Okhai ojeikere biography of george michael

For many, it could well have been their first time to examine, for example, the modulations of grey in James Van Der Zee’s Couple in Raccoon Coats (1932), which was the earliest photograph on view in the exhibition. Or, they could finally have understood the post-independence optimism of Malick Sidibé’s Nuit de Noël (Happy-Club) (1963; printed and signed 2005) while witnessing the playful coyness exchanged between young Malian brother and sister dancing in the picture. The show’s promotion of Black representation was amplified by its extensive touring: it had traveled to the Art Museum at the University of Toronto (September 2022), the Polygon Gallery in North Vancouver (February 2023), and the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts (June 2023), before arriving in Halifax and then continuing on to the Baker Museum in Naples, Florida (July 2024) and the Grand Rapids Art Museum in Michigan (December 2025). The itinerary fulfills the exhibition’s mission to “lift as we rise,” or to use one’s success for “elevating the experiences of Black lives” across expanded community.⁴ In fact, the travelling show draws its entire checklist from a single private collection of Kenneth Montague, a Toronto-based dentist who, in 1997, established the Wedge Col

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