After a year-long programming hiatus, TONE will unveil On The Road: Chocolate Cities, a group exhibition curated by Larry Ossei-Mensah, which explores notions of Blackness coupled with the convergence of place and space.

Memphis, TN - On July 10th, 2021, TONE  opens its doors to unveil a brand new group exhibition curated by Ghanaian-American curator Larry Ossei-Mensah. On The Road: Chocolate Cities is the most recent installment in a series of exhibitions by Ossei-Mensah that serve as a curatorial response to his engagement with artists that he meets  during his travels across the United States. The title is culled from two literary texts: On The Road by Jack Kerouac and Chocolate Cities: The Black Map of American Life by Marcus Anthony Hunter and Zandria F. Robinson. Both texts explore the notion of place and the articulation of identity as a result. Inspired by both books, Ossei-Mensah has endeavored to initiate his own investigation around ideas of identity, place, and space utilizing our own Chocolate City, Memphis, TN as a catalyst for the conversation.

Through curatorial research, Ossei-Mensah finds that the Historic Orange Mound neighborhood and the city of Memphis more broadly, offers the perfect stage for the examination of notions of Blackness and its intersections with place and space. This exhibition aims to identify a throughline that ties all people and places across the African Diaspora together.

Date: July 10th - Sept 18th

Location: TONE HQ

Artists: Adrienne Elise Tarver, Amani Lewis, Amber Ahmad, Ashante Kindle, Ashley Teamer, Brandon J. Donahue, Brittney Boyd Bullock, D’Angelo Lovell Williams, Felandus Thames, Frank Stewart, Jamea Richmond-Edwards, Johnathan Payne, Kevin Brisco, Lawrence Matthews, Lester Merriweather, MadameFraankie, TJ Dedeaux- Norris, and Ufuoma Essi

More information can be found on the Tone website.