofuturism by imagining parallel or distant realities which are as empowering as they are liminal.

 

While Afrofuturism as a subject matter has impacted a wide and dynamic number of artists' work, those included in the exhibition represent members of the community who have demonstrated an extended if not lifelong commitment to the concept demonstrated by works included in the exhibition dated from as early as 1970. While many of the artists are experiencing extreme moments of public success and are the subjects of current or forthcoming solo museum exhibitions such as such as Joe Overstreet: Taking Flight at the Menil Collection, or Nanette Carter: Shifting perspectives, at the Montclair Art Museum or Sentinels at the Wexner Center for the Arts, others have oddly remained shrouded in relative obscurity even though they had immense initial curatorial acclaim such as Ernest Frazier who was included in the first Whitney Biennial in 1973. For those who are new to the subject or those who want the opportunity to dive deeper into works by these seminal figures, we welcome you to explore Afrofuturism at Ethan Cohen Gallery.

 

Artists:

Ellsworth Ausby

Nanette Carter
Renee Cox
Ernest Frazier
Algernon Miller
Tyrone Mitchell
Joe Overstreet

 

This exhibition is made by the generous contributions of numerous private individuals and Eric Firestone Gallery who lent Joe Overstreet’s Flight 9 (Icarus Series). We would like to thank them all for their gracious inclusions to this important exhibition.