From Harlem to Lagos, fall 2025 ushers in a season of reclamation, renewal, and celebration in Black art.

As the art world settles into the fall 2025 season, Black artists, curators, and institutions are taking center stage across the United States and abroad. From long-awaited museum reopenings to major traveling exhibitions and fairs, this season underscores the dynamism of Black artistic expression and cultural stewardship.

🎨 In London, Kerry James Marshall: The Histories at the Royal Academy is being hailed as the exhibition of the autumn. Marshall’s monumental canvases weave African American narratives into the fabric of Western history painting, reshaping art history on his own terms.

🔥 Meanwhile, in Richmond, Virginia, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts opens Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz & Alicia Keys on November 22. Featuring icons like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sherald, and Gordon Parks, this show embodies the power and presence of contemporary Black art.

🏛️ New York marks a milestone with the reopening of the Studio Museum in Harlem on November 15. Closed since 2018 for a major renovation, the institution returns with renewed vigor as one of the nation’s most important spaces dedicated to Black art and culture.

🖤 In Chicago, the debut of Pigmented: Black Fine Art Faire (October 31–November 2) transforms the Zhou B Art Center into a gathering place for artists, collectors, and communities, reinforcing the city’s reputation as a hub of Black creativity.

📚 Academic institutions continue to lead: the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art celebrates its 30th anniversary with Repossessions, while Clark Atlanta University Art Museum presents Ancestral Mirrors by Shanequa Gay. At the same time, Washington, D.C.’s National Gallery of Art expands the conversation with Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985, a landmark survey of how photography shaped identity and resistance.

Links:
Spelman College Museum of Fine Art: https://www.spelman.edu/news/2025/09/the-spelman-college-museum-of-fine-art-celebrates-its-30th-anniversary-season-with-two-fall-2025-exhibitions.html
Clark Atlanta University Art Museum: https://www.cau.edu/clark-atlanta-university-art-museum-announces-fall-2025-exhibition-season-featuring-ancestral-mirrors-by-shanequa-gay
National Gallery of Art: https://www.nga.gov/press/exhibitions/exhibitions-2025/5632.html

🌍 Abroad, ART X Lagos prepares for its 10th edition in November, solidifying West Africa’s most prominent art fair as a global platform for contemporary African and diasporic voices.
Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ART_X_Lagos

✨ Taken together, these exhibitions and events signal not just a busy fall, but a season defined by reclamation, expansion, and celebration of Black art on the world stage #BlackArtNow #BlackArtNews