Jordan Casteel, Fendi, 2018, Oil on canvas, 60 x 35 inches

Coin­ciding with the 50th anniver­sary of the birth of Hip Hop, the Schirn is dedi­cating a major inter­dis­ci­pli­nary exhi­bi­tion to Hip Hop’s profound influ­ence on the current art and cultural land­scape.

Hip Hop first emerged in the Bronx, New York in the 1970s as a cultural move­ment among Black and Latinx youth who expressed them­selves through MCing, DJing, graf­fiti writing, and break­dancing. From its incep­tion, Hip Hop critiqued domi­nant struc­tures and cultural narra­tives and offered new avenues for expressing dias­poric expe­ri­ences and creating alter­nate systems of power, leading to social and polit­ical conscious­ness and knowl­edge-building.

Hip Hop has now evolved into a global phenom­enon that has driven numerous inno­va­tions in music, fashion, tech­nology, as well as visual and performing arts. Grounded on the origins of Hip Hop in the U.S., yet with a focus on art and music from the last twenty years, the exhi­bi­tion features over 100 paint­ings, photographs, sculp­tures, and videos, as well as fashion and vinyl, by inter­na­tion­ally renowned contem­po­rary artists including Lauren Halsey, Julie Mehretu, Tsch­a­balala Self, Arthur Jafa, Khalil Joseph, Virgil Abloh, and Gordon Parks. THE CULTURE illu­mi­nates Hip-Hop’s unprece­dented economic, social, and cultural resources and further­more addresses contem­po­rary issues and debates – from iden­tity, racism, and appro­pri­a­tion to sexu­ality, femi­nism, and empow­er­ment.

THE CULTURE is co-orga­nized by the Balti­more Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Art Museum, and is presented in collab­o­ra­tion with Schirn Kunstalle Frankfurt.