Skip to content

At the end of October, mixed media artist Derrick Adams published his first monograph featuring collected works from his 25-year-long career. His eponymous book surveys his entire career thus far, highlighting the vibrant energy of his work and the breadth of his practice through 150 of his pieces. The Baltimore, MD native and current Brooklyn resident is best known for his collage-inspired paintings of people constructed out of geometric blocks of color. In these images, Adams brings the everyday experience of Black Americans to the forefront, celebrating moments of joy and resilience.

While *Derrick Adams *is a deeply personal project, it was far from a solo endeavor. The nearly 250-page hardback from publishers Monacelli, includes essays by Hallie Ringle, Salamishah Tillet, Dexter Wimberly, and an interview by Sandra Jackson-Dumont. The book is a true collaboration honoring Adams’ unique and expansive output that reinvigorates the Black figure in art. The book will be accompanied by a forthcoming exhibition at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, opening on April 14.

Photographer: John Bergens Whatever (En Vogue), 2024 Acrylic, spray paint, and HDF faux brick on wood panel 36 x 36 in.

Adams reflects on the process of encapsulating his career and body of work into a book object below.

---

**What was the process like translating your vast body of work into book form? **

The process started about three years ago, compiling the images first. I consider myself a very prolific artist, so there was a lot of material to look through and to consider as possible inclusion into the book. As the book started to evolve, my exhibition at ICA in Boston—which is a mid-career exhibition opening in April—also came into the conversation. They became interested in the book as an accompaniment for the exhibition, which contains a lot of the same works that are featured in the book.

Then, we considered the scholarship of the book, serving beyond just showing my images but also including writers with insight into my practice and curators who I work with who were interested in being part of the dialog. So everything became more collectively structured.

It became such a self-reflective endeavor. I got to see works that I had made 20 years ago occupying spaces with works I’ve made a few years ago. The book was not necessarily put in a chronological order of the work, I didn’t want to talk about a timeline with the work, but instead talk about the relationship between how things existed before, how these things are existing now, and how these things may reoccur or how I’ve detoured away from them and come back. It became a really interesting therapeutic process.

Photographer: John Bergens Boxhead 3, 2014 Mixed media 23 x 28 x 19 in.

When comparing your old work to your more recent work for the book, did you discover anything surprising or illuminating you hadn’t realized before?

There were things I felt I understood about my work, but seeing them next to each other and having writers who know me from different stages of my career talk about things that I’ve made previously that relate to the things I’m making today, confirmed ideas that I’ve considered and pondered on creatively. It was great having that being described formally and contextualized in another more historical way through all of the added contributions of the writers. I know that I’m communicating certain things, but the book itself and the writing that accompanies the book confirms a level of communication that I felt I was participating in.

Photographer: John Bergens Left: Woman in Grayscale (Alicia), 2017 Giclée print on Hahnemühle Museum Etching paper, 24 x 18 in. Right: Man in Grayscale (Swizz), 2017 Giclée print on Hahnemühle Museum Etching paper 24 x 18 in.

**It takes a village to bring a book like this to life, and I know you worked with many other creatives for the writing interspersed throughout. At the same time, I’d imagine this feels like a deeply personal project for you. What was that collaboration process like? **

I left it really open for the people who participated. I trusted their point of view as scholars and cultural historians and left it up to them to dissect my work. I didn’t create any parameters of what I wanted them to talk about. When I’m working with anyone in a collaborative endeavor, I love to not necessarily know exactly what people will say or do.

I also left it up to the publishers to be a part of the selection of the writers and to give their feedback. The publishers have their vision of what they hope to accomplish and I have mine. And then the writers are speaking on behalf of my work, but they also are speaking toward an audience. I was pretty much open to all of the feedback and respected what the writers contributed.

We had an outline of what we wanted the book to be, but we also left some level of flexibility in the hopes that bringing on writers to interpret things would open up a better and more expansive dialog about the work, outside of just my own opinion. That said, there were a few things that I didn’t feel were representative of my work, and I made it known to the writers or to the publishers to redirect the conversation back to things I felt were more appropriately in line to how I work. Because this is going to be a marker in history of the way that my work is going to be received and spoken about and studied. So anybody in the book commissioned to write, people would consider whatever they’re saying to be aligned with what I do. So there was some oversight over how they spoke on things.

Photographer: John Bergens Only Happy Thoughts, 2024 Acrylic and fabric collage on wood panel 60 x 60 in.

**Can you speak on the decision-making and considerations that went into the book design? **

I didn’t want to design the book or be a part of the design of the book. As an artist, I just like to make art. I deferred to the expertise of the designer. I love to see what other people do with my material if I’m collaborating with them.

But there were two things I really wanted: the three categories the book is structured in—Channeling, Signaling, and Mirroring—since I didn’t want it to be chronological, and the image on the cover with the pink color. I looked at the book as making an art piece, and I looked at the cover as a sculptural object in the form of a book. I wanted something that the viewer would want to touch. The color pink that I chose is very provocative. It’s something that I rarely see in a book like this. I just love it! It’s a color that I’ve used in my work, and it really brings the idea of play into the work. Someone who’s very young who may not know who I am would still be more drawn to it just because of the visual structure of it. And people who are familiar with my work would think it only makes sense that the book would appear this way.

Photographer: John Bergens Left: Black Mirror, 2023 Acrylic and fabric collage on wood panel, 30 x 30 in. Right: Figure in the Urban Landscape 15, 2018 Acrylic, graphite, ink, fabric collage, grip tape, and model cars on wood panel, 48 x 48 x 3 in.

What sort of experience do you hope readers of your book have?

There are many different levels of entry into something like this. There’s the scholarly part with the writers, and that could be a little bit more complex and layered in the descriptions of the work; that’s a particular audience who is interested in studying the work in that way. There’s also people who are familiar with my work and want to support what I’m doing.

But I also am very mindful and excited about the audience of people who would not necessarily buy a book. Even if they had the money to buy it, they’d be like, “Why would I buy a book just to put it on the table?” What would that book look like? We were able to achieve something that is visually provocative as something to have on your table, even if you just learned about who I am as an artist. Having something that’s physical has to be physically pleasing. It can’t just be something that I think is important.

Photographer: John Bergens Style Variation 35, 2020 Acrylic and graphite on digital inkjet photograph on canvas 96 x 59.75 in.