RICHMOND, VA.- Showing works by a diverse roster of global artists, VMFA’s 21st-century gallery reflects the expanded nature of contemporary art. Fusion: Art of the 21st Century, builds on this focus. It emphasizes new acquisitions—many on view for the first time—and includes a substantial number of works by African and African-American artists and works from Latin American, the Caribbean, and Mexico.

Mobility and diversity have created a kaleidoscopic quality to contemporary art, with no dominant style, medium, or movement. Painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and photography remain vital, while new technologies inflect work made in both new and traditional formats. Established problems—like abstraction and figuration or image vs. object—are filtered through new concepts like virtual reality and global networks. Added to these concerns is a renewed interest in the ways that culture binds individuals and groups to one another and is, in turn, continually redefined by them. Moreover, the categories that defined identity politics in the 1980s and 1990s—gender, race, nationality, sexual orientation—have become more fluid, reflecting the dynamic nature of contemporary culture. The works in Fusion reflect this state of affairs, embracing expansion, fluidity, and diversity at every turn.

Highlights

• Trenton Doyle Hancock; The Former and the Ladder or Ascension and a Cinchin’; 2012, acrylic and mixed media on canvas; Sydney and Frances Lewis Endowment Fund and Pamela K. and William A. Royall, Jr., Fund for21st-Century Art, with funds contributed by Mary and Don Shockey, Jr., and Marion Boulton Stroud; 2013.3

• Radcliffe Bailey, Vessel; 2012; tarp,iron, vintage model ship, wicker, and glass; Pamela K. and William A. Royall Jr. Fund for 21st Century Art and National Endowment for the Arts Fund for American Art

• Sonya Clark, Black Hair Flag; 2010; paint, canvas, thread; Lent by Pamela K. and William A. Royall, Jr.

• Hank Willis Thomas, Zero Hour, from the Wayfarer Series; 2013; digital C-print and plexi with Lumisty film; Pamela K. and William A. Royall Jr. Fund for 21st Century Art and the National Endowment for the Arts Fund for American Art

Curated by John B. Ravenal, Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.