Unsettled Things

Unsettled Things: Art from an African American South presents forty-four works by twenty-eight artists. Long marginalized under categories like “folk,” “self-taught,” or “outsider,” these makers from the South, itself a region often overlooked by the art world, are now emerging as major figures in new histories of American art. Unsettled Things advances the unfinished business of rethinking hierarchies and promoting fresh perspectives. It embraces a world of creative expression that opens our eyes to old realities and new possibilities.

With two precursor works from the 1940s, the selection focuses on art of the past five decades. Artists include Leroy Almon, Mary Lee Bendolph, Hawkins Bolden, Richard Burnside, Archie Byron, Thornton Dial, Sam Doyle, Minnie Evans, Bessie Harvey, Lonnie Holley, Joe Light, Ronald Lockett, Charlie Lucas, Joe Minter, John B. Murray, Lucy T. Pettway, Royal Robertson, Nellie Mae Rowe, Lorenzo Scott, Mary T. Smith, Georgia Speller, Henry Speller, Jimmy Lee Sudduth, Mose Tolliver, Bill Traylor, Luster Willis, Nettie Young, and Purvis Young.