Hip Hop and Contemporary Art at the Saint Louis Art Museum

From August 25, 2023, to January 1, 2024, the Saint Louis Art Museum presents “The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century”, an expansive exhibition exploring the global significance and impact of hip hop on contemporary art and culture

Source: Saint Louis Art Museum · Image: Derrick Adams, American, born 1970; “Style Variation 34”, 2020; The Baltimore Museum of Art: Purchase with exchange funds from the Pearlstone Family Fund and partial gift of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc., BMA 2021.156; © Derrick Adams, Courtesy of the Artist.

Titled after the phrase “for the culture,” this exhibition advances a sweeping and contemporary account of the expansive influence of hip-hop culture and its myriad expressions across the globe. “The Culture” brings together poetry, music videos, fashion, painting, sculpture, photography, and film by some of the most innovative cultural producers of the last 20 years.

Featuring approximately 70 objects by both established and emerging artists, “The Culture” is multi-disciplinary and multimedia in its focus. Exhibition sections explores a variety of hip hop’s themes, from activism and racial identity to notions of bling and swagger, and highlights hip-hop culture’s relationship to gender, sexuality and feminism as well as hip hop’s connections to the art world and the art market.

Artists featured in the exhibition include Nina Chanel Abney, Derrick Adams, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Jordan Casteel, Kudzanai Chiurai, William Cordova, Hassan Hajjaj, Lauren Halsey, Arthur Jafa, Deana Lawson, Julie Mehretu, Hank Willis Thomas, Kehinde Wiley and numerous others. “The Culture” also includes several examples of fashion, including looks from Virgil Abloh’s collections for Louis Vuitton, legendary streetwear brand Cross Colours and iconic luxury brand TELFAR, as well as a wide range of music ephemera, including wigs from Lil’ Kim’s hairstylist Dionne Alexander.

To further illuminate hip hop’s influence, the exhibition incorporates works by artists with deep ties to their local communities. Participating St. Louis and Missouri artists include Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, Damon Davis, Jen Everett, Aaron Fowler, Kahlil Robert Irving, Yvonne Osei and Adrian Octavius Walker, among others. Baltimore artists include Devin Allen, NIA JUNE with APoetNamedNate and Kirby Griffin, Monica Ikegwu, Amani Lewis, Megan Lewis, Charles Mason III, Murjoni Merriweather, and Ernest Shaw Jr., among others.