FAAAC presents Modern Rhythms

Honor a major milestone with the Friends of African American Art & Culture (FAAAC) and meet the CMA’s new curator, Michael Neumeister. The CMA affinity group celebrates Modern Rhythms, a new gallery featuring works on paper from the CMA Collection and showcasing FAAAC’s first-ever art acquisition — Oliver Lee Jackson’s Monotype IV (2006) — recently gifted to the museum. The evening begins with a cocktail reception hour in The Loft that includes the smooth jazz stylings of saxophonist Dante Lewis, light appetizers, and a cash bar. Neumeister then discusses the works newly on view in the light-sensitive gallery. Afterwards, attendees are encouraged to visit the Modern Rhythms gallery and to enjoy self-guided tours of works on view by Black artists throughout the collection galleries.

This event also serves as the annual meeting for members of FAAAC. During cocktail hour, Therese A. Griffin, president, briefly reviews the activities of the 2021–2022 fiscal year.

The Modern Rhythms gallery uses Jackson’s Monotype IV as a basis with which to consider the relationship between visual art and music. In the late 1960s, Jackson was associated with the Black Artists’ Group (BAG), an interdisciplinary St. Louis collective led by the saxophonist Julius Hemphill. Like many artists of the period, he was inspired by jazz’s dynamic, expressive qualities and saw parallels between creating music and his own artmaking. Drawn wholly from the museum’s collection, Modern Rhythms presents Jackson’s work in dialogue with peers — including Romare Bearden, Betty Blayton-Taylor, and Wadsworth Jarrell — whose practices were variously informed by musical sources.

$5 / free for FAAAC members. Join today!