DERRICK ADAMS

Early Years

Derrick Adams was born in Baltimore in 1970—many of his relatives, including his mother, worked for the government. He had an interest in art from a young age and was inspired by Tom Miller (who taught art in Baltimore schools). Adams studied art and design education at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, gaining his BFA in 1996. He also worked at the clothing label Phat Farm, founded by his mother’s cousin Russell Simmons, who set up Def Jam. After graduation, Adams worked at Rush Arts Gallery in New York City, run by a non-profit striving to increase the representation of artists of colour in museums and galleries (founded by Russell Simmons and his brothers). Adams gained his MFA from Columbia University in 2003.

Derrick Adams: Artworks

Using Cubist geometry and representational images, Adams’ rich depictions of Black people enjoying their lives break down the established idea in painting that only white figures could be seen to be existing happily from day to day. This joy is radical—it steps away from the trope that Black existence should only be seen through a lens of trauma or oppression. However, Adams recognises that simply by pointing out that Black people have not had the same freedom and access to leisure as the white population, it will be assumed that he’s making a political statement. “When you’re a Black person making art,” he told the New York Times in 2025, “there’s nothing you can do that’s not seen as political. But that frees me up. I actually make what I want and have fun, and I don’t really have to think about being political because I’m always going to be political.”

• In Network, Adams’ 2017 exhibition at the California African American Museum, the artist brought together some of his works centring the role of television in Black existence, raising questions about how popular culture has traditionally portrayed race, class and gender. Live and In Colour (2014–2017) marked his move into wall collage, with figures inspired by depictions of Black figures in television programmes rendered in a cartoonesque style and framed within television screens. The Colourbar Constellation series (2016) twisted the traditional colour patterns of a TV test card, breaking them free of the television set while also referencing notable Black TV stars on the covers of TV Guide.
• Adams’ Floaters series (2016–2019) was a set of vividly painted portraits of Black figures happily buoyant on super-bright inflatables on water, emphasising Black joy and framing Black people’s historically traumatic relationship with water in a radically positive light. The paintings’ 2020 exhibition at the Hudson River Museum coincided with the murder of George Floyd, and Adams said that he saw “Black leisure as a form of radicalness”, making the point that whatever was happening to Black people in the world, finding connection and leisure was vital.
• Sanctuary (2018) was an installation of mixed-media collage, assemblage on wood panels and sculpture inspired by The Negro Motorist Green Book, a guidebook published between 1936 and 1967 by Victor Hugo Green highlighting safe, welcoming destinations and businesses for Black Americans during the Jim Crow Era. Black leisure time and relaxation are key themes in Adams’ artistic practice, and Sanctuary reflected on the determination of Black Americans to engage positively in leisure pursuits during a period of inequality (which some argue has not fully ceased).
• At the 2026 Venice Biennale, Adams created the collage Heavy is the head that wears the crown, a tribute to Biennale curator Koyo Kouoh, the leading art world figure who died not long before the Venice institution opened. The piece was a banner including golden hues and flattened forms, and references the pressure faced by those in positions of power. Speaking at the time, he said: “Joyous depictions of Black experience have become synonymous with my practice and played a role within her curatorial philosophy: presenting jubilation as a site of resistance and beauty. This work commemorates Koyo by bestowing her with a radiant crown of joy that emits beams of gold signifying the brilliance and reach of her influence.”

Derrick Adams: Select Public Commissions

• The Sky Isn’t the Limit, It’s Only the View: Floyd Bennett Field Public Arts Festival, New York City (2024)
• The City is My Refuge, Moynihan Train Hall, Penn Station, New York City (2023)
• Dewdrop Inn, Baltimore Museum of Art (2023)
• We Make the City’s Grid, Help One, Brooklyn, New York City (2023)
• Funtime Unicorns, Navy Pier, Chicago (2023)
• Our Time Together, Milwaukee Art Museum (2021)
• Rx Art, Harlem Hospital Paediatric Emergency Department, New York City (2020)
• Around the Way, Nostrand Avenue LIRR Station, Brooklyn, New York City (2019)

Derrick Adams: Select Exhibitions

Select Solo Exhibitions

• Derrick Adams: View Master, ICA Boston (2026)
• Derrick Adams: Situation Comedy, Gagosian, London (2025)
• Derrick Adams: Future People... Take Off, Project For Empty Space (PES) Futures, New York City (2024) Middlebury College Museum of Art, Middlebury, VT Derrick Adams: Sanctuary
• Come as You Are, Gagosian, Beverly Hills (2023)
• I Can Show You Better Than I Can Tell You, The Flag Art Foundation, New York City (2023)
• Looks, Cleveland Art Museum, Cleveland (2021)
• The Last Resort, Rhona Hoffman Gallery, Chicago (2021)
• Buoyant, Hudson River Museum, New York City (2020) (and touring)
• Where I’m From—Derrick Adams, Baltimore City Hall Gallery (2019)
• Beauty World, Vigo Gallery, New York City (2019)
• Transmission, Museum of Contemporary Art, Denver (2018)CO
• Black White and Brown, Primary, Miami (2017)
• Network, California African American Museum, Los Angeles (2017)
• Finding Derrick 6 to 8 (performance), The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City (2016)
• Black and White and In Colour, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, Paris (2016)
• The Entertainer: Static | Distortion | Interference (performance), Birmingham Museum of Art (2015)
• Aestheticised Reductions of Self-Representation, Hales Gallery, London (2013)
• Hillman U: A Dream Deferred, A Dream Fulfilled, Proposition Gallery, New York City (2012)
• Welcome to Monument City, Collette Blanchard Gallery, New York (2010)
• Sometimes I Just Don’t Feel Like Myself (installation and performance) Momenta Arts, Brooklyn,
• I’m Sorry, I’m Lost, Marvelli Gallery, New York City (2005) Me and My Imaginary Friends (installation and performance), Triple Candle, New York City (2004)

Select Group Exhibitions

• Breaking the Mould: Brooklyn Museum at 200, Brooklyn Museum, New York City (2025)
• Pop Forever Tom Wesselmann &..., Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris (2024)
• and I will wear you in my heart of heart, Flag Art Foundation, New York City (2021)
• Grace Before Jones: Camera, Disco, Studio, Nottingham Contemporary (2020)
• Men of Change: Power. Triumph. Truth., National Underground Railroad Freedom Centre, Cincinnati (2019)
• Scripted Reality: The Life and Art of Television, Museo Jumex, Mexico City (2018)
• Experiments in Print: Derrick Adams, Matthew Day Jackson, Dread Scott and Kate Shepherd, The Print Centre, Philadelphia (2017)
• Young, Gifted and Black, Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg (2015)
• Radical Presence, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City (2013)
• Sonando en Color, Havana Biennial (2012)
• Greater New York 2005, MoMA PS1, New York City (2005)
• Veni Vidi Video, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City (2003)

Further Reading

• Derrick Adams’ official website
• Derrick Adams’ Instagram Artist profile page at Gagosian
• 2025 interview in The New York Times

Derrick Adams FAQs

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