Derrick Adams facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Derrick Adams
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Adams in 2019
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| Born | 1970 (age 54–55) |
| Nationality | American |
| Education | Columbia University |
| Alma mater | Pratt Institute |
| Awards | Louis Comfort Tiffany Award, Joyce Alexander Wein Artist Prize, |
Derrick Adams (born in 1970) is an American artist who creates visual art, performances, and organizes art shows. A lot of Adams' art explores Black identity and often uses ideas, pictures, and themes from Black culture in America. He has also taught art as a professor at the Maryland Institute College of Art.
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Early Life and Learning
Derrick Adams was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1970. After teaching elementary school for a short time, Adams went to the Pratt Institute to study art. He graduated in 1996 and later earned his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degree from Columbia University in 2003.
Artistic Career
Adams has created many interesting art projects and exhibitions. His work often makes people think about history, culture, and identity.
Exploring Black Culture
In 2016, Adams created an art piece called Derrick Adams: THE HOLDOUT — A Social Sculpture with Curated Music Program. This was for the Aljira Center for Contemporary Art in Newark, New Jersey. It featured a large pyramid that held a radio station. Adams said the pyramids in his art show how Black culture has been around for a long time and how much it has contributed.
His 2016 show at Pioneer Works looked at Black characters from popular movies and TV shows. The exhibition, called Derrick Adams: ON, included collages, sculptures, and lampshades. These pieces reminded people of characters from shows like In Living Color and The Matrix.
In 2017, the Studio Museum in Harlem showed Adams' exhibition Derrick Adams: Patrick Kelley, The Journey. For this, Adams made "mood boards" for a made-up autobiography of fashion designer Patrick Kelley. Adams was interested in how Kelley built his fashion designs, which made him think about how people build their own identities.
Highlighting Innovation
Adams used old collections from the Stony Island Arts Bank for his 2017 solo show, Future People. This art display included a video that played images and quotes from Black writers and speakers. He also made a series of collages called Orbiting Us #1-#10. These showed items designed by Charles Harrison, who was the first Black executive at Sears, Roebuck and Company. Adams used this show to highlight how Black people have been creative and innovative even during tough times.
Celebrating Leisure and Success
At the Museum of Arts and Design in 2018, Adams showed art inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book. This book helped Black travelers find safe places during the Jim Crow era. Adams' show, called Sanctuary, had a small highway running through the galleries. Along the highway were collages that looked like places from the guidebook. Sanctuary celebrated the fun times and achievements of African Americans, even when they faced challenges.
Looking at Identity
In 2018, the Museum of Contemporary Art Denver showed a collection of Adams' work from 2014 to 2017. This exhibition, called Derrick Adams: Transmission, included sculptures, installations, and drawings. It featured three main groups of work: "Future People" (2017), "Fabrication Station" (2016), and "Boxhead" sculptures (2014). These pieces explored how racial identity is seen in popular culture and how it can be imagined for the future.
Awards and TV Features
Derrick Adams received a Gordon Parks Foundation Fellowship in 2018. As part of this award, he had a two-person exhibition called American Family: Derrick Adams and Deana Lawson. Adams said that Gordon Parks' influence helped him understand why it's so important to show the many different parts of Black American life. He wants to highlight the rich history, present, and future of Black Americans.
In 2019, Adams' art was shown on the popular Fox TV show Empire. The artwork in the show featured the main characters, Cookie and Lucious Lyon. This art was part of a real-life collection that helped support Turnaround Arts, an art program for schools. His work was also featured on the HBO comedy Insecure in 2017.
Public Art Projects
In 2019, the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority) asked Adams to create art for the Nostrand Avenue Station. He designed 85 panels of laminated glass artwork. These panels stretch along the station platforms and onto four new bridges. The artwork shows the neighborhoods of Crown Heights and Bedford-Stuyvesant, using aerial photos, maps, and personal stories. Adams' collage style highlights how people and their surroundings connect.
Adams also created a mural for Harlem Hospital in 2020.
In 2023, Adams was one of six artists chosen to create a temporary art piece for the National Mall in Washington, D.C. This was part of Beyond Granite: Pulling Together, the first art exhibition ever on the Mall. Adams designed a playground that honored the desegregation of public schools in Washington, D.C. The playground was split in half by a large panel with pictures of kids playing after schools were desegregated. One side of the playground was gray, and the other side was bright and colorful, with an archway connecting them.
Recent Exhibitions
In 2024 and 2025, Adams' art was part of a traveling exhibition called "Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys." This show was at the Brooklyn Museum and the Minneapolis Institute of Art. Also, two of his collages, “Interior Life (Woman)” and “Interior Life (Man),” are part of the 2025 exhibition “Strong, Bright, Useful & True: Recent Acquisitions and Contemporary Art From Baltimore” at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg Center.
