Bridget R. Cooks. (Photo by Evelina Pentchev.)
This article is part of a series of conversations with scholars engaged with Black art for Black History Month. See also Folasade Ologundudu’s interviews with Richard J. Powell, Darby English, and Sarah Lewis.
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In her much-discussed 2011 book,
Exhibiting Blackness: African Americans and the American Art Museum, Cooks looked at the ways that museums have perpetuated racial inequity through the presentation and curation of African American and African diaspora artists. Her account started with the very first show in America featuring African American artists, at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1927, and continued into the 21st century with the reception of figures including the Gee’s Bend quilters.