This fall, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (VMFA) unveils “Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz and Alicia Keys,” one of the most significant presentations of contemporary Black art to reach an American museum in years. On view from November 22–March 1, 2026, the exhibition gathers more than 130 works by nearly 40 artists into a 12,000-square-foot installation—an immersive sweep of painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and ephemera that spans generations and continents.
The Celebrity Collector Powerhouse Transforming a Museum
For the Grammy-winning musician and award-winning producer, collecting has long been a form of stewardship. The Dean Collection reflects the couple’s shared credo: “collecting and preserving the culture of ourselves for ourselves, now and into the future,” a philosophy that has guided more than two decades of supporting artists—especially living Black artists—and building community around creative expression.
“Giants” arrives in Richmond not simply as an exhibition but as a cultural proposition: a testament to artistic excellence, generational storytelling, and the sustaining force of Black creativity.
“Giants underscores the significance of artists to tell their stories, celebrate life, and resist erasure.”
—Valerie Cassel Oliver
A Landmark Moment for Black Art—and for Virginia
Richmond, with its complex historic ties to African American life, offers an especially resonant stage for this exhibition. VMFA Director and CEO Alex Nyerges describes “Giants” as reflecting the museum’s commitment to presenting “impactful exhibitions that are relevant to all of our communities,” situating this moment within the institution’s long history of supporting African American, African, and African diaspora artists.
The exhibition’s scope is extraordinary. It includes works by seminal figures such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Gordon Parks, Kwame Brathwaite, and Malick Sidibé, whose contributions form a bedrock for contemporary image-making. Alongside them are leading voices reshaping the field today, including Kehinde Wiley, Amy Sherald, Derrick Adams, Nick Cave, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Mickalene Thomas, Deborah Roberts, Henry Taylor, Titus Kaphar, Ebony G. Patterson, Vaughn Spann, Zohra Opoku, Meleko Mokgosi, and many others whose work speaks urgently to the moment.
Seen together, these artists create a monumental chorus. Their practices explore identity, community, resistance, joy, history, and futurity through deeply individual aesthetics. For museum visitors, the result is a rare chance to experience the breadth of contemporary Black art at scale…