The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century

This groundbreaking exhibition examines the resounding impact hip hop has had on contemporary art and culture across the past 20-plus years.

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century captures the extraordinary influence of the movement, which has driven innovations in music, visual and performing arts, fashion, and technology and grown into a global phenomenon since its emergence in the 1970s. 

The exhibition features approximately 70 objects by both established and emerging artists, design houses, streetwear icons, and musicians working in a wide range of media to demonstrate hip hop’s proliferation from the street to the runway, the studio to the museum gallery, and countless sites in between. The exhibition also explores how hip hop has and continues to challenge structures of power, dominant cultural narratives, and political and social systems of oppression.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue with contributions from more than 50 artists, writers, scholars, curators, and arts leaders.

Credit: Exhibition overview from museum website