This is the first U.S museum exhibition of Omar Ba (born Dakar, Senegal, 1977), one of today’s leading contemporary African artists.

Co-organized with The Bronx Museum of the Arts, this is the first comprehensive museum exhibition of the profoundly moving and complex work of Darrel Ellis (1958–1992).

Ellis created a multifaceted body of work that merges painting, printmaking, photography, and drawing before he died of AIDS-related causes at age 33. During his lifetime, his work was included in important contemporary surveys but only now is garnering the posthumous attention it deserves.

Approximately 15 works on paper celebrate Stanley Whitney’s (b. Philadelphia, PA, 1946) lifelong engagement with Henri Matisse’s color, drawing, and composition and reveal his thinking through the stained-glass windows that are now a permanent feature of the BMA’s Ruth R. Marder Center for Matisse Studies.

John Waters’ bequest of 372 works by 125 artists brings a particular cutting-edge articulation of American individualism to the BMA’s collection, particularly as it relates to queer identity and freedom of expression. Waters favors works that are visually witty, abstract, and often refer to the absurdities of the art world.

To showcase this provocative gift, queer photographers Catherine Opie and Jack Pierson are guest curating highlights from the collection for the BMA’s Nancy Dorman and Stanley Mazaroff Center for the Study of Prints, Drawings and Photographs.