For several decades beginning during World War I, millions of Black Americans left the Southern United States for the North, Midwest, and West—a mass exodus known as the Great Migration. A child of migrants, painter Jacob Lawrence grew up in Harlem, where he set out from an early age to make art that addressed Black histories. “This is my genre . . . the happiness, tragedies, and the sorrows of mankind,” Lawrence stated. In 1940 he embarked on making the Migration Series.
Artist Christopher Cozier’s own migration story began in 1983, when he left Trinidad and Tobago to study in the United States, where he was embraced by New York’s creative community. In 1988 he returned to his home country to live and work, but continued to travel, navigating both the international art world and stereotypes and myths of and from the Caribbean. Cozier’s experiences of different places inform Tropical Night (2006–14), which, like Lawrence’s work, unfolds across multiple compositions. It does not offer a set narrative, but encourages us to create our own.
Organized by Esther Adler, Curator, with Rachel Remick, Curatorial Assistant.
