2018
Dindga McCannon
In Plain Sight
September 8 – October 21, 2021
169 BOWERY | NYC
Opening Reception
Wednesday, September 8
6–9 pm
Performance by Terri Davis, Lonnie Plaxico & Nat Adderley Jr., 8 pm

Dindga McCannon, Four Women, 1988, Mixed media, 24h x 27w in
Fridman Gallery is honored to present Dindga McCannon’s first major solo exhibition in her five-decade career. In Plain Sight brings together a range of works spanning the 1980s to today and highlights her multidisciplinary practice featuring mixed media quilts, paintings, and sculpture.
Born in New York City and raised in Harlem and the Bronx, Dindga came of age as an artist and young mother during the rise of feminist art in New York City and the civil rights movement across the nation. Dindga began her career studying under Harlem Renaissance artists such as Jacob Lawrence, Charles Alston, Richard Mayhew, and Al Loving at the Art Students League of New York and the Robert Blackburn Printmaking Workshop. She went on to become a pillar of the influential African-American art collective Weusi, and later a co-founder of Where We At Black Women Artists, a noteworthy collective affiliated with the Black Arts Movement. Throughout Dindga’s career, she created space for her own artistic exploration while building a support network for generations of Black artists to follow.
McCannon’s use of oil painting, printmaking, and sewing made her an early influencer of textile assemblage, found-object quilting, and wearable art, all of which expand upon the legacy of African and African-American culture and historical memory, and are artforms that have gained new energy across today’s arts and cultural landscape. McCannon’s implementation of non-traditional materials, including personal objects, photographs, and ephemera draw the viewer into her world as she imbues her canvases and tapestries with the sounds, feelings, and vibrancy of her community and ancestors. Her works often focus on the history and stories of women — iconic public figures, unknown heroines, family, and friends who shape her vibrant universe.
On the occasion of the exhibition, Fridman Gallery will publish a catalogue, the first publication dedicated exclusively to her practice, featuring essays by Tammi Lawson, Curator of the New York Public Library’s Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and by Niama Safia Sandy, New York–based cultural anthropologist, curator, producer, multidisciplinary artist, and the gallery’s inaugural Curator-and-Writer-in-Residence.
McCannon’s work is in the public collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, and Michigan State University, among others. Her work has been included in recent exhibitions, including We Wanted A Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965-1985 organized by the Brooklyn Museum; and Black Power at the National Civil Rights Museum, Memphis, Tennessee.
For media inquiries, please contact hanna@hannagisel.com
For general inquiries, please contact info@fridmangallery.com
PRESS
DINDGA MCCANNON IS ANYTHING BUT INVISIBLE
By Abigail Glasgow
CULTURED
October 7, 2021
By Alison Rooney
The Highlands Current
October 4, 2021
Dindga McCannon on 'Where We At' and the Women of the blues
By Osman Can Yerebakan
Artforum
September 29, 2021
On View: ‘Dindga McCannon: In Plain Sight’ at Fridman Gallery in New York City
By Victoria L. Valentine
Culture Type
September 21, 2021
18 MUST-SEE EXHIBITIONS TO VISIT THIS FALL
By Keyaira Boone
ESSENCE
September 10, 2021
The World Catches Up With Dindga McCannon
By Jillian Steinhauer
The New York Times
September 10, 2021
Dindga McCannon on Alison Stewart's "All of It"
By Alison Stewart
WNYC
September 9, 2021

Dindga McCannon
125th Street Revisited
2020
Mixed media on canvas
23h x 63w in

Dindga McCannon
The Sisters
2020
Oil on canvas
40h x 40w in

Dindga McCannon
Why Did it Take So Long? (Black Women in Aviation)
2012
Mixed media quilt
59h x 59w in

Dindga McCannon
Lavinia Williams, Legendary Dancer, Choreographer, and Teacher
2018
Mixed media quilt
20h x 39w in





Artist talk between Dindga McCannon and Ambrose with Dr. Myrah Brown Green during The Armory Show, 2021