Define Yourself!
On View
November 6, 2026 — April 25, 2027
Location
Frank Photography Gallery
Define Yourself! explores the power of representation and the ongoing struggle for self-definition. Taking inspiration from James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time (1963), in which Baldwin warns that those who do not define themselves risk being defined by others, the exhibition examines how Black identity has been constructed, challenged, and reclaimed through more than eighty objects from the Chrysler Museum’s collection. Featuring works by Emma Amos, Kwame Brathwaite, Elizabeth Catlett, Gordon Parks, Hank Willis Thomas, Kara Walker, James van der Zee, and others, across painting, sculpture, photography, and mixed media, Define Yourself! celebrates artists who have centered Black subjectivity on their own terms.
The questions at the heart of this exhibition are not new. For generations, artists and institutions have grappled with conversations about authorship, visibility, and power. Today, these issues remain deeply relevant, underscoring the continuing need to question how images shape cultural narratives.
The exhibition opens with early examples of photography, examining how Black Americans have been historically perceived and the shift after Emancipation, when artists and subjects alike gained greater autonomy over their images. From there, the exhibition explores how artists have reclaimed and moved beyond painful stereotypes. Two sections explore the varied experiences of Black womanhood and childhood, including how Black women have defied ill-fitting representations and how Black children have often been perceived as older and judged by harsher standards. Additional works explore celebrity and the pressures upon prominent Black figures to project unwavering positivity, excellence, and strength. From civil rights leaders to entertainers, these portraits encourage reflection on how identity can be transformed into a symbol and subsumed by mass media and image culture.
Define Yourself! was developed through the Museum’s participation in the Atlantic Coast Cohort, an initiative supported by the Art Bridges Cohort Program in partnership with Historically Black Colleges and Universities in the mid-Atlantic region. Conversations with students and faculty informed the exhibition’s development at each partner venue. As the exhibition’s final presentation at the Chrysler Museum, this installation expands on those conversations, including a special feature of Arthur Jafa: Love is the Message the Message is Death in the Box Gallery. Jafa’s iconic 2016 video captures the wide spectrum of the Black experience in the United States, pulling viral video clips, historical footage, and Jafa’s own material together to create a digital collage that portrays both the pain and jubilation of Black culture and history.
This exhibition is organized by the Chrysler Museum of Art and curated by Nyree Dowdy, former Art Bridges Curatorial Fellow and Chelsea Pierce, PhD, McKinnon Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.
This multi-year, multi-institutional exhibition partnership formed by the Chrysler Museum of Art is made possible by the Art Bridges Cohort Program.
Prior to the Chrysler Museum’s presentation, the exhibition traveled to the Mosely Gallery at the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, the Kermit E. White Graduate Center Gallery at Elizabeth State University, and the James Wise Gallery at Norfolk State University as part of the Art Bridges Cohort Program.
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