Fallou, 2018, Oil on Canvas, 90 x 78 inches.

Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys is coming to the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. The exhibition from the collection of musical and cultural icons Swizz Beatz (Kassem Dean) and Alicia Keys is expansive and features over 130 works of art by 40 Black artists from Africa, Europe, the United States, and the Caribbean.

Among the artists featured are Derrick Adams, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Kwame Brathwaite, Nick Cave, Barkley Hendricks, Arthur Jafa, Titus Kaphar, Esther Mahlangu, Meleko Mokgosi, Odili Donald Odita, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Gordon Parks, Ebony G. Patterson, Deborah Roberts, Jamel Shabazz, Amy Sherald, Mickalene Thomas, and Kehinde Wiley.

These celebrated "giants" are expanding the art canon of greats in a big, bold way. They include legendary photographers, iconic contemporary artists, as well as emerging artists. And among the art on view are monumental works that tower in scale and thought. Giants is also a nod to the collectors' passion for lifting up the human spirit:

"We need to be our most giant selves: to think our most giant thoughts, express ourselves in the biggest way possible, and give ourselves permission to be giants."
—Alicia Keys

As artists who strive to support other artists and collect from the heart, Keys and Beatz are guided by an outward intention that regards their family of acquired works as “by the artist, for the artist, with the people.”

Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys is organized by Kimberli Gant, Curator, Modern and Contemporary Art, and Indira A. Abiskaroon, Curatorial Assistant, Modern and Contemporary Art, Brooklyn Museum. The coordinating curator at VMFA is Valerie Cassel Oliver, the Sydney and Frances Lewis Family Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art.

The exhibition is organized by the Brooklyn Museum.