New IAAM exhibition spans time, place with Blackness

On a decades-old recording, James Brown says it loud. In a 1928 lithograph, Aaron Douglas channels the “Charleston.” On the back of a 1990s denim jacket, an image of Angela Davis is joined by the painted words, “Power to the People.”

These are but three of the artifacts that come together in a new special exhibition at the International African American Museum (IAAM) demonstrating with dynamism and invention how each is connected in its expression of Blackness.

That exhibition is re/Defined: Creative Expressions of Blackness from the Diaspora, which is up through January 2026. Its co-curators, Isabelle Britto and Suzanne DiBella, gathered a host of culturally powerful artifacts and works of art to explore Blackness through its divergently expressive, yet deeply connective threads.

With its forced beginnings, Blackness in America has traveled time and place, from the transatlantic slave trade to the Great Migration and well beyond. This considered, compelling new exhibition sheds light on this diasporic convergence of cultures.

It is one that has been frequently powered by creatives in galvanizing brush strokes, stirring strains of music rich in centuries-old rhythms and narrative realms harking back as far, too. In such vivid, absorbing detail, the exhibition explores its identity–one shaped by resistance–by examining its history, culture and contemporary art.

Pulling largely from the museum’s own impressive collection, re/Defined spans place and place. The viewer’s frame is not linear. It is instead layered by intricately rendered canvases, by instruments both carved on and plugged-in, by gorgeous, sculptural headpieces and by time-yellowed, iconic paperback books.

Rather than a chronological foray into Black identity, the exhibition finds its organizing principle in different modes of expression: visual arts, adornment, music and storytelling.
Throughout this eclectic aggregation, an overarching theme emerges with South Carolina as a key player. From gilt painting to patterned tunic, from dialect-driven Gullah yarn to autographed electric guitar, the collective effusion of cultural expression reveals a common and abiding impulse: to hold fast to inherited roots and to resist assimilation.

Visual art spanning time and place infuses the show. “Charleston,” a 1928 lithograph by Harlem Renaissance figure Aaron Douglas, evokes the song whose origins are here in our city, which was a global hit. Douglas portrays a jazz club of silhouetted singing, strumming, swinging Black musicians and denizens.

Time travel to “Cecilia,” a 2025 mixed media collage from artist Stan Squirewell, who paints and papers over photography of often anonymous Black women from yesteryear, breathing new life into each subject. A 1970 lithograph by renowned artist Elizabeth Catlett, “The Torture of Mothers,” flags the constant fear Black mothers have for their children with the threat of racial violence. Nearby, a “Black Is Beautiful” poster by photographer Kwame Brathwaite, who popularized the phrase in the 1960s, beams from the exhibition wall.

In the section Adornment, one vitrine showcases elaborate carved hair accessories alongside a still-packaged circa 1970s Afro Comb, both fashioned for natural hair. A West African mudcloth jacket finds a fitting exhibition companion in a contemporary jacket and madras headpieces.

The Music portion of the exhibition harmonizes a host of instruments with a marching band uniform worn by prominent South Carolina band leader George Kennedy; a 1935 Rio de Janeiro Carnival poster; a host of vinyls and covers, with a digital screen offering details on game-changing works like South Carolinian James Brown’s “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud.”
Similarly, storytelling spans Uncle Remus, African folklore and Jamaica Kincaid, demonstrating the wide range of settings that Blackness encompasses, as well as the overarching impulse to own the narrative.

The aim, the museum, is for those who encounter it to consider how history and creativity intersect. With this thoughtful means to foster exchange, they most surely will, one fascinating artefact after the next.

IF YOU WANT TO GO: The exhibition is open through Jan. 4, 2026, and is part of the regular admission at the IAAM, 14 Wharfside St., Charleston.