As the holiday season takes over our radio stations, shopping lists, and social timelines, this is a fitting moment to highlight exhibitions by Black women artists that can fill your vacation days or entertain your out-of-town guests. This list below is a selection of shows currently on view by leading art practitioners across the African diaspora. #SeeSomeArt!
STEFFANI JEMISON
Steffani Jemison has several current exhibitions between the U.S. and France—three solo presentations and a group show in Philadelphia.
Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, U.S. | Through March 4, 2018
In her largest solo exhibition to date, New York-based artist Steffani Jemison uses the complicated role of language and literacy in black history to explore narration, abstraction, citizenship, education, and the role of the archive. At MASS MoCA, Jemison presents a sound work and an excerpt from a novella, along with her formally stripped-down, conceptually layered, and alluringly enigmatic photographs and drawings. The works center on alternative language systems constructed by black Americans and examines their subversive potential.
Steffani Jemison: Sensus Plenoir
Jeu de Paume, Paris | Through January 21, 2018
A presentation of the new video Sensus Plenior by Steffani Jemison, commissioned by Osei Bonsu as part of the 10th Satellite Program. Steffani Jemison combines time-based media and discursive platforms to examine African-American culture. Sensus Plenior (Latin for “Fuller Meaning”) considers the relationship between language, gesture and song in black gospel pantomime, focusing on the work and ideas of ordained minister Susan Webb and the Master Mime Ministry of Harlem.
Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia U.S. | Through December 23
Speech/Acts explores experimental black poetry and how the social and cultural constructs of language have shaped black American experiences — featuring new and recent works by artists Jibade-Khalil Huffman, Steffani Jemison, Tony Lewis, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Kameelah Janan Rasheed, and Martine Syms. Curated by Meg Onli.
WURA-NATASHA OGUNJI
ifa-Galerie, Berlin, Germany | Through January 14, 2018
In “Every Mask I Ever Loved” Wura-Natasha Ogunji presents a series of newly commissioned drawings and performances – including re-creations of her performances “Sweep,” “The Kissing Mask,” and “If I loved you,” continuing her exploration of the presence of women in both public and private space. Alongside the program of performances, the exhibition consists of a display of works – textile masks and video – that are instrumental within the performances or act as echoes of it.
TOYIN OJIH-ODUTOLA
Toyin Ojih Odutola: To Wander Determined
The Whitney Museum, United States. | Through February 25, 2018
For her first solo museum exhibition in New York, Toyin Ojih Odutola presents an interconnected series of fictional portraits, chronicling the lives of two aristocratic Nigerian families. Rendered life-size in charcoal, pastel, and pencil, Ojih Odutola’s figures appear enigmatic and mysterious, set against luxurious backdrops of domesticity and leisure. They, and the worlds they inhabit, are informed by the artist’s own array of inspirations, which range from art history to popular culture to experiences of migration and dislocation. Curated by Rujeko Hockley and Melinda Lang.
JULIE MEHRETU
Julie Mehretu: A Universal History of Everything and Nothing
Centro Botín, Spain | Through February 25, 2018
A universal history of everything and nothing, the most important survey to be presented in Europe by this artist, widely considered as one of the foremost painters of her generation. The exhibition features a selection of 30 paintings and 60 drawings from key moments in Mehretu’s practice, ranging from her early graphite drawings and her ink and acrylic paintings, to majestic large-scale canvases whose worked surfaces and complex architectures constructed via ink, paint, erasure, line and gesture, take on increasing depth and solidity over time. Curated by Suzanne Cotter and Vicente Todolí.
LUNGISWA GQUNTA
Lungiswa Gqunta: Poolside Conversations
Kelder, United Kingdom | Through December 17, 2017
Poolside Conversations, the first solo presentation of Gqunta’s work in London, will be hosted by KELDER this autumn together with a program of talks and events that further explore notions of decolonization, landscape and protest. Gqunta invites us to reconsider the suburban garden as a space reserved for leisure activities as experienced by the privileged – a private space reserved for the landowner. Through her practice she seeks to disturb these spaces of privilege and highlight the structures of colonialism that are still in place today.
WANGECHI MUTU
The Contemporary Austin on view at the Jones Center, U.S. | Through January 14, 2018
She gazes east across the lagoon, looking away from the approaching viewer, her ebony skin catching the sun and large tail curling behind her. Water Woman, 2017, a cast bronze sculpture by the artist Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, born 1972 in Nairobi, lives and works in Nairobi and New York), sits perched atop a grassy mound at the foot of the amphitheater in the museum’s fourteen-acre sculpture park at Laguna Gloria. Rooted in myth and mystery, this siren figure—evocative of a mermaid—references both the dugong, an endangered relative of the manatee found in warm coastal waters from East Africa to Australia, and the East African folkloric legend of the half woman, half sea creature who entices and eludes (nguva in Swahili). The artist has said the nguva represents “bewitching female aquatic beings with powers to entrance and drown susceptible mortals.”1 In contrast to the ubiquitous Western iconography rooted in Hellenic, Nordic, and Anglo-Saxon depictions of silken-haired women with pale skin, here the siren is represented by the luminous, charcoal-colored female body, a vein of inquiry central to Mutu’s work. Curated by Heather Pesanti with text by Pesanti.
NNENNA OKERE
Ụkwa Ruo Oge Ya Ọ Daa – There’s a Time for Everything
October Gallery, Germany | Through December 21, 2017
Okore’s practice explores these subjects of ephemerality and transformation. Her intricate works contain rich textures, and reveal extraordinary manifestations of color and formations, often resembling organic elements in nature, such as roots, veins, and flora. Each visceral sculpture is created through various repetitive and labour-intensive techniques, like teasing, twisting, dyeing and sewing, applied to natural materials such as cheesecloth, burlap and paper, which only serve to further accentuate these natural elements. Okore is deeply disturbed by how human activities are contributing to climate change, aggravating and interrupting the natural cycle of life. To juxtapose these worldly energies she weaves the Igbo adage, Ụkwa Ruo Oge Ya Ọ Daa, through her work capturing a collective human experience that is imbued with images of renewal and regeneration. Yet everything has its season and everything has its due. And not even the breadfruit high up on the Ụkwa tree can escape the rule of life.
KITSO LYNN LELLIOTT 
Abénaa / Alzire / Dandara / Tsholofelo (working title)
Iwalewahaus | Through April 3, 2018
As an award for her artistic engagement with the history of the city of Bayreuth and the archives of the Iwalewahaus, the Johannesburg based artist Kitso Lynn Lelliott was once again invited to Bayreuth to receive the Iwalewa Art Award. The award ceremony is associated with an artist’s residence at Iwalewahaus and an exhibition sponsored by the International Office and the University of Bayreuth. This exhibition Abénaa / Alzire / Dandara / Tsholofelo (working title) will be shown in Iwalewahaus apart from the 10th November 2017. At the Academic Anniversary a part of the project will also be shown in the Campus Gallery.
