Colored People Time: Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, Banal Presents

Broken into three distinct chapters—Mundane Futures, Quotidian Pasts, and Banal Presents— the exhibition’s sequential framework roots itself within this malleable and fluid concept of time and builds new narratives and public discourse around the everyday experiences of black people in the United States. Unexpected connections between contemporary art, historical objects, and archival materials inform and activate each chapter, fostering innovative dialogue between the Penn Museum’s African Collection and a wide range of media and new commissions created by emerging and established artists, including Aria Dean, Kevin Jerome Everson, Matthew Angelo Harrison, Carolyn Lazard, Dave McKenzie, Martine Syms, Sable Elyse Smith, and Cameron Rowland. At the List Center, all three chapters are presented simultaneously.