Big, Bold, and Beautiful

“I feel more than ever that it is essential for artists to make work that celebrates Black culture. As a Black man, I am aware of my vulnerability and susceptibility to trauma and oppression on a daily basis…there are images that are less important for us to see than images of joy.”

— Derrick Adams

Think of the last label you read at a museum. What type of information was included? Maybe details about the artist, how the object was made, the year it was created, or its style. It was also probably written from the perspective of an expert in art history. At the Cleveland Museum of Art, we believe that there is more than one way to look at a work of art — and that there are many perspectives that deserve to be known.

To that end, the CMA is experimenting with highlighting the voices of community members alongside those of curators. The first exhibition to feature these multiple perspectives is Picturing Motherhood Now — on view through March 13 — which features the voices of five community members reflecting on objects and what the idea of motherhood means to them.

Derrick Adams: LOOKS offers another opportunity to feature multiple perspectives. Adams’s monumental portrait series celebrates radical Black joy and self-actualization through fashion and self-representation. Adams questions if the power to shift identity can be achieved through style.

The artist found inspiration for this series in the many wig shops he would pass walking through the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood in New York City where he’s from. Fascinated by the various styles of wigs, he would question shop owners about who created and cut the wigs and if they had names. Much like the window displays, the images in the exhibition offer a wide variety of hair styles, ranging from short to long, neutral to colorful mimicking the beauty found in life.

Something we are hoping that visitors take away from seeing the exhibition is the significance of hair and fashion in Black culture, and how Derrick Adams’s work represents self-actualization through style as personal expression. To help tell a fuller story with varied perspectives, we wanted to know what an exhibition like this meant to our community members, and how important style is in their lives. We asked them to look closely at the works in the exhibition and to share what resonated with them. Look for their “Community Voice” labels in the exhibition.

“When I was younger, I did my hair differently. I straightened it a lot. The older I became, I moved from trying to fit in to exploring with my hair. I love how Adams shows different styles and colors. To see these being highlighted is important.”

— Bianca Pitts, Director of Retail Operations, The Cleveland Museum of Art

“I think that Adams is trying to show just a selection of the numerous and dope hair styles within Black culture and how fun, creative, and free hair can be.”

—Amber Ford, Photographer

“What I see in Adams’s work is a maze of creativity. Black people are very innovative in how they wear their hair.“

— Tameka Ellington, PhD​. Entrepreneur, speaker, scholar,​ educator, author, and philanthropist

By including multiple voices and perspectives in the galleries, we hope museumgoers discover that there is more than one way to look at a work of art, and that individual experiences often inform how we see or interpret an artwork.

During your visit, we challenge you to think about how style as self-expression resonates in your life. Explore these colorful and meaningful artworks and community voices in the FREE exhibition Derrick Adams: LOOKS on view through May 29 in gallery 230.