How Hip Hop changed the face of art: a new Baltimore show explores the story
‘The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century’ at the Baltimore Museum of Art coincides with the 50th anniversary of hip hop and explores how hip hop became a global cultural phenomenon

Fifty years ago, Hip Hop was born in an apartment building in The Bronx, New York, where a man named Clive Campbell was throwing a back-to-school party among artists, poets, musicians and dancers.
Standing behind the DJ deck, he drops the era's classics: James Brown, Aretha Franklin, and The Meters. But there’s a twist: Campbell plays two copies of the same record across two turntables, a technique known as the merry-go-round. A looped counterpoint is created between the records, creating a heavily percussive, high-octane, dance-inducing sound. This music, which emerged as music from Black, Latinx, and Afro-Latinx Americans and rapidly proliferated via large-scale block parties, would change the face of music, arts and culture forever.
Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century
Installation view of 'The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century' at the Baltimore Museum of Art, April 2023
Half a century since Hip Hop was conceived, the Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) has now unveiled a major exhibition that dives into the conceptual, cultural, and artistic characteristics that have made hip hop an enduring global phenomenon and embedded it in the canon of art history.
‘The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century’ features more than 90 works of art by some of today’s most important visual and cross-disciplinary artists, including Derrick Adams, Mark Bradford, Lauren Halsey, Julie Mehretu, Adam Pendleton, Tschabalala Self, Hank Willis Thomas, and Carrie Mae Weems, as well as several creatives with links to Baltimore and St Louis, such as Devin Allen, Monica Ikegwu, Amani Lewis, Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, Damon Davis, and Jen Everett. The exhibition experience is enhanced by a pulsing soundscape composed by Baltimore-based musicians Abdu Ali and Wendel Patrick, plus several outdoor works including a large-scale ode to Nike Air Force 1 sneakers.
The artwork is staged in dialogue with fashion and objects created and made iconic by the likes of Lil’ Kim, Dapper Dan and Gucci, and Virgil Abloh for Louis Vuitton, along with brands like Cross Colours and Telfar. ‘The Culture’ tells the story of this fertile movement through painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, video, and installations organised under six themes: Language, Brand, Adornment, Tribute, Ascension, and Pose.
Hank Willis Thomas, Black Power, 2006
Telfar by Telfar Clemens and Babak Radboy. Azalea Tracksuit . 2022
‘Hip hop’s influence is so significant that it has become the new canon – an alternate set of ideals of artistic beauty and excellence centred around the Afro-Latinx identities and histories – and one that rivals the Western art historical canon around which many museums orient and develop exhibitions,’ explained Asma Naeem, the BMA’s Dorothy Wagner Wallis director. ‘Many of the most compelling visual artists working today are directly engaging with central tenets of this canon in their practices, in both imperceivable and manifest ways. Whether through the poetics of the street, the blurring of high and low, the reclamation of the gaze, the homage to hip-hop geniuses, or the experimental collaborations across such vastly disparate fields as painting, performance, fashion, architecture, and computer programming, the visual culture of hip hop along with its subversive tactics and its tackling of social justice surface everywhere in the art of today.’
The show captures the pan-disciplinary phenomenon of hip hop; its ability to traverse high and low culture, and how it preempted a contemporary landscape in which creative fields continue to blur and overlap.
‘The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century’ is co-organised by the Baltimore Museum of Art, where it is on view until 16 July 2023, and the Saint Louis Art Museum (SLAM) where it will move from 25 August 2023 - 1 January 2024. artbma.org
Installation view of The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century at the Baltimore Museum of Art, April 2023
Installation view of 'The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century' at the Baltimore Museum of Art, April 2023
Harriet Lloyd-Smith is the Arts Editor of Wallpaper*, responsible for the art pages across digital and print, including profiles, exhibition reviews, and contemporary art collaborations. She started at Wallpaper* in 2017 and has written for leading contemporary art publications, auction houses and arts charities, and lectured on review writing and art journalism. When she’s not writing about art, she’s making her own.
-
Last chance to see: Sharjah Biennial 15, ‘Thinking Historically in the Present’
Built on the vision of late curator Okwui Enwezor, the Sharjah Biennial 15: ‘Thinking Historically in the Present’ offers a critical reframing of postcolonial narratives through major new commissions
By Amah-Rose Abrams • Published
-
For London Gallery Weekend 2023, the mood is hardcore
With London Gallery Weekend 2023 almost upon us (2 – 4 June), here’s our list of must-see art exhibitions
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
Birkenstock celebrates its most memorable styles with colourful capsule (and matching socks)
Birkenstock marks the 40th, 50th and 60th anniversaries of the Gizeh, Arizona and Madrid sandals, respectively, with limited-edition versions
By Jack Moss • Published
-
The best London art exhibitions: a guide for this weekend
Your guide to the best London art exhibitions this weekend, as chosen by the Wallpaper* arts desk
By Harriet Lloyd Smith • Published
-
The art fair personality test: what type of Frieze New York visitor are you?
Are you a selfie seeker or a champagne visualist? Take our art fair personality test to identify yourself at Frieze New York 2023 (17-21 May)
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
Bridget Riley unveils her first ceiling painting for the British School at Rome
Bridget Riley reveals her design for Edwin Lutyens’ ceiling at the British School at Rome
By Hannah Silver • Published
-
‘Avedon 100’: cultural stars reflect on the photographer’s boundary-shattering legacy
In a new Gagosian exhibition, ‘Avedon 100’, marking the centenary of Richard Avedon’s birth, leading cultural figures – from Naomi Campbell to Spike Lee – share personal stories on the photographer’s remarkable career
By Sophie Gladstone • Published
-
Felicia Honkasalo on creative obsessions, gothic horror, and the sci-fi world of AI photography
Explore the vision of Helsinki-based artist Felicia Honkasalo in ‘Through the lens’, our monthly series spotlighting photographers who are Wallpaper* contributors
By Sophie Gladstone • Published
-
New York art exhibitions: what to see in 2023
As Frieze 2023 gets ready to touch down at The Shed, explore our ongoing guide to the best New York art exhibitions 2023 for your diary
By Tilly Macalister-Smith • Published
-
Julian Opie on VR, shuffle dancing and obsessive art collecting
Artist Julian Opie reflects on life, work and turning London’s Lisson Gallery into a playground of VR (until 15 April). We explore his new show and peek behind the scenes of his London studio
By Harriet Lloyd-Smith • Published
-
Remembering Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023), genre-bending pioneer of electronic music
Ryuichi Sakamoto, the composer and musician who traversed popular and high culture, has died aged 71. In tribute, we revisit our 2022 profile, focused on the Japanese artist's ‘Seeing Sound, Hearing Krug’, a composition that paired sound, flavour, light and texture
By David Graver • Published