Derrick Adams (b. 1970)
Born Baltimore, Maryland
Lives and works in Brooklyn, New York
Solo Exhibitions
2020 Derrick Adams: Buoyant, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY
Patrick Kelley, The Journey, SCAD FASH Museum of Fashion + Film,
Savannah, GA
Derrick Adams: Transformers, Luxembourg & Dayan, London, UK
2019 The Extreme Present, Moore Building, Miami, FL
Buoyant, Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY
Family Matters, Luxembourg Dayan, London, United Kingdom
The Ins and Outs: Figures in the Urban Landscape, Rhona Hoffman
Gallery, Chicago, IL
Where I’m From, The Gallery in Baltimore City Hall, Baltimore, MD
Derrick Adams: Interior Life, Luxembourg & Dayan, New York, NY
New Icons, Mary Boone Gallery, New York, NY
2018 The Journey Continues, Ford Foundation Live Gallery, New York, NY
Derrick Adams: Transmission, Museum of Contemporary Art,
Denver, CO
Derrick Adams: Sanctuary, Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Derrick Adams: People Person, Anne de Villepoix, Paris, France;
Private Offices, New York, NY
2017 Derrick Adams: Black White & Brown, Primary Projects, Miami, FL
Figures in the Urban Landscape, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
Repose, UTA Artist Space, Los Angeles, CA
Tell Me Something Good, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Derrick Adams: Patrick Kelly, The Journey, Countee Cullen Library,
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Network, California African American Museum,
Los Angeles, California
Future People, Stony Island Arts Bank, Rebuild Foundation,
Chicago, IL, Curated by Theaster Gates
2016 Float, Vigo Gallery, London, United Kingdom
Derrick Adams x Messages in the Street, Chicago, IL
ON, Pioneer Works, Brooklyn, NY
Culture Club, Project for Empty Space, Gateway Project Spaces,
Newark, NJ
Black and White and in Color, Galerie Anne de Villepoix,
Paris, France
Crossroad: A Social Sculpture, Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts,
Omaha, NE
2015 The Holdout (performance + installation), Aljira: A Center for
Contemporary Art, Newark, NJ
2014 LIVE and IN COLOR, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
Derrick Adams, T Magazine Villa Necchi-Campiglio, Milan, Italy
Borough, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
2013 Aestheticized Reductions of Self-Representation, Hales Gallery,
London, United Kingdom
In The Company Of Others, Louis B. James, New York, NY
DISPLAY: Cloaked in the Proprieties of the Culture Game,
80WSE Gallery, New York, NY
Becoming One With Your Environment, Galerie Anne De Villepoix,
Paris, France
2012 Cameron Visiting Artist: Derrick Adams, Mahaney Center for the Arts,
Middlebury, VT
Hillman U. - A Dream Deferred, A Dream Fulfilled, Proposition Gallery,
New York, NY
The World According to Derrick, Mills Gallery, Boston Center for the Arts,
Boston, MA
Man As His Element, Colburn Gallery, The University of Vermont,
Burlington, VT
Deconstruction Worker, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2010 Welcome to Monument City, Collette Blanchard Gallery, New York, NY
2009 Introduction to Bizarro Wiz, (Installation + performance at Le Jardin
Theatre, Deauville Beach Resort), NADA, Miami Beach, FL
2006 Sometimes I Just Don’t Feel Like Myself (installation + performance),
Momenta Arts, Brooklyn, NY
2005 I'm Sorry, I'm Lost, Marvelli Gallery, New York, NY
I'm Smoke; You’re Mirror (installation + performance), Participant Inc.,
New York, NY
2004 Me and My Imaginary Friends (installation + performance), Triple Candie,
New York, NY
2003 The Big Getaway, Jack Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
Performances
2020 Sounds Lasting and Leaving (Performance at Opening), Luxembourg
& Dayan, New York, NY
2019 Better Nights Installation, Bass Museum of Art, Miami, FL
2017 The Builders, 1947, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA
2016 Finding Derrick 6 to 8, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
2015 Pablo Fanque’s Circus Royal/SIDESHOW, Performa ‘15, New York, NY
The Entertainer: Static | Distortion | Interference, Birmingham Museum of
Art, Birmingham, AL
2014 The Entertainer: Static | Distortion | Interference, Logan Center,
Chicago, IL
2013 Once Upon a Time (Commissioned by The Calder Foundation),
Performa ’13, Salon 94, New York, NY
Artist Experiment: The Institution of Me, Performa ‘13, Performa Hub,
New York, NY
2012 The Channel, BAM Next Wave Festival, Brooklyn Academy of Music,
Brooklyn, NY
Communicating with Shadows, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
The Entertainer, MoMA PS1, New York, NY
Derrick Adams – Man as His Element, The University of Vermont,
Burlington, VT
2010 Feed Them With A Long Spoon, Third Streaming, New York, NY
Go Stand Next to the Mountain, The Kitchen, New York, NY
2005 Anew, PERFORMA, Participant Inc., New York, NY
Selected Group Exhibitions
2020 TEXTURES: the history and art of Black hair, Kent State University
Museum, OH
Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle, Peabody Essex Museum,
Salem, MA
Collectouples, New York Academy of Art, New York, NY
Sounds Lasting and Leaving, Luxembourg & Dayan, New York, NY
Jacob Lawrence: The American Struggle, Peabody Essex Museum,
Salem, MA
2019 The Extreme Present, presented by Larry Gagosian, Moore Building,
Miami Design District, Miami Beach, FL
Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth., Smithsonian Institution,
Washington State Historical Society, Tacoma, WA; National Underground
Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, OH
Figuring the Floral, Wave Hill, New York, NY
Painting Is Its Own Country, curated by Dexter Wimberly, Harvey B. Gantt
Center for African-American Arts + Culture, Charlotte, NC
Packaged Black: Barbara Earl Thomas and Derrick Adams,
a collaboration, Henry Art Gallery at University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Made at the New York Public Library, Stephen A. Schwarzman Building,
New York Public Library, New York, NY
2018 American Family: Derrick Adams and Deana Lawson, The Gordon Parks
Foundation, Pleasantville, NY
Cry of Victory and Short Walks to Freedom, Projects+Gallery, St Louis, MO
Punch, curated by Nina Chanel Abney, Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY
Postcard from New York- Part II, Anna Marra Contemporanea,
Rome, Italy
Talisman in the Age of Difference, Stephen Friedman Gallery, London,
United Kingdom
Go Figure, Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH
2017 Prospect.4, Prospect New Orleans, New Orleans, LA Maker, Maker,
Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, NY
Unobstructed Views, Hawkins Ferry House in partnership with Library Street
Collective and the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit, Detroit, MI
Lines of Influence, SCAD Museum of Art, Savannah, GA
Third Space /Shifting Conversations about Contemporary Art, curated by
Wassan Al-Khudhair, Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
2016 Baltimore Rising, The Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD
FLAT SCREEN, SPLIT SCREEN, SMOKE SCREEN, Barbara Walters Gallery,
Heimbold Arts Center, Sarah Lawrence College, New York, NY
40 Years, Part 1, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL
Experiments in Print: Derrick Adams, Matthew Day Jackson, Dread Scott
& Kate Shepherd, The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA
Black Pulp, Yale School of Art, 32 Edgewood Gallery, New Haven, CT
Tete-a-Tete, Aperture Foundation, New York, NY
2015 Us Is Them, Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH
Young, Gifted and Black, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa
All Killer No Filler, Eric Firestone Gallery, East Hampton, NY
Geometries of Difference: New Approaches to Ornament and
Abstraction, Samuel Dorsky Museum of Art, New Paltz, NY
2014 Retreat, Richard Gray Gallery and Valerie Carberry Gallery, Chicago, IL
Szalon, Logan Center, Chicago, IL
RELEVANCE: Perspectives of the African American Experience, Quintenz
Gallery, Aspen, CO
Black Eye, Concept NV, New York, NY
Outside the Lines: Black in the Abstract, Part II: Hard Edges/Soft Curves,
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX
2013 The Shadows Took Shape, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Reading List: Artists’ Selections from the MoMA Library Collection, The
Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY
tête-à-tête, QF Gallery, East Hampton, NY
Reloading the Canon: African Traditions in Contemporary Art, James E.
Lewis Museum of Art, Baltimore, MD
2012 Radical Presence; Black Performance In Contemporary Art,
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston, Houston, TX. Traveled to
The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY; Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis, MN; and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA
Bigger Than Shadows, Dodge Gallery, New York, NY
Friends With Benefits, Lehmann Maupin Gallery, New York, NY
The Road Ahead, Roberts & Tilton, Los Angeles, CA
Summer Group Show, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris, France
Pratt Alumni Painters, Pratt Manhattan Gallery, New York, NY
Sonando en Color, Havana Biennial, Centro Experimental De Los Artes
Visuales, Havana, Cuba
Next Generation: Selections by Artists in the 30 Americans Collection,
Contemporary Wing, Washington, DC
tête-à-tête, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago, IL. Traveled to Yancey
Richardson Gallery, New York, NY
Sunday Sessions, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY
Campaign, C24 Gallery, New York, NY
2011 The Bearden Project, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
The February Show, Ogilvy & Mather, New York, NY
2010 Bite: Street Inspired Art + Fashion, Third Streaming, New York, NY
Lush Life: Chapter One: Whistle, Sue Scott Gallery, New York, NY
50 Artists Photograph the Future, Higher Pictures, New York, NY
Dissecting Intersections: Performative Responses, Bowery Poetry Club,
New York, NY
Precarity and The Butter Tower, CTRL GALLERY, Houston, TX
NeoIntegrity Comics Edition, Museum of Comic and Cartoon Art,
New York, NY
2009 Revelatory Tension, BRIC Arts, Brooklyn, NY
Harlem Postcards, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2008 Untitled (On Paper), Moti Hasson Gallery, New York, NY
Bedtime Stories, Redhouse Arts Center, Syracuse, NY
1968: Then and Now, Nathan Cummings Foundation, New York, NY
Casa de Carton, Ingalls & Associates, Miami, FL
2007 Neo Integrity, Derek Eller Gallery, New York, NY
Dream of Today, Steve Turner Contemporary, Los Angeles, CA
Taking Possession, Fine Arts Building, University of Arkansas at Little Rock,
Little Rock, AK
Reasons to Riot, Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN
2006 Invade My Dreams, Taxter & Spengemann, New York, NY
The Pulse of New Brooklyn, MoCADA | Museum of Contemporary African
Diasporan Art, Brooklyn, NY
2005 If You’re Feeling Sinister, Alona Kagan Gallery, New York, NY
Greater New York 2005, MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY
Jack Tilton Inaugural Exhibition, Tilton Gallery, New York, NY
2004 Art Downtown: Connecting Collections, Wall Street Rising /
Deutsche Bank, New York, NY
Me, Myself & I, Florida Atlantic University Gallery, Boca Raton, FL
Notorious Impropriety, Sampson Projects, Boston, MA
Open House: Working in Brooklyn, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY
2003 24/7: Wilno – Nueva York (Visa Para), Contemporary Art Centre,
Vilnius, Lithuania Confrontation or Commentary, Nathan Cummings
Foundation, New York, NY
Summer Jam, Roebling Hall – Satellite, New York, NY
You, Lisa Kirk Projects, New York, NY
Adams, Cerrillo, Perkins, Massimo Audiello, New York, NY
Veni Vidi Video, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Urbanites: New York, London, Tokyo, Centenary Gallery, Camberwell
College of Arts, London, UK
2002 Hotel/Motel, Triple Candie, New York, NY
2001 Striking Blows, Manhattan Borough President’s Office, New York, NY
Residencies and Awards
2019 Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, Captiva, FL
2016 Joyce Alexander Wein Prize, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
2014 S.J. Weiler Fund, New York, NY
2012 The Hermitage Artist Retreat, Englewood, FL
2011 The William H. Johnson Prize (Finalist), Los Angeles, CA
2010 The Fountainhead Residency, Miami, FL
2009 The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation, New York, NY
2004 Sharpe-Walentas Studio Program, New York, NY (f/k/a: Marie Walsh
Sharpe Art Foundation)
2002 Skowhegan School of Painting & Sculpture, Skowhegan, ME
2003 Agnes Martin Fellowship Fund, New York, NY
Public Commissions
2019 Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Arts & Design
LIRR Nostrand Avenue Station, Brooklyn NY
2018 Fashion Outlets of Chicago, Rosemont IL
Fashion Show (outdoor mural) and Fashion Accessories (2019)
(lighting installation)
2017 Mural Arts Philadelphia, Philadelphia PA
Your Own Channel
Public Collections
Agnes Gund Collection, New York NY
Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
Estee Lauder Collection, New York, NY
Ford Foundation, New York, NY
JP Morgan Chase, New York, NY
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond, WA
Museum of Arts and Design, New York, NY
Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond, VA
Pizzuti Collection, Columbus, OH Progressive Insurance, Mayfield, OH
US Embassy in Nouakchott, Mauritania
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY