Want to learn more? 

The following books were selected in support of the exhibition Convergence: Cracks in the Glass Ceiling. 

All the resources listed below are available free for GVSU students, faculty, and staff through the University Libraries using your GVSU login credentials. Special thanks to University librarians Amber Dierking and Kim Ranger for their support of our exhibition reading lists.

Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power

Edited by Mark Godfey and Zoé Whitley, with contributions by Susan E. Cahan, David C. Driskell, Edmund Barry Gaither, Linda Goode Bryant, Jae and Wadsworth Jarrell, Samella Lewis
London: Tate Publishing, 2017

In the period of radical change that was 1963-1983, young black artists at the beginning of their careers in the USA confronted key questions and pressures. How could they make art that would stand as innovative, original, formally and materially complex, while also making work that reflected their concerns and experience as black Americans? 

Find "Soul of a Nation" at the GVSU University Libraries.

Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power

Susan E. Cahan
Durham: Duke University Press, 2016
eBook

Susan E. Cahan investigates the strategies African American artists and museum professionals employed as they wrangled over access to and the direction of New York City's elite museums.

Find "Mounting Frustration" at the GVSU University Libraries.

An Incomplete History of Exclusion: Modern and Contemporary Black Art and the U.S. Art Museum

Tiffany Li
Southern California Interdisciplinary Law Journal, Vol. 30, Issue 3 (2021), pp. 795-826
eArticle

Historically white art museums have adopted policies of diversity and inclusion that are not reflected in their leadership and curatorial ranks. and representation of Black artists in collections and exhibitions. Mission statements welcoming diversity and inclusion are only symbolic because museums have not adopted the structural changes that will lead to diverse and inclusive artistic representation. Even if museums claim they are implementing diverse and inclusive hiring processes and exhibition strategies, the people at the top of the power and wealth hierarchy at museums are board members who are predominantly white men who want to fund museums that reflect their interests, namely, exchanging money and gifts of art for positive public image and influence over the works and messages shown b), museums. 

Find "An Incomplete History of Exclusion" at the GVSU University Libraries.

African American Art and Artists

Samella Lewis 
Berkeley: University of California Press, 1990

African American Art and Artists examines the skilled craftsmen of Colonial America and the artists who used their art to further the cause of black liberation; the emergence of the professional artist and the development of the Harlem Renaissance; the unparalleled creative expressions of the 1960s and 1970s, and the new voices of the 1980s and 1990s. It is a balanced and well-researched art history tome that is eminently readable. It affirms through astute comparisons the importance of African traditions to the development of African American cultural expression in the United States. 

Find "African American Art and Artists" at the GVSU University Libraries.