Hard Art" at MoMA PS1

The title of this collective exhibition at MoMA PS1 comes from a phrase by Peter Bradley himself about "The De Luxe Show", an exhibition he organized in 1971 with patron John de Menil in a disused theater in the Fifth Ward, Houston — considered possibly the first racially integrated exhibition in the United States. "Hard Art" brings together three generations of black abstraction from this legacy: on one hand, icons like Bradley and his British contemporary Frank Bowling, both averse to reducing their work to politics or the label "black artist", prioritizing pure abstraction; on the other, rising names like Torkwase Dyson, Aria Dean and Carolyn Lazard, who continue this same quest for challenging art today.