What We Fund

30 Americans is drawn from the acclaimed holdings of the Rubell Family Foundation in Miami, Florida. New Yorkers Don and Mera Rubell began acquiring contemporary art in the late 1960s. Through their friendships with living artists, particularly young artists, the Rubells collected backwards and forwards, creating networks of intergenerational influence. As a result, the works that comprise the exhibition offer a stylistic conversation among artists of different decades and generations. Minimalism, abstraction, conceptualism, performance, new media, installation art, identity politics, deconstruction, street aesthetics, and the return of figuration—every major development in contemporary art over the past four decades is represented.

30 Americans exhibition at the CAC was underwritten by The Helis Foundation. The exhibition continues to tour the United States, additional venues can be found at the Rubell Family Collection website.

Artists in the exhibition include: Nina Chanel Abney, John Bankston, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Bradford, Iona Rozeal Brown, Nick Cave, Barkley L. Hendricks, Rashid Johnson, Glenn Ligon, Kalup Linzy, Kerry James Marshall, Rodney McMillian, Lona Simpson, Shinique Smith, Jeff Sonhouse, Henry Taylor, Hank Willis Thomas & Mickalene Thomas.