New Installation Fresh Paint: Derrick Adams at the Parrish Art Museum

Water Mill, NY, September 30, 2024 — This fall, the Parrish Art Museum continues its groundbreaking collaboration with The FLAG Art Foundation with the latest installation of FRESH PAINT, featuring a striking new work by Derrick Adams. FRESH PAINT spotlights the latest works by both emerging and established artists, fostering a direct response to current issues and cultural movements. The rotating series of SINGLE-ARTWORK EXHIBITIONS housed in the Creativity Lounge at the Parrish Art Museum features a large-scale work by Derrick Adams finished within the last few weeks. The painting riffs on cultural signifiers, featuring a Black Cowboy holding an eagle who carries a tiny designer bag in its beak. In the far distance, a Native American teepee stands proud on top of a canyon. The Creativity Lounge is open to the public at no charge during regular Museum hours. For the second installment of FRESH PAINT, the Museum and FLAG have invited Brooklyn-born writer and visual artist Folasade Ologundudu to contribute a long-form interpretive text providing visitors with an in-depth take on Derrick Adams and his artistic style.

FRESH PAINT builds upon the Parrish Art Museum's legacy of fostering community engagement and showcasing diverse artistic voices. Scheduled to debut on October 14, 2024, the second installation —following the FRESH PAINT debut of Lauren Halsey’s work—features Derrick Adams’ Getting the Bag, created this year. The painting will be on view from October 14, 2024, through January 5, 2025. A special program with Derrick Adams will take place at the Parrish on Friday, November 15, at 6 pm.

Derrick Adams is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Adams' work celebrates and expands the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture through scenes of normalcy and perseverance.

Derrick Adams received his BFA from Pratt Institute, New York, in 1996 and graduated with an MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2003. In addition to his critically acclaimed art practice, Adams has held numerous teaching positions and is currently a tenured assistant professor in the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College. He also holds an honorary doctorate from Maryland Institute College of Art.

In 2022, Adams established Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a non-profit organization to support and encourage underserved communities in the city of Baltimore through events conducted by three entities: The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program that subscribes to the concept of leisure as therapy for the Black creative; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative counter-institutional space for collecting, storing, and safekeeping the data of local archival initiatives; and Zora’s Den, an online community of Black women writers started in January 2017, which has since expanded to in-person writing workshops, a writers’ circle, and a monthly reading series that strive to promote instruction, support, and social engagement.

FRESH PAINT is an innovative exhibition program developed by the Parrish Art Museum and the FLAG Art Foundation. FRESH PAINT circumvents traditional exhibition planning timelines, which extend years into the future and provides a platform for the Parrish and FLAG to be responsive to cultural events and promptly showcase freshly created artworks and ideas.  This approach fosters a timelier dialogue between the Museum, visitors, and our surrounding community.

FRESH PAINT will extend its impact beyond exhibition spaces through educational initiatives like ARTscope. This teen-focused program offers participants a comprehensive exploration of the visual arts, career pathways, and practical experience in museum operations. From writing blogs to curating small exhibitions, participating students gain valuable skills and insights while receiving a stipend for their contributions.

Each new artwork will be accompanied by two sets of interpretative texts: one will be a commissioned piece of writing, creating focused and thoughtful conversations between the visual arts and authors, critics, poets, scholars, and beyond; and the other will be created in collaboration with members of the Parrish Teen Council ARTscope and other museum youth groups. 

The FRESH PAINT series builds on a recent focus on projects at the Parrish that highlight diverse artists responding to cultural change. In 2017, Aggie Gund established the Dorothy Lichtenstein ArtsReach Fund at the Parrish, which recognizes that the Museum serves a year-round and increasingly diverse community. Spearheaded by Chief Curator Corinne Erni, ArtsReach has allowed collaborations with artists that include Hank Willis Thomas, Tomashi Jackson, Barthélémy Toguo, and the local Shinnecock Nation. FRESH PAINT represents another bold step forward for the Parrish, further connecting our community to the artists of today and the aspirations of tomorrow.

The FLAG Art Foundation is a non-collecting, nonprofit exhibition space that mounts solo, two-person, and thematic group exhibitions centering on emerging and established artists from around the globe. Organized by a diverse community of curators and thinkers within and beyond the art world, FLAG opened to the public in 2008 and has staged over 100 exhibitions celebrating the work of nearly 1,000 artists. Committed to providing education and resources for its surrounding community, and across New York City, all exhibitions and programs—including artist talks, artist-led workshops, and guided tours for school and museum groups—are free and open to the public. 

FLAG provides various projects, prizes, and initiatives that offer dynamic support to contemporary artists. Its recurring Spotlight series features a new or never-before-exhibited artwork accompanied by a commissioned piece of writing, encouraging focused and thoughtful dialogues between the visual arts and critics, scholars, poets, and beyond. The Suzanne Deal Booth/FLAG Art Foundation Prize comprises a $200,000 unrestricted award to an artist along with two solo exhibitions—originating at The Contemporary Austin, Austin, TX, and traveling to FLAG—an accompanying publication, and related public programming. Over the years, FLAG has collaborated with local, national, and international organizations including Art & Newport, Newport, RI, The Harlem Children’s Zone, New York, NY, The Lab and Museum School, New York, NY, New Curators, London, UK, and New York Road Runners, New York, NY, to reach an audience of all ages and backgrounds.

The FLAG Art Foundation was founded by Glenn Fuhrman, an art patron and philanthropist, and alongside his wife Amanda, a Co-Founder of The Fuhrman Family Foundation. Fuhrman is a Trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and The Tate Americas Foundation, New York, NY, and is a Board Member of The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA. He is also a Board Member of the 92nd Street Y, New York, and The Central Park Conservancy, New York, NY.

The Parrish Art Museum is a place to discover and connect with artists and art with a focus on the rich creative legacy of the East End and its global impact on the art world. Inspired by the natural setting and historical artistic community of Long Island’s East End, the Parrish Art Museum celebrates its legacy through a distinctive contemporary lens and socially conscious global context. The Parrish illuminates the creative process and how art, architecture, and design transform our experiences and our communities, and how we relate to the world. Access to relevant cultural engagement, artistic inspiration, a natural environment, and architectural ingenuity characterizes the Museum experience as a unique destination for the region, the nation, and the world.