Henry Taylor
B Side
04 Oct 2023 - 28 Jan 2024
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). From left to right: Untitled, 2022; Huey Newton, 2007. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). From left to right: I’m yours, 2015; Man, I'm so full of doubt, but I must Hustle Forward, as my daughter Jade would say, 2020; Untitled, 2022; Wegrett, 2006; Cora, (cornbread), 2008; the dress, ain't me, 2011. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). From left to right: Resting, 2011; THE TIMES THAY AINT A CHANGING, FAST ENOUGH!, 2017; Untitled, 2021; The 4th, 2012; Y'ALL STARTED THIS SHIT ANYWAY, 2021; Untitled (Saddle Shoes Stepping on Bald Head), 1992; Happy Meal, 1992; Girl with blue Hand, 2014; Peanuts, 2007; Wegrett, 2006; Cora, (cornbread), 2008; too much hate, in too many state, 2001; Trail, 2005. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). From left to right: Untitled, 2022; Fatty, 2006; Untitled, 2022; Untitled (Ethiopian Pharmacist), 2016; Untitled, 2006; I'm not dangerous, 2015; Girl with Toy Rifle, 2015. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). On wall, from left to right: Untitled, 2020; Elan Supreme, 2016; emery lambus, 2016; Too Sweet, 2016. Photograph by Ron Amstutz
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). Untitled, 2022. Photograph by Ryan Lowry
York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). Untitled, 2022. Photograph by Ryan Lowry
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). The Love of Cousin Tip, 2017. Photograph
by Ryan Lowry
York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). The Love of Cousin Tip, 2017. Photograph
by Ryan Lowry
Installation view of Henry Taylor: B Side (Whitney Museum of American Art, New
York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). The Love of Cousin Tip, 2017. Photograph
by Ryan Lowry
York, October 4, 2023-January 28, 2024). The Love of Cousin Tip, 2017. Photograph
by Ryan Lowry
Henry Taylor: B Side is the first exhibition to survey the career of leading contemporary artist Henry Taylor (b. 1958, based in Los Angeles). Through painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, this retrospective celebrates an artist widely appreciated for his unique aesthetic, social vision, and freewheeling experimentation. Taylor’s figurative work, populated by friends, relatives, strangers on the street, athletes, politicians, and entertainers, showcases an imagination that encompasses multiple worlds. Informed by experience, his work conveys fundamental empathy through close examination and sharp social criticism. Henry Taylor: B Side is the largest exhibition of Taylor’s work to date, with over 130 works from the late-1980s to the present.
Though Taylor is renowned for his portraiture, his work encompasses many genres and moves through influences. Within this stylistic diversity, Taylor’s attention to Black Americans and to various conditions of Black America comes into focus in ways that are deep-feeling, witty, joyful, and concerned.
Organized thematically, Henry Taylor: B Side highlights several of the artist’s major subjects. Among them: his family members and artistic community, street scenes from Los Angeles and beyond, icons of politics and the music world (including portraits of Eldridge Cleaver, Barack and Michelle Obama, and Jay-Z), and often wrenching encounters with racism, policing, and American history. In addition to paintings, the exhibition includes a selection of Taylor’s assemblage sculptures, rarely seen early drawings of patients at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital (where the artist worked while a student at the California Institute of the Arts in the early 1990s), and a large grouping of his “painted objects,” pointed observations rendered on recycled cigarette packs, cereal boxes, and other everyday supports.
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in Los Angeles, and curated by Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator, with Anastasia Kahn, Curatorial Assistant, at MOCA.
Though Taylor is renowned for his portraiture, his work encompasses many genres and moves through influences. Within this stylistic diversity, Taylor’s attention to Black Americans and to various conditions of Black America comes into focus in ways that are deep-feeling, witty, joyful, and concerned.
Organized thematically, Henry Taylor: B Side highlights several of the artist’s major subjects. Among them: his family members and artistic community, street scenes from Los Angeles and beyond, icons of politics and the music world (including portraits of Eldridge Cleaver, Barack and Michelle Obama, and Jay-Z), and often wrenching encounters with racism, policing, and American history. In addition to paintings, the exhibition includes a selection of Taylor’s assemblage sculptures, rarely seen early drawings of patients at the Camarillo State Mental Hospital (where the artist worked while a student at the California Institute of the Arts in the early 1990s), and a large grouping of his “painted objects,” pointed observations rendered on recycled cigarette packs, cereal boxes, and other everyday supports.
This exhibition is organized by the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), in Los Angeles, and curated by Bennett Simpson, Senior Curator, with Anastasia Kahn, Curatorial Assistant, at MOCA.