Elizabeth Catlett</a>’s powerful portrayal of an African-American grandmother and grandson, as well as Caren King Choi’s recent, monumental depiction of her Asian American nieces and nephews. Also included are works by artists from a variety of Indigenous/Native American communities, including Melanie Yazzi (Navajo) and <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Organization/Montclair-Art-Museum/"/Artist/Mario-Martinez/187EB406E9BF3F71">Mario Martinez</a> (Pascua Yaqui).</p><p>The Museum’s collections reflect the diverse roots of American culture, as well as both individual and common experiences shared across lines of race, gender, ethnicity, religion, and geographic region.</p><p><br></p>" itemprop="description" />

Carter has used the language of abstraction—shape, line, color, and texture—to reflect the world around her. For the past thirty years, she has addressed issues weighing on contemporary society through large Mylar collages. Carter’s ongoing series, Shifting Perspectives, alludes to recent changes she finds disturbing: an increasingly polarized Congress, threats to Democracy, the erosion of women’s rights, the rise of political extremism, and anxiety about climate change. The monumentally scaled work that will be on view in the Laurie Art Stairway reinterprets one of these earlier collages, Shifting Perspectives #6 (2024), and transforms it into a vibrant and striking mural.</p><p>For this new version, Carter digitally alters her original composition of precariously balanced shapes climbing up the wall. By rotating elements of the original composition, moving others, and adding intense coloring, Carter changes the work’s impact. The shapes, interlocked in dynamic tension, create a rhythmic pattern across the wall like the notes on a musical score.</p><p>This implied motion is an important concept for Carter, who sees moving forward as a sign of hope. The mural, with its dramatic scale, can be seen as a billboard promoting equilibrium against instability. Carter’s Shifting Perspectives provides us with a visual metaphor for maintaining or shifting our own perspectives—especially when living through fraught and challenging times.</p><p><br></p>" itemprop="description" />

Jazlyne Sabree</a>, this year’s AACC Founders’ Fellow, presents an evocative exploration of dignity and vulnerability, oppression and safety, within the African American experience. The AACC Founders Fellowship honors the organization’s founding members by supporting the career growth of recent African American graduates of master’s or doctoral programs in visual arts or art history.</p><p>In this exhibition, Sabree employs candid photographs of the African diasporic community, animal hides, acrylic paint, and an array of found materials to confront societal injustices. Her work seeks justice and healing by addressing the enduring harms inflicted on society’s most vulnerable groups, offering a vision for collective restoration.</p><p><br></p>" itemprop="description" />

Montclair Art Museum</a>’s collection has grown significantly, in accordance with its mission to reflect the rich diversity of American culture, past and present. Featuring a variety of historic, modern, and contemporary works from 1880 through 2024, this collection-based exhibition also encompasses a range of themes, styles, art movements, and mediums. The exhibition title playfully references the names of two featured contemporary artists, <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Organization/Montclair-Art-Museum/"/Artist/Derrick-Adams/ED905EB600E3019F">Derrick Adams</a> and <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Organization/Montclair-Art-Museum/"/Artist/Sarah-Sze/5782F77A27D71A26">Sarah Sze</a>. The mixed media collage There’s More Than One Beauty School (2018) by Adams and Sze’s large-scale installation Random Walk Drawing (Air) (2011) are among the Museum’s most recent and ambitious acquisitions. They are presented here for the first time, along with 23 other works, rarely or never displayed before.<p><br></p>" itemprop="description" />

Nanette Carter</a> (b. 1954) has made art that reflects the world around her. Using the language of abstraction—line, shape, color, pattern, and texture—she speaks to issues that burden contemporary society. Throughout her career, Carter has investigated the idea of balance, both as a compositional element and as a strategy for navigating a rapidly changing world. Nanette Carter: A Question of Balance, examines the artist’s fascination with the tension between instability and equilibrium.</p><p>Her works from the last 30 years allude to a world impacted by social injustice, political upheaval, and a nonstop stream of news and social media. Her powerful abstractions are visual metaphors for what weighs us down or knocks us off balance, and how we carry that weight.</p><p><br></p>" itemprop="description" />