NYC Arts: The Complete Guide to Art and Culture

Who, What, Wear: Selections from the Permanent Collection, looks at evolutions in style, from self-expression and artistic technique, to ideals of beauty as sanctioned by different societies. 

While artists including James VanDerZee (1886–1983) and Dawoud Bey (b. 1953) evoke the Harlem community as an influential and iconic arbiter of style, this exhibition is national and international in scope, surveying artists and subjects from places as varied as West Africa, the Caribbean and the American South.

Including both posed portraits and candid scenes, the works on view emphasize how individuals choose to present themselves, rather than how others have represented them historically. Often these depictions oppose photographic conventions that have reiterated assumptions about what people are supposed to represent, rather than who they are as individuals.

The figures on view defy these practices, demonstrating a complex array of influences and references— hip-hop and pop music, new media and technology, African textiles, traditional dress, street style—that, taken together, refuse any singular “look” or aesthetic and mark culture and tradition as alive and constantly changing.

• Directions: Subway: 2, 3 to 125th Street