The Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) will present a contemporary art exhibition featuring work by Ford/Philip Morris Foundation Fellows for Artists of Color (1985-99).
Making America Again: So Strong, So Brave, So True runs from Aug. 28 to Sept. 29, 2026, in the Sheila & Richard Riggs Gallery at MICA’s Fred Lazarus IV Center, located at 131 W. North Ave. in Baltimore.
The Ford/Philip Morris initiative was the only program of its kind in the nation, and it was spearheaded by MICA. Funded by the Ford Foundation and the Philip Morris Foundation, the program expanded to four additional independent art colleges—the Cranbrook Academy, the California Institute of the Arts (CalArts), the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Yale School of Art. This joint effort enabled 200 artists of color to earn Master of Fine Arts degrees, along with all that facilitates entry to the mainstream of American art and culture. The artists chosen for the exhibition represent an array of styles, and many are important forces in the art world with work in major museums around the world.
Featured artists from the cohort include Candida Alvarez, Dawoud Bey, Sanford Biggers, and others. The exhibition also includes work by artists who preceded the fellowship program, including Joyce J. Scott, Oletha DeVane and Lola Flash, as well as artists who came to MICA following the program, including Jerrell Gibbs, Monica Ikegwu, Jeffrey Kent, Amy Sherald, and others.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by Langston Hughes’ 1935 poem, “Let America Be America Again,” which compares what is promised by the “American Dream” to the lived experiences of Black, Indigenous, and other marginalized communities.
Dr. Leslie King Hammond and Dr. Lowery Stokes Sims are guest curators for this exhibition. Dr. Hammond is the graduate dean emerita and founder of the former Center for Race and Culture at MICA. She also previously served as a senior fellow at the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation in Baltimore. Dr. Sims is an independent curator and art historian and the curator emerita of the Museum of Arts and Design. In 2021–2022, she was the Kress Beinecke Professor at the Center, National Gallery of Art. She received an honorary degree from MICA in 1988.
The exhibition is free and open to the public daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. A public reception will be held Thursday, Sept. 3, from 5 to 7 p.m.
For more information about the exhibition, visit MICA’s website.
