Note: Authored by David Menconi, this piece has been produced in partnership with Raleigh Arts. Menconi's latest book, "Oh, Didn't They Ramble: Rounder Records and the Transformation of American Roots Music," was published in the fall of 2023 by University of North Carolina Press. His podcast, Carolina Calling, explores the history of the Tar Heel State through music.

One of this season’s most ambitious visual art exhibitions, The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure will show at Raleigh’s North Carolina Museum of Art from March 8 through June 29, 2025. Raleigh is the third and last city to host the curated collection, following previous showings at the Philadelphia Museum of Art and in England at London’s National Portrait Gallery (the project’s organizing institution).

Tickets for this special exhibit are available here. The rest of the museum remains free-admission as always during this time. 

Well-traveled English writer/journalist Ekow Eshun curated The Time Is Always Now, taking its title from an essay about desegregation by the American writer James Baldwin (which appeared in Baldwin’s 1961 book “Nobody Knows My Name”).

The exhibit includes works by 23 contemporary African diasporic artists from the United States and United Kingdom—Amy Sherald, Michael Armitage, Claudette Johnson, Toyin Ojih Odutola and Nathaniel Mary Quinn among them. All of the works date from the year 2000 or later.

As organized by curator Eshun, the show’s pieces are grouped into three main themes: “Double Consciousness, “The Persistence of History” and “Our Aliveness.” The focus is on art that depicts and celebrates the Black figure, as rendered by Black artists. In this, its perspective is not so much observational as allowing viewers to see through the eyes of the artists.

^{Lubaina Himid, Le Rodeur: The Exchange, 2016, acrylic on canvas, 72 × 96 in., © 2024 Lubaina Himid, Courtesy of the artist and Hollybush Gardens, London; Photo: Andy Keate}

“Right now, we are living through a Black renaissance not only in visual art but media in general,” says Maya Brooks, exhibition curator for the North Carolina Museum of Art. “I’m particularly interested in the section on ‘Double Consciousness,’ which is about how these two different states exist within one consciousness—internally and externally, and they’re often in conflict.”

This kind of representation, of subject as well as artist, is key to the exhibition.

“This exhibition is the curator’s way of addressing hundreds of years of art history that consisted of images of Black figures by White artists,” says Linda Dougherty, curator of contemporary art at the NCMA. “What is that depiction like, and how does it change when a Black figure is represented by a Black artist? That’s the main through line. It’s also about a moment in time, capturing a specific moment when there’s such a flourishing of figurative work by Black contemporary artists. Representing that is important to do.”

 

 

 

 

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In conjunction with The Time Is Always Now, the museum's outdoor park is also featuring three billboards by local artist Jalen T. Jackson as a sidebar to the exhibit. A number of related programs with area artists including Lamar Whidbee and Telvin Wallace are on the schedule, giving tours of and presentations about The Time Is Always Now, with more in the works (find related events here).

“This really is such a timely moment for this show,” says Dougherty. “It throws a spotlight on artists working today. There’s a real renaissance of this kind of art focused on the Black figure by Black artists. This is a moment in contemporary art all over the world, and it’s great to provide our visitors with something so of the moment.”

The Time Is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure will be on display through June 29, 2025 at the North Carolina Museum of Art, 2110 Blue Ridge Rd. in Raleigh. Tickets are $20 for adults, 17 for seniors age 65 or older, $12 for students (age 7 to 22), and free for museum members and children age 6 and under. For details, see ncartmuseum.org or call 919-839-6262.

^{Header image: Amy Sherald, She was learning to love moments, to love moments for themselves (detail), 2017, oil on canvas, 54 1/8 × 43 in., © Amy Sherald, Courtesy the artist and Hauser & Wirth; Photo: Joseph Hyde}