Previously On View
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration
Date
October 30, 2022 - January 29, 2023
Overview
Between 1915 and 1970, in the wake of racial violence and inequalities in the United States, more than six million African Americans left their homes in the rural South. Many migrated to cities like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, and Houston, while others relocated to cities within the South and beyond. They moved in every direction, transforming the economic, cultural, social, political, and ecological makeup of the entire country.
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration illuminates the stories of the Great Migration through quilts, photographs, short films, paintings, and even a recreated double wide trailer that once served as a candy store by day and juke joint by night.
Reflect on this moment in history and consider your own family ancestry through the eyes and work of 12 Black artists:
Akea Brionne
Mark Bradford
Zoë Charlton
Larry W. Cook
Torkwase Dyson
Theaster Gates Jr.
Allison Janae Hamilton
Leslie Hewitt
Steffani Jemison
Robert Pruitt
Jamea Richmond-Edwards
Carrie Mae Weems
The exhibition is co-curated by Jessica Bell Brown, Curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art at the BMA and Ryan N. Dennis, Chief Curator and Artistic Director of the Center for Art & Public Exchange (CAPE) at the Mississippi Museum of Art.
The exhibition is co-organized by the Mississippi Museum of Art and the Baltimore Museum of Art.
Select Artworks in this Exhibition
Archive Gallery Images
Sponsors
This exhibition is supported by a grant from the Ford Foundation.
Generous support is provided by the Henry Luce Foundation, Teiger Foundation, The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Bloomberg Philanthropies, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Endowment for the Arts. Additional support is provided by The Alvin and Fanny B. Thalheimer Exhibition Endowment Fund, the Suzanne F. Cohen Exhibition Fund, Agnes Gund, Transamerica, BGE, the Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc. and John Meyerhoff and Lenel Srochi-Meyerhoff.
Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this project do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Location
Special Exhibition Galleries
Catalogue
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Volume 1 and 2
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration, Volume 1 and 2
Critical Reader, Volume 1
This thoughtful interweaving of text and imagery presents a variety of perspectives on the Great Migration (1915–70), the mass exodus and dispersion of millions of African Americans out of the South. Through archival photography, newspaper clippings, maps, journal articles, book excerpts, and ephemera such as family recipes, the book immerses readers in Black history, the Great Migration, and its legacy. The book includes texts by authors ranging from W. E. B. Du Bois and Jean Toomer to Toni Tipton-Martin and culminates in a candid roundtable discussion about familial migration stories among some of the most respected Black artists, writers, and scholars working today: Theaster Gates, Kiese Laymon, Carrie Mae Weems, and others. The material is presented in three unique, thematic sections that explore the Great Migration’s impact on the American city, Black Southern foodways, and cultural expression.
Taken as a whole, this important volume provides powerful testimony to the systemic challenges such as social segregation, racism, and discrimination that Black communities have faced from the post-Emancipation period to the present moment. Summer 2022.
Exhibition Catalog, Volume 2
Offering a new perspective on the Great Migration, this incisive second volume presents immersive photography of newly commissioned works of art by Akea Brionne, Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Larry W. Cook, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates Jr., Allison Janae Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Robert Pruitt, Jamea Richmond‑Edwards, and Carrie Mae Weems. The artists investigate their connections to the deep South through familial stories of perseverance, self‑determination, and self‑reliance and consider how this history informs their working practices. Essays by Kiese Laymon, Jessica Lynne, Sharifa Rhodes‑Pitts, and Willie Jamaal Wright explore how the Great Migration continues to reverberate today in the public and private spheres and examine migration as both a historical and a political consequence, as well as a possibility for reclaiming agency.
Published by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Mississippi Museum of Art in association with Yale University Press. October 2022.
Exhibition Video
Exhibition Video 1
A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration
The Great Migration (1915–1970) saw more than six million African Americans leave the South for destinations across the United States. This incredible dispersal of people across the country transformed nearly every aspect of Black life and culture. A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration explores the ways in which its impact reverberates today through newly commissioned works across media by 12 acclaimed Black artists, including Akea Brionne, Mark Bradford, Zoë Charlton, Larry W. Cook, Torkwase Dyson, Theaster Gates Jr., Allison Janae Hamilton, Leslie Hewitt, Steffani Jemison, Robert Pruitt, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, and Carrie Mae Weems.
Exhibition Video
Preserving Legacies
Join us as we explore the process of preserving the legacies and stories of Black culture through a series of presentations by artists and archivists. Participants include Savannah Wood, artist and Executive Director of Afro Charities, who is creating an infrastructure to increase digital, archival access to the 130-year-old Afro-American (AFRO) newspaper catalog; Jelisa Blumberg, Creative Director of Black Baltimore Digital Database; Larry W. Cook, artist and Assistant Professor of Photography at Howard University; and Webster Phillips III, artist, archivist, and grandson of longtime Baltimore Afro-American photographer Henry Phillips Sr. who has documented his grandfather’s work on ihenryphoto.com.
Exhibit Video 3
BMA Violet Hour: Legacies of the Great Migration Artist Talk
Take a deep dive into the impact of the Great Migration through the lens of three artists featured A Movement in Every Direction: Legacies of the Great Migration. Hear from Torkwase Dyson, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, and Zoë Charlton during a conversation led by Jessica Bell-Brown, co-curator and Department Head of Contemporary Art. The group will explore Southern culture, land and ecology, and the process of developing newly commissioned works.
Press
Press Contacts
Anne Brown
Baltimore Museum of Art
Senior Director of Communications
abrown@artbma.org
410-274-9907
Sarah Pedroni
Baltimore Museum of Art
Communications Manager
spedroni@artbma.org
410-428-4668
Alina Sumajin
PAVE Communications
alina@paveconsult.com
646-369-2050
Press Clippings
- Bmore Art – From Jackson to Baltimore: “Great Migration” is a Bittersweet Homecoming(26/12/2022)
- Bmore Art – Transforming History Into Contemporary Art(21/12/2022)
- 4columns – A Movement in Every Direction(09/12/2022)
- The Truth in This Art – Podcast with Jessica Bell Brown(09/12/2022)
- New York Times – Best Art of 2022>(12/07/2022)
- Baltimore Magazine – New BMA Exhibit Points to the Continuing Influence of the Great Migration (01/12/2022)
- Baltimore Sun – Baltimore museum exhibit about the Great Migration gives Laurel artist chance to ‘let go of the past,’ heal family ties(04/11/2022)
- Baltimore Beat – The Story of the Great Migration Comes to the Baltimore Museum of Art(01/11/2022)
- New York Times – For Black Artists, the Great Migration Is an Unfinished Journey (08/04/2022)