update! there is new black art on the Pitt building

As it happens, my post yesterday (below) was outdated today! The “There Is Black Art in the Future” art installation that the International Free Expression Project exhibited on the Pitt Building downtown has been replaced by some equally stunning artwork featuring the Greenwood Plan, a Pittsburgh-based nonprofit working to support the communal health of Black communities. Check it out. And here you can still see the online version of “There Is Black Art in the Future.”

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YESTERDAY’S NEWS: On the facade of the Pitt Building in Downtown Pittsburgh — 213 Smithfield St. — you will find an installation of extraordinary artworks by seven Black female artists titled “There is Black Art in the Future.” (Some of you will recognize that the title is a play on the famous/infamous billboard by Alisha Wormsley in East Liberty that the landlord had taken down: “There Are Black People in the Future.”)

The Pitt Building installation is presented by the International Free Expression Project, a Pittsburgh-based NGO working to advance free-expression rights around the world. Check out our website.

As it happens, one of the artists who contributed work to “There is Black Art …” — Jameelah Platt — will soon have one of her pieces put up for sale or investment online. You’ll be able to buy a piece or just of a percentage of it, which is a way for people of modest means to invest in artworks and take advantage of what historically have been better-than-stock-market returns. The platform was founded by a Ghanaian entrepreneur who wanted to help talented but often impoverished roadside artists in his country reach a larger market and make a decent living.

Stay tuned! I’ll let you know when Jameelah’s piece goes up online. Meanwhile, wander down to the corner of Smithfield Street and Third Avenue to experience “There Is Black Art in the Future.”

(“The Great Together” pictured above is a painting by Jameelah Platt)