“An Artist’s Piercing Yet Playful Look at Race”: Ken Johnson profiles the concurrent Rodney McMillian exhibitions at the Institute of Contemporary Art, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and MoMA PS1.
“The Black Show”, at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, finds [McMillian] coming fully into his own with a finely orchestrated installation,“ writes Johnson. In the darkened gallery, a giant abstract landscape painting, “Many moons” (2015), hangs like a theatrical curtain from a serpentine ceiling track, while videos play on flatscreens or are projected on screens suspended in midair. Big, predominantly black paintings in various shapes are on the walls and, in one case, wrapped around a gallery column and fixed by a long black zipper. (The show was organized by the institute’s chief curator, Anthony Elms.)