Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), the preeminent African American voice of the nineteenth century, is remembered as one of the nation’s greatest orators, writers, and picture makers. Born on the Eastern Shore of Maryland in 1818, Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was the son of Harriet Bailey, an enslaved woman, and an unknown white father. He escaped bondage in 1838 and changed his surname to Douglass. Over six decades, Douglass published three autobiographies, hundreds of essays and a novella; delivered thousands of speeches; and edited the longest-running Black newspaper in the nineteenth century, The North Star (later Frederick Douglass’ Paper and Douglass’ Monthly). Organised into seven sections, this exhibition highlights the long arc and significance of Frederick Douglass’s life: from slave and fugitive to internationally acclaimed abolitionist, women’s rights activist, and statesman after the Civil War. We come to recognise his influences in the Civil War and postwar eras; and the significance of his afterlife, in which his portraits and writings continue to inspire people to seek 'all rights for all', one of his mottos. The range of objects shown here reflects Douglass’s openness to new forms of media and technology to advance the cause of human rights.

The culmination of a three-year research project, this exhibition focuses on the new nation-states that emerged in the wake of the First World War, exploring the role of art and artists in relation to the expression of national identities, nation-building, and statecraft. This exhibition brings together a range of Irish and international works, both modern and contemporary, that illuminate the shared experiences of the new states. In 1919, Arthur Griffith, writing from Gloucester Prison, urged his colleagues to ‘mobilise the poets’ to help make Ireland’s case for independence on the international stage. Griffith’s letter acknowledges the role of art and culture in developing international solidarities and justifying Ireland’s right, among other small nations, to ‘self-determine’. It also highlights the new possibilities for artists in the early twentieth century, an era of collapsing empires and seismic geopolitical shifts, to articulate and enact radical modern and democratic principles. 

This retrospective will follow the works of celebrated British Romantic artist, John Craxton R.A. (1922–2009); from his melancholic images of poets within brooding landscapes created in Britain in the early 1940s, to the radiant paintings and drawings inspired by his adopted homeland in the Mediterranean. The development of his work reveals Craxton’s experiences of confinement and exile, his personal liberation as a gay man, and his celebration of travel and colour, all set within the historical context of mid-century Britain and Greece. Inspiration taken from Greek archaeology, mythology and Byzantine mosaics shines through his art, as do affinities with acquaintance Pablo Picasso and, youthful best friend, Lucian Freud. Shown for the first time alongside this exhibition, contemporary artist Tacita Dean will present Crackers (2023), a new two screen film projection which she recently created in Crete as a musing on her friendship with the artist.

The artist duo Elmgreen & Dragset’s exhibition celebrates Prague’s literary heritage and brings together works by sixty international artists. Encompassing various decades, geographic regions and artistic movements, many of these works have been selected from Kunsthalle Praha’s Collection, while other artists have been personally invited by the duo to participate. The sprawling exhibition READ focuses on the historic and enduring relevance of books. Designed as a minimalist version of a contemporary public library, it also questions our relationship with books as physical objects and knowledge in the age of digital media. The title not only encourages reading, but also learning and understanding, as in to ‘read the signs’, ‘read a situation’ and ‘read the room’.