The Uptown Triennial 2020 exhibition, the second iteration in the series, presents the work of contemporary artists in dialogue with the Harlem Renaissance, a defining moment in American modernism and African-American cultural history, during its centennial year. 

The exhibition features 25 artists whose works project a confidence in Black identity that reflects a quest for making visible emerging subjectivities that mine popular and historical iconographies.

Uptown Triennial 2020 includes works by artists Derrick Adams,Tariq Al-Sabir, Dawoud Bey, Sanford Biggers, Kabuya Pamela Bowens-Saffo, Jordan Casteel, Renee Cox, Gerald Cyrus, Priyanka Dasgupta & Chad Marshall, Damien Davis, Delano Dunn, Awol Erizku, Derek Fordjour, Hugh Hayden, Leslie Hewitt, Jennie C. Jones, Kahlil Joseph, Autumn Knight, Whitfield Lovell, Glendalys Medina, Rashaun Rucker, Xaviera Simmons, Dianne Smith, LeRone Wilson. These 25 accomplished artists work in a wide range of media including painting, photography, video, sculpture, installation and performance. 

Whitfield Lovell provides an installation of three paintings and sculptural items representing Black World War I returning soldiers. Large Installations by Xaviera Simmons and Derrick Adams focus on the Great Migration and the Green Book as a required resource for north/south car transport during Jim Crow, respectively. Hugh Hayden, a Columbia School of the Arts alumni, reimagines the cast iron skillet recasting the historical object with west African mask forms. Hayden says, “It's an honor and quite surreal to be included amongst so many artists that I look up to, particularly given this time, as we collectively engage with notions of the Harlem Renaissance in our own works.”