Extended Hours for Homecoming on Friday, October 20, 2023 until 6:30 pm

Click here to Register 

Panther Family, welcome home! This Homecoming, immerse yourself in the heart of creativity at the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum. Join fellow alumni for an evening of reconnecting amidst our world-renowned collection. Dive into the Panther legacy through the lens of art and alma mater. Let's celebrate and uplift Clark Atlanta University Art Museum as a site of scholarship and Black expression. #CAUHomecoming2023

Clark Atlanta University Art Museum’s “Woman in Blue” Is the Signature Marketing Image for MET’s “Harlem Renaissance” Exhibition

Clark Atlanta University Art Museum is among several HBCU museums and galleries to have artwork featured in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s upcoming exhibition, “The Harlem Renaissance and Transatlantic Modernism.” The exhibition is scheduled to run from February 25 through July 28, 2024.

“Through some 160 works, it will explore the comprehensive and far-reaching ways in which Black artists portrayed everyday modern life in the new Black cities that took shape in the 1920s–40s in New York City’s Harlem and Chicago’s South Side and Nationwide in the early decades of the Great Migration when millions of African Americans began to move away from the segregated rural South.

The first survey of the subject in New York City since 1987, the exhibition will establish the Harlem Renaissance as the first African American–led movement of international modern art and will situate Black artists and their radically new portrayals of the modern Black subject as central to our understanding of international modern art and modern life.” The MET News Release

CAU Art Museum’s Woman in Blue, a painting by William H. Johnson, is the signature image for all media and banners for the exhibition. The portrait is of a Black woman in a vibrant blue dress, staring straight ahead but facing forward, seated sideways on a wooden chair.

“The colors are striking,” said Danille K. Taylor, director of the Clark Atlanta University Art Museum, in an article appearing in the New York Times announcing the exhibition. “It’s the angle that she looks at you. The colors and texture give it a three-dimensional quality.”

The CAU Art Museum loaned the MET four additional paintings: Woman with Kerchief by William Artis, Mr. and Mrs. Barton by John N. Robinson Jr., Friends by Margaret Taylor Goss, and Pickets by Roy DeCarava. Denise Murrell, the Merryl H. & James S. Tisch Curator at Large at the MET, researched and traveled to several HBCUs over a two-year period identifying pieces for the exhibition.  The MET provided funding for the conservation of Woman in Blue.  Fisk University Galleries, Hampton University Art Museum, and Howard University Gallery of Art Howard, Fisk also loaned pieces to the exhibition.

Danille Taylor, Professor of African American Studies at Clark Atlanta University, Named New Director of the University’s Historical Art Museum

08/09/2023

 Atlanta, GA (August 9, 2023) - Clark Atlanta University recently named Danille Taylor, Ph.D., as the Director of its art museum (CAUAM). Taylor is a professor of African American Studies at the University and has served as interim museum director since August 2022. Under her leadership, the museum reopened in October 2022 with three new exhibitions, including “Our Friend Jean, the Early Works of Jean Michele Basquiat,” which drew more than 1300 attendees during its week-long run.

“Dr. Taylor’s experience, determination, and perseverance serve her well in this role,” said Jaideep Chaudhary, Dean and Professor of the School of Arts and Sciences. “Danille was instrumental in bringing the collective works of Basquiat, one of the museum’s most successful exhibitions, to Clark Atlanta University. Additionally, she led the charge to secure and curate two more exhibits for the 2022-2023 exhibition season: “From Black Spring to the Eternal” and “The Audacious Platform.” CAUAM is thriving under her leadership, and her efforts to advance the museum to the next level are meritorious.”

Dr. Taylor brings 17 years of experience in higher education administration to her role. Her background includes serving at three universities as Dean of the schools in which art museums were housed. This facilitated her development of appropriate strategies aligned with Clark Atlanta Art Museum's mission and purpose. In addition to her work as a professor and educator, she studied under Edmund Barry Gaither at Boston University, founder of the National Center of Afro-American Artists in Boston, and the first president of the African American Museum Association, where she became grounded in African American visual art history. Moreover, Dr. Taylor, alongside famed artist Dr. Margaret Burroughs, served on the Board of Directors at Chicago’s renowned DuSable Museum of African American History, where she garnered intimate exposure to the museum’s collections, management, finances, educational mission, and programming. While in Illinois, Taylor also taught at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

CAU administrator and visual artist Sam D. Burston states, “While serving as Interim Director, I have observed Dr. Taylor’s commitment and passion for the CAU Art Museum. In her new role as Director, she will not only elevate the university treasure to a renewed level of excellence and awareness; she will also develop programs and key initiatives which will honor the legacy of its founder, Hale Woodruff, while showcasing the significant essence of African American culture through our historic art collection.” 

Under Dr. Taylor’s tenure as interim director, Clark Atlanta University began its work as a member of the inaugural group of HBCUs to participate in the National Museum of African American History and Culture’s HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium to digitize the permanent collection and complete the conservation of the Hale

Woodruff murals “The Art of the Negro.”  A grant from the Institute of Museums and Library Services (IMLS) for $100,000 has also been secured to hire a registrar/collection manager.

Dr. Taylor earned her bachelor’s degree in English and African American Studies, a Master of Arts degree from Boston University in African American Studies, and a Master of Arts and Ph.D. degree in American Studies from Brown University.  She is editor of Conversations with Toni Morrison and coeditor of The Cambridge Companion to African American Women’s Writing.

HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium

The HBCU History and Culture Access Consortium (HCAC) comes at a time of global transformation, re-imagining and re-building. The Consortium represents a commitment to sustainable HBCU cultural institutions, and we are proud to stand with them in our collective efforts to preserve and interpret African American art, history, culture and memory.

View this special message of support from the Chair and Deputy Chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities.

National Museum of African American History and Culture

Launched in March 2021, the HCAC is a 5-year pilot initiative that is working with a select group of HBCU partners to engage in a series of activities that strengthens HBCU museums and archives to fortify their distinct roles in American history. This carefully crafted pilot stresses authentic partnership, building a community of practice and mentoring the next generation of professionals in the cultural sector. 

Main Program Elements:

1. Training — Opportunities for internships and fellowships with professional development and skill-building experiences, serving traditionally underrepresented groups.
2. Collections Inventory and Digitization — Creating an open-source archive, composed of HBCU digitized collections for use by academic scholars and the general public.
3. Executive Leadership Training and Development — Strengthens internal communications and more robustly centers Museums and archives within the Universities’ broader mission.
4. Traveling Exhibition and Publication — The exhibition features vast collections of HBCU collections, along with the creation of a catalogue designed for international distribution.
5. Project Evaluation and Expansion — Assesses the development of a community of practice and the potential for expansion.

2022-23 Exhibition Season 

Opening Friday, October 28, 2022, at 4 pm 

We are excited to welcome everyone back for Clark Atlanta University Art Museum’s 2022 - 2023 season. This season, opening on Friday, October 28, 2022, at 4 pm, presents two permanent collection exhibitions, The Audacious Platform and From Black Spring to the Eternal, and the extension of Wilay Mendez Paez: Portals to a New World.

Check back for information regarding programming and artist talks.

Reserve your ticket here.

Wilay Méndez Páez: Portals to a New World (Portales a un Nuevo Mundo)

Wednesday, October 6, 2021, from 4 – 7 pm

Join us on October 6th for the opening of Wilay Méndez Páez: Portals to a New World (Portales a un Nuevo Mundo). This exhibition provides insight into the artistic practice of Atlanta-based, Afro-Cuban artist Wilay Méndez Páez. Wilay is the inaugural fellow for The Workshop, a multi-year Clark Atlanta University Art Museum initiative that seeks to close the distance between artist and audience by highlighting the steps fundamental to the creative process. The exhibition includes drawings, collages, and sculptures that show how Wilay moves from a vague, not fully formed idea to the realization of a material object. Damaged and cast-off things become a gateway, or portal, to a world of possibilities. Reserve your timed ticket here.

Interlude 20/21

Wednesday, October 6, 2021, 11 – 7 pm

Join us on October 6th for the opening of Interlude 20/21 highlights recent acquisitions in relation to works from the museum’s permanent collection. Each work provides insight into how an artist has reckoned with key issues and artistic trends of their time. We are particularly enthusiastic about the addition of works by Atlanta-based artists. They reveal that artists in the American South, and Black cultural institutions, continue to transform the visual landscape of the twenty-first century in profound ways.

Our Covid-19 Policies

To ensure the safety of our staff members and visitors, Clark Atlanta University Art Museum (CAUAM) is limiting the number of people in the museum to 10 at a time to allow for social distancing while viewing the exhibitions in each gallery space. All guests are required to wear masks inside the museum and will be asked to sanitize their hands upon entering. Timed tickets are only for one hour.

If you are sick, are showing symptoms of COVID-19, or have been exposed to the virus, we ask that you stay home and wait until you have a negative COVID-19 test and/or have been cleared by a doctor to visit CAUAM.

You can email us at cauartmuseum@gmail.com if you have any questions.

A Conversation with Kiese Laymon and Jesmyn Ward

Wednesday, February 15, 2020, 4 – 5:15 pm

Join us on February 17th from 4:00pm-5:15pm for a conversation with Kiese Laymon and Jesmyn Ward. This discussion is being brought to you by The New MississippiS Project, a collaboration between universities and museums in the southeastern United States, and the African American Read-In at Augusta University. This public program will serve as an educational platform that engages contemporary writers from Mississippi to deepen the discussion about the intersection of ecological and sociopolitical injustice. RSVP here. 

Clark Atlanta University's Covid-19 Response 

For information regarding CAU's Covid-19 response, click here.  

Artist in Dailouge at ZMA

Please join our Tina Dunkley Curatorial Fellows this Wednesday in conversation with Atlanta based artists Krista Clark and Zipporah Camille Thompson at the Zuckerman Museum of Art. The galleries open at 6:00 pm with the conversation beginning promptly at 6:30 pm.
The event is free and open to the public.

Clark and Thompson's art works are featured in "UNBOUND" and "Looming Chaos" now on view until May 10th at the Zuckerman. The exhibitions approach abstraction and its utility in interrogating identity, politics, and artistic expression.

For more on Krista Clark visit:
https://www.kristaclark.com/

For more on Zipporah Camille Thompson visit:
http://www.zipporahcamille.com/home

For more information on "UNBOUND" and "Looming Chaos,"
https://arts.kennesaw.edu/zuckerman/exhibitions/current.php

Opening of or L’Autre Bord & Black and Blur

Sunday, February 23, 2020, 4 – 6 pm

The Bridge of Beyond, or L’Autre Bord, is the final project for Black Optics Artist in Residence Guy Gabon. It consists of a new body of work inspired by her engagement with both the museum’s collection and the city of Atlanta. 

Black and Blur features a large-scale installation and abstract paintings by Atlanta-based artist Michi Meko. The title is inspired by the work of Fred Moten. In Black and Blur: consent not to being a single being, Moten uses his intimate knowledge of music and performance to expand understanding of the concept of blackness. Meko shares with Moten a desire to give form to blackness as an aesthetic and human experience. Meko’s concern with color, material, and the meditative seamlessly come together in the large-scale installation.

Opening of Tina Dunkley Curatorial Fellows’ Exhibitions at ZMA

January 25, 2019 3-7 pm at the Zuckerman Museum of Art

Join our Tina Dunkley Curatorial Fellows, Nzinga Simmons and TK Smith for their opening of their exhibitions "UNBOUND" and "Looming Chaos," at the Zuckerman Museum of Art.

The exhibitions are the cumulative projects of the inaugural Tina Dunkley Fellows. The multi-institutional, cross-regional curatorial fellowship is a collaborative project between Clark Atlanta University Art Museum (CAUAM), the Zuckerman Museum of Art (ZMA), and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. The fellowship is meant to foster the next generation of museum professionals.

Exhibition Opening

Sunday, September 15, 2019 at 4-6 pm

Guy Gabon: Soleil de la Conscience, John WIlson: A Sense of Something Universal, and Crafting for Life - A Permanent Collection Exhibition. 

Black Optics Artist Residency  

The Black Optics Artist Residency Program is for emerging and established artists of the African Diaspora. The artist-in-residence is expected to create a new work that is connected to either the museum’s permanent collection or a temporary exhibition. The visiting artist will also develop programming that involves sharing their work and area of expertise (e.g. printmaking, sculpting, playwriting, fashion design) with faculty and students at Clark Atlanta University and broader Atlanta communities.  

The artist residency program supports Clark Atlanta University Art Museum’ goal of being a center for the presentation and critical study of African Diaspora art and museum praxis. The visiting artist is given time and space for creative growth and experimentation. Their project should generate new perspectives about the museum’s permanent collection, exhibition, and/or contemporary museum practices. 

CAUAM Announces New Acquisitions

Posted on Wednesday, May 01, 2019

ATLANTA, GA – April 30, 2019 – Clark Atlanta University (CAU) today announced that it has acquired six new works from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation (SGDF) for the University’s permanent collection. The Souls Grown Deep Foundation is the foremost collection of artworks by artists from the African American South. The newly acquired works for CAU contribute to and expand the collection by adding textiles and work by folk artists.

Clark Atlanta University Art Museum is the second historically black university (HBCU) to receive a gift of works from the foundation. The selected works for the Clark Atlanta Art Museum collection include four Gee’s Bend quilts, with an emphasis on Bricklayer and Medallion motifs, as well as sculptures by Thornton Dial Jr. and Dilmus Hall. These works will be shown in the exhibition “Crafting a Life” during the 2019–2020 academic year.

CAU joins three other institutions in expanding the collection: Minneapolis Institute of Art (Mia), Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and The Phillips Collection.   SGDF’s collection transfer program is designed to strengthen the presentation of African American artists from the Southern United States in the permanent collections of leading museums across the world. With the addition of these four museums, the foundation has now placed more than 350 works by over 100 artists in 16 institutions, primarily through a combination of gift/purchase.

The Sweet Spot Book Signing with Alfred Conteh

Saturday, June 29th, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm

You are cordially invited to join us at the museum this Saturday, June 29th, from 2:00 to 4:00 pm for The Sweet Spot  exhibition catalog book signing with Alfred Conteh!

The Sweet Spot exhibition and catalog contributes to a growing interest in examining the significance of the South in relation to the production of African American art and critical intellectual thought. The catalog chronicles the two-part exhibition, inspired by Conteh’s painting The Sweet Spot.

The exhibitions pulls from Conteh’s Two Fronts and Tetanus series. Part one highlights landscapes as specific sites and as territories of the mind, while part two features portraits of African Americans from the southside of Atlanta. Together, they demonstrate the artist’s desire to make an explicit connection between his subjects and the difficult environments in which they reside despite the tensions between the rhetoric of Atlanta as renaissance and reality of many of its residents.

The full color catalog, produced through a partnership with Kavi Gupta Gallery, includes an essay by the curator, Dr. Maurita Poole, and additional commentary. 

#ProtectYoHeARTDay Honoring Nipsey Hussle

Tuesday, April 23, 2019 @ 04:00 PM - 06:00 PM

Join CAUAM on April 23rd from 4:00 to 6:00 pm for an open gallery experience as we live-stream the Love Is open mic and town hall conversation conducted by National artists Sheila Pree Brightand Alfred Conteh for Protect Yo Heart Day!

Bright and Conteh's work, which is currently on view at the museum through June, illustrates the role of visual art in community preservation and social justice advocacy. They will present themes in their work which connect to the #ProtectYoHeART campaign created in 2009 by @UncuttART. It was introduced to the world at Art Basel (2014) with his first mural in Wynwood (Miami). The #ProtectYoHeART stencil can be seen in every major city across the United States, and it is much more than just art; it is symbolic in inspiring people to honor self-love and self-appreciation. The art campaign has grown organically, resulting in over 3 million social media posts and over 1 billion likes on Instagram.

Details
Love Is Open Mic & The Sweet Spot II | 4:00 to 5:00 pm 
To participate, email cauartmuseum@gmail, message us on social media @cauArtMuesum, or arrive early to sign-up for open mic! Express affirmations and meditations in alignment with the Protect Yo Heart call to actions.

Conversation with Sheila Pree Bright & Alfred Conteh | 5:00 to 5:30 pm 
Bright and Conteh will discuss their works in regard to the campaign and the impact of Nipsey Hussle's love and struggle for the community. Bright will discuss her earlier work shooting hip hop culture in Houston Texas and images of the rapper Scarface, featured in the book Contact High: A Visual History in Hip-Hop Culture. Conteh will focus on his body of work inspired by daily life in areas of Atlanta where mostly African Americans reside. 

Town Hall with Artists & Audience | 5:30 to 6:00 pm 
The artists will open the conversation to museum guests.

Curator Talk with Martina Dodd

March 21, 2019

Join us on Thursday, March 21st for the Black Interiors curator talk with Martina Dodd. The exhibition, drawn entirely from Clark Atlanta University Art Museum’s permanent collection, calls attention to interior spaces as sites of liberation and creative expression. Within the enclosed walls of the home African Americans have re-envision space as freedom, fashioning their dwellings to reflect their personal values and cultural memory.

Artist Talk with Sheila Pree Bright 

October 25, 2018

Join us today, Thursday 10/25, as Sheila Pree Bright discusses the #1960Now series, a documentation of current social justice movements. Rather than the black-and-white portraiture characteristic of the series, this show highlights her still shots on aluminum and the video Art + Intersections. Juxtaposing iconic moments from the Civil Rights Movement and Black Lives Matter, Bright’s video shows similarities in the activism of the two eras. At the same time, she thoughtfully connects artistic design, technological innovation, and the pursuit of social justice.

Artist Talk with Alfred Conteh

October 28, 2018

Join us this Sunday as Alfred Conteh discusses The Sweet Spot. This two-part exhibition revisits Alfred Conteh’s Two Fronts and Tetanus series. It takes its name from one of his landscape paintings and explores the notion of freedom in relation to living one’s best life. The first part of the exhibition emphasizes Conteh’s landscape paintings. The second, which will open in February, focuses on portraiture. Both landscapes and portraits are contrasted with an on-site installation and sculpture from the artist’s Tetanus series.