SANFORD BIGGERS

The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time May 14, 2021–April 10, 2022 Great Hall, 1st Floor The Slipstream: Reflection, Resilience, and Resistance in the Art of Our Time draws examples from our contemporary art collection to contemplate the profound disruption that occurred in 2020. Borrowing its title from an aeronautical term that refers to the pull of the current that is left in the wake of a large and powerful object, the exhibition examines the…

AbStranded features ten contemporary American artists—Polly Apfelbaum, Paolo Arao, Sanford Biggers, Samantha Bittman, Julia Bland, Rachel B. Hayes, Elana Herzog, Anne Lindberg, Sheila Pepe, and Sarah Zapata—who use fiber-based materials to investigate the complex lineage of abstraction. Utilizing a diverse variety of methods, styles, and forms, these artists uncover and co-opt textile traditions and material sources in order to re-assert their validity and relevance in an increasingly global-industrial culture. A prominent use of the hand looms large—through knitting, weaving, quilting,…

Curated Vesela Sretrenovic Intersections—Sanford Biggers: Mosaic October 16, 2021–January 9, 2022 Biggers’s new body of work connects works from the Phillips’s collection—quilts from Gee’s Bend and a group of European modernist sculptures—to his multidisciplinary practice that bridges African American identities, Buddhism, and the Western art canon.

Discover the extraordinary stories behind 300 years of American quilts Quilts and coverlets have a unique capacity to tell stories: their tactile, intricate mode of creation and their traditional use in the home impart deeply personal narratives of their creators, and the many histories they express reveal a complex record of America. Quilts have also been used in North America since the 17th century, and their story, told by many voices, has evolved alongside the United States. Upending expectations about…

The Phillips Collection presents Mosaic Performance, a Centennial commission combining music and dance, and engaging Sanford Biggers’s sand-floor installation created in dialogue with Gee’s Bend Quilts from the Phillips’s permanent collection as part of his Intersections project Mosaic. Biggers’s multimedia work draws from the rich history and creative practices of African American music and performance, notably within his own Afro-futurist project, Moon Medecin, a collaborative group of musicians and artists who combine sound and music with an array of visual…