Give Denise Gardner a round of applause! According to Because Of Them We Can, Gardner has just been named to the head of the Art Institute of Chicago’s advisory board, where she will advocate for Black artists, art access, and education for underrepresented audiences. Gardner isn’t just making Art Institute of Chicago history with her appointment. She’s making museum history with her appointment, as she’s the first-ever Black woman to sit at the head of a board for an American museum. “I want people of color to know the history and the power and the contribution of their own people in the visual arts. That’s not something I enjoyed in my education as a young person. I remember as an adult when I learned about Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, and I was almost a little angry – why didn’t I know about these artists,” she said about her appointment. Gardner got her start in the industry 30 years ago, when she began as an intern at the Art Institute of Chicago. She was discovered for...

This story originally published on April 30, 2019 Everette Taylor became an art buff by accident. In 2017 he stumbled into owning his first piece — The Red Whisperer by Jonathan Henriquez — after winning a raffle at a speaking event in Boston. Since then he’s been hooked on the art world, peppering his LA home with pieces from well known and unknown creators. But with his discovery of his love of art also came a commitment to fixing a lot of the issues he saw in the space. In the midst of his journey as an art collector, Taylor kept running into the same problems: How do you actually find and discover artists? Better yet, how does a person without connections to elite galleries and wealthy people find artists? How do you transform the art industry from being exclusive, to inclusive of minorities and marginalized groups of people? “I walk into art galleries and people don’t even acknowledge my presence” Taylor told Afrotech. Searching for the answers to these questions led Taylor to...