For Frieze, New York 2021, Bruce Silverstein Gallery will present photographic and painted works by artists from The Kamoinge Workshop. Artists include Adger Cowans, Louis Draper, Herman Howard, Jimmie Mannas, Herb Robinson, and Ming Smith.
The Kamoinge Workshop was founded in the early 1960s by Ray Francis and Louis Draper, along with founding member Adger Cowans. Kamoigne, translating to "group effort" from the language of the Kikuyu people of Kenya, grew to include fellow artists Anthony Barboza, Danny Dawson, Al Fennar, Herman Howard, Earl James, Jimmy Mannas, Herbert Randall, Herb Robinson, Beuford Smith, Ming Smith, Larry Stewart, Shawn Walker, and Calvin Wilson. Roy DeCarava served at the group's esteemed mentor and friend. Through the varied practices of the Kamoinge members, which range from street photography to painting, and from abstraction to portraiture, global African-American and African communities are portrayed with dignity and positivity, as well as having agency, rather than as being victimized by social and political oppression. The work speaks to the collective and deeply textured experiences of Black people, the reverberations of which continue today.
Works by members of The Kamoinge Workshop were part of Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power 1963 – 1983 organized by the Tate Modern in 2017 and traveled internationally. Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop, organized by the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, opened in February 2020 and will travel to the Whitney Museum of American Art.