12 Galleries That Aren’t in New York or Even Los Angeles
These institutions are a reminder that exciting art is being made and shown all across the country - and of the benefits of going local.
"Chicago makes sense," Mariane Ibrahim says about her gallery's 2019 shift to the Midwest, after having been in Washington for seven years. "The role the gallery plays within the city is to reinforce an already existing and strong art community." Even before its relocation, though, the gallery had become known as one of the most reliable and influential proponents of artists belonging to the African diaspora. Last fall, it exhibited work from the rising Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo, and is currently staging the debut solo show of Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze, a Nigerian-born, Philadelphia- and Brooklyn-based artist who makes collaged drawings on paper. Another recent development was Ibrahim's decision to open an outpost in Paris, which in the 1920s, '30s and '40s served as a refuge for various Black American expats and has more recently been a flash point in the ongoing drive for the repatriation of African art. It's something of a homecoming for Ibrahim, who grew up between Somalia and France.