What We Fund

Solidary and Solitary, drawn from the Joyner/Giuffrida collection, tells the history of art by African-American artists from the 1940s to the present moment. That story is a complicated one woven from the threads of debates about how to represent blackness; social struggle and change; and migrations and diasporas, particularly in relation to Africa, a recent area of expansion for the collection. The collection is primarily focused on abstract art, broadly understood; this is a meaningful political focus, rather than a stylistic preference. Solidary and Solitary celebrates the achievement of individual artists, the collective history told by their art, and the social changes that have changed the way we understand art history in the broadest sense.

It is essential that these histories be told, that the possibilities of individual achievement, collective identity, and genuine, institutional social change be made vivid, concrete, and beautiful. Only by remembering and understanding these histories can we move forward towards a different future, collectively imagined.