Dr. Fahamu Pecou

 

 

Atlanta, based artist Dr. Fahamu Pecou overlays social commentary and hip hop culture onto the world of contemporary art with paintings and drawings that depict Pecou on fictionalized magazine covers and in staged photo shoots. Pecou’s paintings, performance art, and scholarly work addresses concerns around representations of black masculinity in popular culture and how these images impact both black male masculinity and identity.

Dr. Fahamu Pecou is an Atlanta-based artist and scholar who works on an international stage. He received a B.F.A. from the Atlanta College of Art in 1997 and a Ph.D. from Emory University in 2018. Pecou's paintings, photographs, performances, and multimedia installations explore and challenge representations of Black identity and experience. His work crosses boundaries, moving easily between academia, fine art, and popular culture. Pecou is profoundly committed to the principle that art can make social change, and to a practice that works towards doing so.

In 2020 Dr. Pecou was one of six artists selected for Emory University's Arts & Social Justice Fellowship, which paired Atlanta artists with faculty members across campus to explore the vital role of creative expression in motivating social change. That same year he was selected as a South Arts State Fellowship recipient. Pecou's work is featured in noted private and public national and international collections, including the Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture, the High Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the Seattle Art Museum, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Georgia, the Collection d’Art Société Générale (Paris), as well as in public commissions like We Can't Cop Cars Without Seeing Cop Cars on the Atlanta Beltline.

Pecou is the founding Director of the African Diaspora Art Museum of Atlanta (ADAMA), and exhibits and speaks internationally. This year he is acting as a guest curator for both the Congo Bienniale in Kinshasa, DRC, and for the Montresso Foundation in Marrakech, Morocco.

Pecou's work is featured in noted private and public national and international collections including; Smithsonian National Museum of African American Art and Culture, Societe Generale (Paris), Nasher Museum at Duke University, The High Museum of Art, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Seattle Art Museum, Paul R. Jones Collection, Clark Atlanta University Art Collection and Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia.

Conduit Gallery Exhibitions

Selected Exhibitions

  • 2022 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award
  • 2022 Sewanee, The University of the South, Sewanee, TN
  • 2022 Dirty South, traveling, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Denver Museum of Art
  • 2020 Fondation Montresso, Le Jardin Rouge, Marrakech, Morocco (solo)
  • 2020 Carnegie Center for Art & History, New Albany, IN
  • 2020 Wignall Museum of Contemporary Art, Rancho Cucamongo, CA
  • 2019 Philadelphia African American Art Museum, PA (solo)
  • 2019 Michael C Carlos Museum, Emory University, Atlanta, GA (solo)
  • 2019 Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, AR
  • 2019 Weeksville Heritage Center, Brooklyn NY
  • 2019 Backslash Gallery, Paris, France (solo)
  • 2018 Weber State University, Ogden, UT (solo)
  • 2018 Montclair Art Museum, Montclair, NJ
  • 2018 Oakland Museum of California, Oakland, CA
  • 2018 21c Museum, Oklahoma City, OK
  • 2018 Lyons Wier Gallery, New York NY (solo)
  • 2017 Collection Societe General, Paris, France (solo)
  • 2017 Carnegie Center for Art and History, New Albany, IN
  • 2017 Conduit Gallery, Dallas, TX (solo)
  • 2017 Halsey Institute of Contemporary Art, Charleston, SC (solo)
  • 2016 National Center for Civil & Human Rights, Atlanta, GA (solo)
  • 2016 Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, NC
  • 2016 Mineapolis Institute of Art, Mineapolis, MN (solo)
  • 2016 Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY (solo)
  • 2016 Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC
  • 2016 Takashi Murakami Collection, Yokohama Museum of Art
  • 2015 High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
  • 2015 Backslash Gallery, Paris, France (solo)
  • 2014 Museum of Contemporary Art Georgia, Atlanta, GA (solo)
  • 2014 State of the Art, Crystal Bridges Museum, Bentonville, AK
  • 2014 Gantt Center for African American Arts & Culture, Charlotte, NC
  • 2013 Backslash Gallery, Paris, France
  • 2013 High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
  • 2012 Sumter County Gallery of Art, Sumter, SC
  • 2012 Lyons Weir Gallery, New York, NY
  • 2012 University of Wisconsin, Osh Kosh, WI
  • 2012 Mason Murer Gallery, Atlanta, GA
  • 2010 Backslash Gallery, Paris, France
  • 2010 Grambling State University, Grambling, LA
  • 2009 Bell Roberts Gallery, Vlaeberg, Cape Province, South Africa
  • 2009 Lyons Wier Gallery, New York, NY
  • 2008 Austin Museum of Art, Austin, TX
  • 2008 Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Arts, Brooklyn, NY
  • 2008 Amistad Center, Hartford, CT
  • 2008 Flanders Gallery, Raleigh, NC
  • 2008 Volta 5, Basel, Switzerland, with Lyons Wier Gallery, NY
  • 2007 SWAB Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain
  • 2007 Lyons Weir Ortt Gallery, New York, NY
  • 2007 Vankin Gallery, Atlanta, GA
  • 2005 High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA
  • 2005 Michael Martin Galleries, San Francisco, CA
  • 2005 Taller Portobelo, Portobelo, Panama