FRESH PAINT
Derrick Adams

This fall, the Parrish Art Museum continues its groundbreaking collaboration with The FLAG Art Foundation with the latest installation of FRESH PAINT, featuring a powerful new work by Derrick Adams. FRESH PAINT spotlights the latest works by both emerging and established artists, fostering a direct response to contemporary issues and cultural movements. The rotating series of single-artwork exhibitions housed in the Creativity Lounge at the Parrish Art Museum features a colorful piece with bold symbols by Derrick Adams finished within the last few months. The Creativity Lounge is open to the public at no charge during regular Museum hours.

FRESH PAINT circumvents traditional exhibition planning timelines, which extend years into the future and provides a platform for the Parrish and FLAG to be responsive to cultural events and promptly showcase freshly created artworks and ideas. This approach fosters a timelier dialogue between the Museum, visitors, and our surrounding community. FRESH PAINT will extend its impact beyond exhibition spaces through educational initiatives like ARTscope. This teen-focused program offers participants a comprehensive exploration of the visual arts, career pathways, and practical experience in museum operations. From writing blogs to curating small exhibitions, participating students gain valuable skills and insights while receiving a stipend for their contributions.

Each new artwork will be accompanied by two sets of interpretative texts: one will be a commissioned piece of writing, creating focused and thoughtful conversations between the visual arts and authors, critics, poets, scholars, and beyond; and the other will be created in collaboration with members of the Parrish Teen Council ARTscope and other Museum youth groups. For the second installment of FRESH PAINT, the Museum and FLAG have invited Brooklyn-born writer and visual artist, Folasade Ologundudu to contribute a long-form interpretive text providing visitors with an in-depth take on Derrick Adams and his artistic style.

FRESH PAINT at the Parrish is organized by Corinne Erni, Lewis B. and Dorothy Cullman Chief Curator, Art and Education and Deputy Director of Curatorial Affairs, with additional support from Kaitlin Halloran, Associate Curator and Publications Manager.

Exhibition Support
FRESH PAINT: Derrick Adams is made possible, in part, thanks to the generous support of The FLAG Art Foundation.

The Parrish Art Museum’s programs are made possible, in part, by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of Governor Kathy Hochul and the New York State Legislature, and by the property taxpayers from the Southampton School District and the Tuckahoe Common School District.

About Derrick Adams
Derrick Adams is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Brooklyn, New York. Adams’ work celebrates and expands the dialogue around contemporary Black life and culture through scenes of normalcy and perseverance.

Derrick Adams received his BFA from Pratt Institute, New York, in 1996 and graduated with an MFA from Columbia University, New York, in 2003. In addition to his critically acclaimed art practice, Adams has held numerous teaching positions and is currently a tenured assistant professor in the School of Visual, Media and Performing Arts at CUNY Brooklyn College. He also holds an honorary doctorate from Maryland Institute College of Art.

In 2022, Adams established Charm City Cultural Cultivation, a non-profit organization to support and encourage underserved communities in the city of Baltimore through events conducted by three entities: The Last Resort Artist Retreat, a residency program that subscribes to the concept of leisure as therapy for the Black creative; The Black Baltimore Digital Database, a collaborative counter-institutional space for collecting, storing, and safekeeping the data of local archival initiatives; and Zora’s Den, an online community of Black women writers started in January 2017, which has since expanded to in-person writing workshops, a writers’ circle, and a monthly reading series that strive to promote instruction, support, and social engagement.

About The FLAG Art Foundation
The FLAG Art Foundation is a non-collecting, nonprofit exhibition space that mounts solo, two-person, and thematic group exhibitions centering on emerging and established artists from around the globe. Organized by a diverse community of curators and thinkers within and beyond the art world, FLAG opened to the public in 2008 and has staged over 100 exhibitions celebrating the work of nearly 1,000 artists. Committed to providing education and resources for its surrounding community, and across New York City, all exhibitions and programs—including artist talks, artist-led workshops, and guided tours for school and museum groups—are free and open to the public.

The FLAG Art Foundation was founded by Glenn Fuhrman, an art patron and philanthropist, and alongside his wife Amanda, a Co-Founder of The Fuhrman Family Foundation. Fuhrman is a Trustee of New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, and The Tate Americas Foundation, New York, NY, and is a Board Member of The Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, PA. He is also a Board Member of the 92nd Street Y, New York, and The Central Park Conservancy, New York, NY.