The Art Edit: February 2026 Must-See Shows
The Black History Month Edition
by christal darling
Feb 07, 2026
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This edition of The Art Edit is a Black History Month celebration—a celebration of resilience, defiance, and a refusal to be silenced or ignored. It’s a survey of Black artists insisting on presence: expanding the canon, reworking the archive, and refusing the cultural demand to stay “palatable,” legible, or grateful for visibility. Across cities around the world, these exhibitions hold the line against erasure—sometimes through tenderness, sometimes through satire, sometimes by ripping the frame open and dragging history into the light.
It also reflects my curatorial vision: amplify voices that have been muted, tell stories that have been overlooked, and build a viewing public that understands representation is not a trend—it’s a correction. These shows aren’t just worth seeing. They’re worth sitting with…
“Frank James Williams: Standing Still”
Location: Patricia Sweetow Gallery
Dates: Feb 21 – Mar 28, 2026;
In Conversation: Saturday, February 21 at 2pm — Frank James Williams and Mirena Kim with Patricia Sweetow
“WHY YOU SHOULD SEE IT:
Williams is one of those painters who won’t let you consume the image quickly; the gaze in these works turns “looking” into a confrontation with presence, vulnerability, and power at the same time. The show also carries a deeper gravity when you understand the biography as more than inspiration—his practice survived two debilitating strokes, and that history of interruption and return sharpens the paintings’ emotional voltage rather than sentimentalizing it. His influences (Hopper, Tanner, Charles White, Jacob Lawrence, Bill Walker) are a useful map, but what lands is the distilled authority of his own voice: psychologically charged, spiritually alert, and unwilling to flatten Black life into a single register. If you’re interested in figurative painting that deals in mood without being vague—where shadow is not style but structure—this is a must.”
📸 Cavelle | oil on canvas | 60″ x 42″