Exhibition Status: Available

Gateways: African American Art from the Key Collection

GATEWAYS: African American Art from the Key Collection

"Collecting art by African American artists has its conceptual beginning early in my development as a child.It began with the question, “Who am I?” I would always ask this question to myself in high school and as a young adult. This question nagged at me for many years as I gained a better understanding of the world around me and the absence of people with skin color like mine in it. Or, better yet, the negativity about people of color. It was not until later that many of my questions would be answered, and it was the arts, art history, and the history of people of African descent that began to give shape to my question."

—Eric Key, Collector

International Arts & Artists and Eric Key are pleased to present Gateways: African American Art from the Key Collection. Eric Key is an arts administrator, curator, investor, and collector who, being immersed in the art world for decades, has closely observed its relationship with African American artists over the years. Key began collecting African American art in the early 90s, long before the arts industry, and society at large, granted it the increased, but still not full, recognition it has today.

Consisting of 88 works, the main focus of this exhibition is to present a robust survey of African American art and to offer a glimpse into the personal stories of the artists and collector. Enlisted to tell this story are some of the most recognizable contemporary black artists: Sam Gilliam, Jacob Lawrence, Elizabeth Catlett, William Artis, Samella Lewis, and Renee Stout. Together, these artists work to dispel the many stereotypes and misunderstandings about African American art and people, but remain a kind of personal narrative. As Key states, the works in his collection are an extension of himself, a black man in a still mostly white art world; they are an extension of the country in which he lives and an extension of the artists who created them.

IA&A is extremely pleased to bring this exhibition and its insight into African American art to our partners. Gateways will tour from 2025 to 2029 and is now open for bookings.

Please contact Nicole Byers for more information and bookings.

Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass

Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass

"The glass art created by American Indian artists not only is a personal expression of each artist but also is imbued with their cultural heritage.  These artists have melded the aesthetics and properties inherent in glass art with their cultural ways of knowing.  The result is the stunning collection of artworks presented here."

– Letitia Chambers, Curator

Clearly Indigenous: Native Visions Reimagined in Glass is a first-of-its-kind, groundbreaking exhibition giving broader and overdue recognition to a wide range of contemporary Native American and indigenous, Pacific-Rim artists working in glass. This powerful, innovative, and majestic exhibition will be toured by International Arts & Artists through 2029.

Clearly Indigenous includes approximately 120 glass art objects created by twenty-nine Native American artists, four Pacific Rim artists from New Zealand and Australia, and leading glass artist Dale Chihuly, who first introduced glass art to Indian country. Dr. Letitia Chambers, former CEO of the Heard Museum in Phoenix, Arizona, curated the exhibition together with artist and museum consultant Cathy Short (Citizen Potawatomi Nation), and the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (MIAC) in Santa Fe, New Mexico, which originated this seminal exhibition.

Please contact Isabelle Baldwin for more information and bookings.

Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper

Washi Transformed: New Expressions in Japanese Paper

“These nine contemporary Japanese artists are revisiting their nation’s traditional material and elevating it into a medium for expressive and often spectacular works of art.”
– Meher McArthur, Curator

Washi Transformed presents over thirty-five highly textured two-dimensional works, expressive sculptures, and dramatic installations that explore the astonishing potential of this traditional medium. In this exhibition, nine Japanese artists embrace the seemingly infinite possibilities of washi, underscoring the unique stature this ancient art form has earned in the realm of international contemporary art. The breathtaking creativity of these artistic visionaries deepens our understanding of how the past informs the present, and how it can build lasting cultural bridges out of something as seemingly simple and ephemeral as paper.

Washi Transformed features work by nine contemporary Japanese artists: Hina Aoyama, Eriko Horiki, Kyoko Ibe, Yoshio Ikezaki, Kakuko Ishii, Yuko Kimura, Yuko Nishimura, Takaaki Tanaka, and Ayomi Yoshida.

IA&A is proud to collaborate for a fourth time with Los Angeles-based historian of Japanese art Meher McArthur, curator of successful IA&A traveling exhibitions Folding Paper: The Infinite Possibilities of Origami (2012-2016) and Above the Fold: New Expressions in Contemporary Origami Art (2015-2020); and co-curator of Nature, Tradition and Innovation: Japanese Ceramics from the Gordon Brodfuehrer Collection (2016-2019).

For booking and general inquiries please contact Nicole Byers.