October is Black History Month. The 2025 theme is Standing Firm in Power and Pride, in tribute to “the resilience, strength and unwavering commitment to progress that defines the Black community across the globe.” To mark the occasion, we’ve collated 10 key exhibitions showcasing powerful works that explore identity, history and culture through the lens of Black artists and photographers. From pioneering portraiture and immersive installations to contemporary art fairs and historical archives, these shows celebrate creativity, resilience and stories often absent from mainstream narratives. Whether capturing the energy of music and youth culture, confronting legacies of colonialism, or reimagining forgotten histories, each one offers a unique window into the diversity and richness of Black artistic expression.
Jennie Baptiste: Rhythm & Roots
Somerset House, London | 17 October – 4 January
Rhythm & Roots is the first major solo exhibition from pioneering Black British photographer Jennie Baptiste. Spanning from the 1990s to today, the exhibition showcases iconic and previously unseen portraits from Baptiste’s archive, celebrating the rich cultural influence of Black British communities across music, fashion and youth identity. From the flamboyant energy of London’s dancehall scene to the rise of hip hop and R&B, Baptiste’s lens offers a vital visual record of a generation in motion. The show also features Black Chains of Icon, a powerful conceptual series exploring Black identity, resilience and legacy.
Stan Douglas: Birth of a Nation and The Enemy of All Mankind
Victoria Miro, London | Until 1 November
This is the UK premiere of a new multi-channel video installation by Stan Douglas, and artist who, since the late-1980s, has examined complex intersections of narrative, fact and fiction. Birth of a Nation confronts D.W. Griffith’s 1915 film of the same name, a deeply racist work that exalts white supremacy. At Victoria Miro, it is shown together with photographs from The Enemy of All Mankind: Nine Scenes from John Gay’s Polly, a series in which Douglas stages scenes from the eighteenth-century comic opera. Together, these works force a reckoning with the past that remains uncannily present today.
Black Photojournalism
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh | Until 19 January
This Autumn, Carnegie Museum of Art presents work by nearly 60 Black photojournalists, who chronicled historic events and daily life in the USA from the end of WWII in 1945, through to 1984. This was a time of significant change, encompassing the civil rights movement, during which Black publishers and their staff created groundbreaking editorial, images and networks. The prints on display are drawn from archives in the care of journalists, libraries, museums, newspapers, photographers, with each one representing the energy of many dedicated individuals who worked to disseminate the news every day.
Tawny Chatmon: Sanctuaries of Truth, Dissolution of Lies
National Museum of Women in the Arts, Washington | 15 October – 8 March
National Museum of Women in the Arts presents richly layered, embroidered and gilded photography-based works by Maryland-based artist Tawny Chatmon. The show debuts works from two key series: The Reconciliation, which addresses stereotypes surrounding the food of the African diaspora, and The Restoration, born from a desire to remove antique racist dolls and figurines from circulation. Central to Chatmon’s work is the reclamation of subjects and stories that have been distorted by racism. She celebrates Black childhood, resistance and self-determination, often using family members as models.
Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley: The Delusion
Serpentine North Gallery, London | Until 18 January
In The Delusion, artist and game designer Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley builds on their urgent and ongoing work archiving Black Trans histories. The immersive experience invites visitors into a post-apocalyptic world shaped by a single catastrophic event: the Day of Division. In this imagined future, society has broken into dogmatic factions, each clinging to its own version of truth. Through cooperative gaming and participatory theatre, the project aims to provide space for debate, discussion and reconnection. Filled with satire and absurd humour, this is Brathwaite-Shirley’s most ambitious work to date.
Nigerian Modernism
Tate Modern, London | 8 October – 10 May
Tate Modern’s latest exhibition is the first in the UK to trace the development of modern art in Nigeria. It brings together the work of more than 50 artists spanning five decades, who responded to the country’s shifting political and social landscape – including calls for decolonisation in the 1940s, independence in 1960, and the Civil War of 1967. These artists reclaimed Indigenous traditions while forging a new vision of Modernism that blended African and European influences. Featured names include Uzo Egonu, El Anatsui, Ladi Kwali and Ben Enwonwu MBE. A particular highlight is the photography of J.D. ’Okhai Ojeikere, who documented the evolution of Nigerian hairstyling for over forty years.
Photography and the Black Arts Movement, 1955–1985
National Gallery of Art, Washington | Until 11 January
This landmark show is dedicated to the Black Arts Movement – a group of artists, poets, playwrights, musicians, photographers and filmmakers who united around the civil rights and freedom movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Photography was central to their mission, and this expansive show highlights 150 prints that celebrate Black history, identity and beauty. The line-up includes Adger Cowans, Barbara McCullough, Barkley Hendricks, Betye Saar, Billy Abernathy, Doris Derby, Emory Douglas, James Barnor, Kwame Brathwaite, Ming Smith, Romare Bearden and Roy DeCarava.
Bradford in the 80s: An Unseen Side of Black Britain & Frontline 1984/1985
Autograph | Online and National Media Museum, Bradford | Until 29 October
Victor Wedderburn Jr arrived in the UK from Jamaica in 1971 at the age of 16, joining his Windrush Generation parents in Bradford. After losing his job at Crofts Engineers in the early 1980s, he used his redundancy pay to buy a second-hand camera and film developing kit, embarking on a project to document life in the city. Wedderburn captured most of his images in and around Lumb Lane, Manningham, an area with a large Caribbean immigrant community. His photographs vividly evoke African Caribbean life in Bradford four decades ago, preserving stories that are often absent from the history books.
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair
Somerset House, London | 16 – 19 October
1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair returns to Somerset House for its 13th year running. It is the leading international art fair dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora, welcoming more than 50 global exhibitors based across 13 countries. This is an opportunity to discover over 100 artists working across painting, sculpture, performance, mixed media, textile and ceramics. There’s also a significant photography presence, including renowned image-makers such as Hassan Hajjaj, Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keita. This year, the fair sees strong representation from Nigeria and South Africa, and is hosting an array of Special Projects – including a group show dedicated to identity, tradition, history across the Caribbean.
Donald Locke: Resistant Forms
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham | Until 22 February
Resistant Forms traces the evolution of Guyanese-British artist Donald Locke (1930–2010), an artist who was dedicated to giving visibility to the contributions of Black culture to modernity. The exhibition brings together over eighty works, from early ceramics that hint at human and natural forms to striking mixed-media sculptures and monochromatic black paintings of the 1970s. Themes of history, identity and power run throughout his practice, expressed through forms and symbols that confront the legacies of colonialism in Guyana and the racial politics of the American Civil War, including sculptures evoking plantation architecture and paintings incorporating found photographs of Confederate and Union soldiers.
Words: Eleanor Sutherland
Image Credits:
1. James Barnor, Drum cover girl Erlin Ibreck, Kilburn, London, (1966, printed 2023). Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, (2025).
2. Jennie Baptiste, Butterfly Queen, from the series Ragga dancehall, (1994).
3. Stan Douglas, Birth of a Nation, 2025. Five-channel video installation, dimensions variable © Stan Douglas. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro and David Zwirner. Installation view, Stan Douglas: Ghostlight, Hessel Museum of Art, Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, USA, 21 June–30 November 2025. Installation photography: Olympia Shannon, 2025.
4. Kwame Brathwaite, born 1938, New York, NY; died 2023, New York, NY; Changing Times, ca. 1973, printed 2025, inkjet print, 15 _ 15 in. (38.1 _ 38.1 cm); The Kwame Brathwaite Archive; _ Kwame Brathwaite.
5. Tawny Chatmon, Economic Heritage, from the series “The Reconciliation,” 2024; Embroidery and acrylic on archival pigment print, 58 x 42 in.; Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Myrtis; © Tawny Chatmon; Image courtesy of the artist and Galerie Myrtis. Photographer: Galerie Myrtis
6. THE DELUSION, Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, 2025. Commissioned and produced by Serpentine Arts Technologies. © Danielle Brathwaite-Shirley, photography: Hugo Glendinning.
7. Malick Sidibé, Nuit de Noël, (1963), Gelatin silver print, 120 x 120 cm. Courtesy of Tristan Hoare Gallery.
8. Adger Cowans, Coltrane at the Gate, (1961). Charina Endowment Fund, (2022).
9. Victor Wedderburn, Melanie and Janet in their newly opened cosmetics shop, Shade, on Lumb Lane.
10. J.D. Okhai Ojeikere, Untitled (Mkpuk Eba) 1974, printed 2012. © reserved. Tate
11. Donald Locke, Resistant Forms (2025). Spike Island, Bristol. Photo by Rob Harris.
