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In a dynamic one-on-one conversation betweeen Derrick Adams and Jerrell Gibbs, the two explore being contemporary African American artists with Baltimore ties, what inspires their work, how they engage with their artistic processes and practices, and the multi-layered imagery and symbolism in their work. Derrick Adams’ image of Kendrick Lamar is included in the exhibition, Men of Change, Power. Triumph. Truth.

Born in Baltimore in 1970, Derrick Adams is a Brooklyn-based artist whose work spans painting, collage, sculpture, performance, video, and sound. Adams obtained his BFA from the Pratt Institute and MFA from Columbia University. He is also an alumnus of the Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture. Among other honors, the artist received a Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Residency and Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship. With his oeuvre, Adams probes how identity and personal narrative intersect with American iconography, art history, urban culture, and the Black experience. The artist explores how individuals are shaped by their physical, societal, and historical environs. With sophisticated formal techniques, Adams investigates the fragmentation and manipulation of structure and surface—a method that links him to pioneers such as Henri Matisse, Hannah Höch, and Romare Bearden. In the past two years alone, Adams has presented solo exhibitions at the Hudson River Museum in Yonkers; the SCAD FASH Museum in Savannah; The Momentary in Bentonville; and The August Wilson African American Cultural Center in Pittsburgh.

Jerrell Gibbs is a figurative painter based and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. His life-size representations of Black life and identity depict intimate images that are adapted from a family collection of small Polaroids. He reflects on the joyful and sensitive moments of his own life, while simultaneously holding the influences of economic disparity, body politics, and race at the forefront of his work. Gibbs is committed to grounding his artistic practice as a platform to uplift Black and Brown people from Baltimore and beyond, specifically through the gateway of creative outlets and opportunities. Gibbs’ work is in the permanent collections of Baltimore Museum of Art, the Los Angeles Museum of Art, and has been exhibited by Howard University Art Gallery.  Gibbs holds an MFA from Maryland Institute College of Art and is currently represented by Mariane Ibrahim Gallery.

Presented in conjunction with Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth.

Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth. was developed by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and made possible through the generous support of the Ford Motor Company Fund and Community Services.

Kendrick Lamar, 2018.  Andrew Lih. Courtesy of Fuzheado/Andrew Lih. 

James Baldwin, Istanbul 1964.  Sedat Pakay. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, © Sedat Pakay 1964