The Phillips Collection Presents Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage

The Phillips Collection presents Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage, the first major museum exhibition dedicated to contemporary collage reflecting the breadth and complexity of Black identity and experiences in the United States. The monumental exhibition, spread across three floors in two buildings, brings together nearly 60 works by an intergenerational group of 49 African American artists to explore diverse Black-constructed narratives through collage and collage-informed works. Organized by the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, Tennessee, Multiplicity: Blackness in Contemporary American Collage is on view from July 6 through September 22, 2024.

Multiplicity examines how themes of personal and collective history, regional and national heritage, gender and sexual orientation, and racial constructs are expressed in collage. By assembling pieces of paper, photographs, fabric, and other salvaged or repurposed materials, artists create unified compositions that offer poignant expressions of human experience, including fragmentation and reconstruction, shared history and memory, cultural hybridity, gender fluidity, and notions of beauty. As the exhibition’s title suggests, most of the works address multiple subjects and defy a fixed interpretation. Featured artists range from established luminaries to emerging and mid-career figures, including Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Rashid Johnson, Kerry James Marshall, Wangechi Mutu, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Deborah Roberts, Tschabalala Self, Lorna Simpson, Devan Shimoyama, Mickalene Thomas, and Kara Walker.

IMAGE: Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Archetype of a 5 Star, 2018, acrylic, spray paint, glitter, ink, and cut paper on canvas, 60 x 48 in., Rubell Museum.