For the 2023 edition of Paris+ par Art Basel, BLUM is pleased to present a solo booth of paintings and sculptures by Atlanta-based multimedia artist and celebrated musician Lonnie Holley. Expanding his visual practice of memorialization, Holley composes new abstract paintings on canvas, paper, or quilt that utilize his signature layered facial profiles. Holley often uses the quilt as a picture plane to pay homage to women’s work and to harness the charged aura of Black American ancestral history and culture. Alongside these wall-based works are intricate readymade sculptures forged from refuse that the artist has variously recategorized as domestically scaled monuments to loved ones or to important moments in the Civil Rights movement. Acting as a succinct sampling of Holley’s extensive body of work, this presentation includes art objects made as early as 1989 and as recently as this year.
Lonnie Holley (b. Birmingham, AL, 1950) lives and works in Atlanta, Georgia. Holley’s work has been the subject of numerous museum solo exhibitions including at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, FL (2023); Dallas Contemporary, Dallas, TX (2022); Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, NY (2021); Atlanta Contemporary Art Center, Atlanta, GA (2017); Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC (2015); Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL (2004), and many more. His work is represented in the permanent collections of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; among many others. Holley has been the subject of several documentary films, and his own directed short film I Snuck off the Slave Ship premiered at Sundance in 2019. A survey of his work will be published in a comprehensive monograph by Rizzoli Electa in 2024, featuring new scholarship and rare material from the artist’s extensive oeuvre. Holley’s most recent album Oh Me Oh My was released with Jagjaguwar in 2023 to much acclaim including Best New Album on Pitchfork.
Our website uses cookies to improve user experience. Please click here to learn more.
By continuing to browse you are giving us your consent to our use of cookies. I Accept
BLUM Tokyo is closed for installation until Saturday, May 18.