Colescott Night: comedy and performances curated and hosted by Melissa DuPrey will include DJ sets by Sadie Woods in the Exhibit Hall (6–7pm and 8:30–9:30pm); a screening of Colescott’s “Dulacrow’s Masterwork: A Mockumentary Film,” 1976 (6–7pm); and the main program in Preston Bradley Hall featuring Taneshia “Just Nesh” Rice, Calvin Evans and Windy Indie (7–8:30pm). ASL interpretation will be provided. 

Melissa DuPrey notes, “As comedians, we are called to highlight the hypocrisy and, most times, the absurdity of racial and societal inequities, while we still must live these experiences as Black and Brown bodies well after we leave the stage. I’m honored to help make the connection between Colescott’s early work and how comedy is currently living during these hypercritical times by inviting comics and performers I admire who utilize these intersections in their art.”

Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott is a free exhibition brings together 55 paintings and works on paper spanning 50 years of Colescott’s prolific career. The exhibition has been extended through May 29, 2022.

Art and Race Matters invites a renewed examination of the artist, whose work is still as challenging, provocative and relevant now as it was when he burst onto the art scene over five decades ago. Presenting works from across Colescott’s career, the exhibition traces the progression of his stylistic development and the impact of place on his practice, revealing the diversity and range of his oeuvre: from his adaptations of Bay Area Figuration in the 1950s and 60s, to his signature graphic style of the 1970s, and the dense, painterly figuration of his later work. Art and Race Matters also explores prevalent themes in Colescott’s work, including the complexities of identity, societal standards of beauty, the reality of the American Dream and the role of the artist as arbiter and witness in contemporary life.

Art and Race Matters: The Career of Robert Colescott is co-curated by Lowery Stokes Sims and Matthew Weseley, and organized by Raphaela Platow, the Contemporary Arts Center’s Alice & Harris Weston Director and Chief Curator. Following its debut in Cincinnati, the exhibition traveled to the Portland Art Museum, Sarasota Museum of Art and Chicago Cultural Center.

GO WEST, 1980. Acrylic on canvas. Courtesy of The Robert H. Colescott Separate Property Trust and Blum & Poe, Los Angeles/New York/Tokyo. Photo Credit: Joshua White. © 2021 The Robert H. Colescott Separate Property Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.