The ADAMA Arts Salon is presented with support from the City of Atlanta Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs.
EVENTS
ADAMA Arts Salon
Season 5 of our signature Arts Salon explores the contributions to contemporary art and culture with a selection of artists, scholars, and more from around the world. Additionally, this new season will feature LIVE events that are simultaneously live-streamed.
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
On March 27, 2022 we are thrilled to present a conversation between Arthur Lewis and Tony Parker of UTA Fine Arts. UTA (United Talent Agency) is one of the world’s largest entertainment companies representing a veritable who’s who in sports and entertainment. Their recent expansion into the Atlanta market signals a major nod to the great talent in Atlanta and UTA’s work in the contemporary art world is equally significant. Lewis and Parker will discuss UTA’s expansion into Atlanta and the brand’s influence in shaping the contemporary art market.
PAST EVENTS
Sunday Jan. 30
featuring
in conversation with
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
ADAMA partnered with the Consulat Generale de France à Atlanta’s Artist in Residence program Villa Albertine to present curator and scholar Maboula Soumahoro in conversation with ADAMA Director Dr. Fahamu Pecou about her new book “Black Is the Journey, Africana the Name - Critical South”.
Sunday Nov. 22
featuring
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
R. Scott Heath moderates a panel of Black male writers documenting the Black experience through poetry, prose, and political commentary. Featuring acclaimed author Kiese Laymon, The Root.com's Michael Harriot, and award-winning poet/author Jon Goode.
Sunday Nov. 8
featuring
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
This week's ADAMA Arts Salon features a panel of budding art stars. Challenging conventions and forms, these dynamic creators push the aesthetics, themes, and constructs of Black identity, Black pleasure, and Black art to new heights. Join moderator Karen Comer Lowe (Curator and Art Consultant) as she hosts a dialogue between Ari Danielle, Gerald Lovell, and Khari Johnson Ricks.
Sunday Oct. 25
featuring
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
Lights... Camera... Action!
This week's ADAMA Arts Salon features a veritable who's who amongst Black filmmakers writing, making, and sharing stories of the African Diaspora. Join moderator Maori Karmael Holmes (CEO and Founder of the BlackStar Film Festival) as she hosts a dialogue between Nzingha Stewart, Merawi Gerima, and Sophia Nahli Allison.
Sunday Oct. 11
featuring
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
For our next installment of the ADAMA Arts Salon we traverse the runway of contemporary Black fashion ans aesthetics with 2 highly acclaimed designers; Lorraine West and Mobolaji Dawodu. The conversation is moderated by Alex Delotch Davis of the lifestyle brand Gallerie 88.
Sunday Sept 13
featuring
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
This installment of the ADAMA Arts Salon explores the impact of African cultural and aesthetic influences in Latin America. Evidence of this influence is deeply embedded in all forms of Latin American music, dance, food, as well as visual art. Professor Emeritus of Spelman College , and acclaimed artist/scholar, Dr. Arturo Lindsay moderates a panel featuring artists and cultural leaders including; Imna Arroyo, Urenna Best, and Gustavo Esquina.
BROADCAST IN SPANISH / ESTA CONVERSACIÓN SERÁ TRANSMITIDA EN ESPAÑOL
Sunday Sept 6
featuring
In conversation with
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
The Season 2 premiere of the ADAMA Arts Salon features NY Times contributor and historian, Jelani Cobb in conversation with acclaimed photographer Dawoud Bey. Their conversation centers on Bey’s decades-long career documenting Black subjectivity through his captivating photographs.
Bey's comprehensive touring exhibit “An American Project” opens in November 2020 at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta.
Sunday July 19
featuring:
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
Creative expression within Blackness is so innate, we often make art without realizing or considering it as “art”. Additionally, much of our art is relegated to the realm of entertainment. This week’s panel features musicians from across the Black Diaspora working in different musical genres from jazz to hip-hop. Throughout our discussion, we will explore the role of music beyond the confines of entertainment, and explore the practice as both fine art and essential Black expression.
Sunday July 12, 2020
featuring:
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
This week’s panel features 3 acclaimed authors whose writings center the Black experience. Through our discussion, we will explore the medium and discipline of literature and its impacts on imaging the African Diaspora.
Sunday June 28, 2020
featuring:
moderated by:
Niama Safia Sandy
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
This week’s panel will center the voices of artists engaged in various forms of performance-based practice. Through our discussion, we will interrogate performance art within the context of contemporary African diasporic art and culture. We will also draw on distinctions between performance art and performing arts as well as performative traditions in Black cultural expressions.
Sunday June 21
featuring:
Ruth Carter
in conversation with
Dr. Stephane Dunn
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
African Diaspora art and culture takes many forms. The Black experience is a dynamic expression that presents itself in creative ways that go far beyond the canvas. As we explore the diversity of the Diaspora, it is equally imperative to explore its diversity in expression.
This week’s panel is a special edition conversation with Academy Award winning Costume Designer, Ruth Carter. From “Do the Right Thing” to “Black Panther”, Ruth Carter has been a force in articulating the African Diasporic experience through fashion and film. Our conversation goes behind the scenes to uncover the practical and philosophical approaches to fashion, design, film and media in Ruth’s practice. We will also explore the multiple pathways artists can take to realize their vision and voice.
Sunday June 14
featuring:
moderated by
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
This week’s panel features visual culture scholars in conversation about the impact, role, and essential nature of images and image-making in Black protest movements. The conversation will highlight the correlation between Black art practices, Black culture, and social justice.
Sunday May 31
featuring:
Hilary Balu (Kinshasa)
Delphine Diallo (Brooklyn)
Evans Mbugua (Paris)
Kouka Ntadi (Paris)
moderated by
Virginie Ehonian (Paris)
ADAMA Arts Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
In keeping with ADAMA’s mission to present and advance art and artists of the African diaspora, we are pleased to present our first non-English speaking panel. This week’s conversation features 4 Francophone artists working in various countries and diverse disciplines. We explore their individual practices as well as engage the expanding global market for African contemporary art.
*This week’s conversation will be broadcast in French with English translation.
ADAMA Art Salon est une série de conversations mettant en vedette des artistes contemporains, des conservateurs, des universitaires et bien plus de la diaspora africaine.
Conformément à la mission de l'ADAMA de présenter et de faire progresser l'art et les artistes de la diaspora africaine, nous sommes heureux de présenter notre premier panel non anglophone. La conversation de cette semaine met en vedette 4 artistes francophones travaillant dans divers pays et diverses disciplines. Nous explorons leurs pratiques individuelles et nous engageons sur le marché mondial en expansion de l'art contemporain africain.
* La conversation sera diffusée en français avec une traduction en anglais.
Sunday May 24
featuring:
in conversation with
ADAMA Art Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
This week’s conversation features the indomitable Dr. Deb Willis. An acclaimed artist, photographer, curator, historian, author, and educator, Dr. Willis chairs the Tisch School of Arts at NYU and is the founder of the conference Black Portraitures.
Dr. Willis is interviewed by Andrea Barnwell Brownlee, Director of the Spelman Museum of Fine Art and Senior Strategist, AUC Art History and Curatorial Studies Collective.
Sunday May 17
featuring:
Michael Ewing
The African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA) launched in March 2020 with the ADAMA Arts Salon series. Over the course of the last 8 weeks, we have hosted conversations with artists, curators, arts administrators, collectors, and iconic arts leaders from around the world! Quarantine and social-distancing be damned, we are in the business of building bridges and connections across the African Diaspora... after all 'Everywhere we go, there we are'!
This week we take a break from our typical format and host a roundtable/talk-back with the ADAMA Executive Board. And we invite you to join us with your questions and to learn more about the impetus for ADAMA as well as our plans and goals moving forward.
Sunday May 10
featuring:
Andrea Chung (San Diego)
Ebony G. Patterson (Chicago)
Shanequa Gay (Atlanta)
Shani Jamila (Brooklyn)
moderated by: Makeba Dixon Hill (Atlanta)
ADAMA Art Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora. ADAMA Art Salon is a series of conversations featuring contemporary artists, curators, scholars, and more from across the African Diaspora.
This week we speak with a panel of powerful women exploring diverse themes of Black female representation in contemporary art.
Sunday May 3
featuring:
Schwanda Rountree (Washington, D.C.)
Adrian Woolcock (Charlotte)
Greg Head (Atlanta)
Dr. Mboh Elango (Atlanta)
moderated by: Esohe Galbreath (Atlanta)
In this edition of the ADAMA Arts Salon we explore the role of the collectors in advancing art and culture with four dynamic collectors. With collections ranging from emerging to established, our panel discusses a range of questions around collecting, preserving, and supporting the art and artists of the African Diaspora.
Sunday April 26
featuring:
moderated by: Leatrice Ellzy
This special edition of the ADAMA Arts Salon features an exclusive conversation with Edward S. Spriggs, former Director of the Studio Museum in Harlem (1969-1975) and Director Emeritus of the Hammonds House Museum in Atlanta, GA.The conversation is moderated by Leatrice Ellzy Wright, current Director of the Hammonds House Museum. Mr. Spriggs decades-long career centers Black art and culture. A visionary and self-starter, learn how Spriggs beginnings as an artist and activist in San Francisco led him to destinations throughout the Diaspora as a leader and champion of Black art.
Sunday April 12
featuring:
Christopher Cozier (Trinidad & Tobago)
Sharelly Emanuelson (Curacao)
AJ Girard (Los Angeles)
moderated by: Rob Fields (Brooklyn)
For decades, Black artists have been overlooked and underrepresented in mainstream museums and arts institutions. This discrepancy has led many artists and entrepreneurs to take the initiative to create alternative spaces and develop organizations that provide a myriad of opportunities for artists to thrive. This week ADAMA Art Salon hosts a conversation with leaders of 4 amazing organizations that step up to fill the void. Our conversation will explore the need for and role of non-traditional spaces in advancing African Diaspora art and artists.
Sunday April 5
featuring:
Janine Gaëlle Dieudji (Marrakech)
Larry Ossei-Mensah (NY)
Ingrid Lafleur (Johannesburg)
Danny Dunson (Chicago)
moderated by: Michael K. Wilson (Philadelphia)
This week ADAMA Art Salon hosts a conversation with 4 dynamic curators. We will explore the role of the curator in championing contemporary African Diaspora art and culture.
Sunday March 29
featuring:
Alexis Peskine (Paris)
Bisa Butler (New Jersey)
Delphine Fawundu (Brooklyn)
Fahamu Pecou (Atlanta)
Moderated by Niama Safia Sandy (Brooklyn)
Our conversation will draw on each artist’s unique engagement with the historical and philosophical underpinnings of portraiture and representation of the Black figure in contemporary art.