Jack Whitten
The Messenger

SIGNED BY MICHELLE KUO, DAWOUD BEY AND JOSEPH LOGAN


Jack Whitten offered the world a new way to see. Over nearly six decades, he dared to invent new forms of abstraction, constantly transforming both perception and our understanding of art in society. "Jack Whitten: The Messenger" at the Museum of Modern Art, New York (on view through August 2, 2025) is the first comprehensive retrospective of Whitten's dazzling and trenchant abstraction from the 1960s–2010s, which transformed the relationship between art, race and society. Published to accompany the exhibition, this sumptuous catalog presents the full range of his career across painting, sculpture and works on paper, produced in New York and Greece, with texts by leading art historians and artists, and new technical analyses by conservators. Previously unpublished writings by the artist and an expansive chronology of Whitten's life, featuring newly discovered photographs and archival materials, bring into focus an artist who was as committed to human perception as to human rights, becoming one of the most important artists of our time.Edited with text by Michelle Kuo. Text by Julie Mehretu, Glenn Ligon, Anna Deavere Smith, George Lewis, Sampada Aranke, Mark Godfrey, Richard Shiff, Annie Wilker, Michael Duffy, Dana Liljegren, David Sledge, Helena Klevorn, Kiko Aebi, Eana Kim, JaBrea Patterson-West.

MoMA, 2025
9.5 x 12 in. | 304 pgs | 300 color | Hardcover | $75.00