MoMA PS1 announces Hard Art, a major exhibition that examines the legacy of abstract painting by Black artists in the US from 1969 to today. Opening on November 5, 2026, the exhibition features over forty artists and juxtaposes historical paintings by practitioners who came to prominence in the 1970s with recent conceptually driven practices that incorporate sculpture, video, sound, and painting. Organized thematically, the exhibition traces the legacy of three generations of artists including Frank Bowling, Mark Bradford, Peter Bradley, Barbara Chase-Riboud, Ed Clark, Melvin Edwards, Jennie C. Jones, Joe Overstreet, and Raymond Saunders, alongside new and recent works by Aria Dean, Torkwase Dyson, Nikita Gale, Suzanne Jackson, Rindon Johnson, Caroline Kent, Carolyn Lazard, Eric N. Mack, Charisse Pearlina Weston, and SoiL Thornton, among others. Together, these cross-generational conversations emphasize the enduring relevance and increasing urgency of abstraction in shaping the current political imaginary.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated publication featuring essays by Connie Butler, Hannah Black, Jessica Bell Brown, Torkwase Dyson, Rindon Johnson, and Erich Kessel, among other contributors, as well as an illustrated chronology of significant museum exhibitions by June Kitahara and Sheldon Gooch.

Organized by Connie Butler, The Agnes Gund Director, with Sheldon Gooch, Curatorial Assistant. Exhibition research and support is provided by June Kitahara, Research Assistant.