Project a Black Planet Installation Entryway

“What’s so brilliant about these murals is that Woodruff is consciously blending different temporalities and geographies across the six panels,” says Byrd. “In some, you get references to how African art develops in conversation with Western European, Greek and Mayan art. One panel centers on religion and spirituality; another on architecture and design. Woodruff even includes a panel about the looting of cultural artifacts from Africa; he was one of the earliest visual artists in the U.S. to examine this history in such a bold and unvarnished way. Each shift in scene propels the viewer across time and space in a tightly compressed yet fluid narrative.”

Ethiopian-born artist Awol Erizku’s opulent sculpture Nefertiti – Miles Davis (Gold) (2022) appeared near the exhibit entrance, suspended from the ceiling. Clad in acrylic mirror tiles, it rotates slowly like a disco ball. The sculpture’s title refers to jazz musician Miles Davis’ 1968 Nefertiti  album. “What’s powerful about this work,” says Byrd, “is how it collapses time, linking ancient Egyptian royalty with 20th-century Black musical genius and placing both within the idiom of hip-hop aesthetics. Erizku challenges the way African history is typically framed in museums, reasserting it as a living, evolving presence. It’s a work that refuses to let the past remain distant.”

Credit: Private collection, courtesy of Sean Kelly Gallery, Los Angeles. Photo courtesy of the artist and Sean Kelly, New York/Los Angeles. © Awol Erizku