“Faith Ringgold: American People” is a career-spanning survey of artist Faith Ringgold (b. 1930, Harlem, NY; lives and works in Englewood, New Jersey). This exhibition will be Ringgold’s first solo presentation in Chicago.
With a career that spans six decades, artist, author, educator, and organizer Ringgold is one of the most influential cultural figures of her generation. This major retrospective presents a comprehensive assessment of the artist’s impactful vision, which bears witness to the complexity of the American experience.
Originally organized by the New Museum, New York, the MCA adaptation of “Faith Ringgold: American People” will showcase many of her best-known pieces, including paintings, quilts, and sculptures, as well as archival materials from her activist work in the late 1960s and 1970s. It will examine Ringgold’s art as it evolved in response to politics and society, including the artist’s indelible works of the civil rights era, her radical explorations of gender and racial identity, and her focus on collective struggles for social justice and equity. A part of the MCA’s Women Artists Initiative, this timely exhibition provides a new opportunity to experience the art of an American icon.
“The MCA is proud to give Faith Ringgold and the city of Chicago a platform for this important retrospective,” Pritzker Director Madeleine Grynsztejn said. “A key artistic influence throughout the twentieth century, Ringgold captured catalytic moments throughout American racial, social, and feminist history. These stories still resonate today. Continuing to share them is key, now more than ever.”
The exhibition will also further contextualize Ringgold’s continuing impact on art history through the inclusion of works from the MCA Collection by artists who were influenced by Ringgold or explore similar themes in their work.
“‘Faith Ringgold: American People’ is an overdue examination of an iconic artist whose work has been underseen in Chicago,” Manilow Senior Curator Jamillah James said. “Ringgold’s centering of social critique and personal and familial narrative in her work has been profoundly influential to later generations of artists, and we are thrilled to partner with the New Museum to bring this thought-provoking and timely exhibition to the MCA.”
at Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
until February 25, 2024