Derrick Adams' first monograph showcases fullness of Black life

In July 2025, vaunted clothing and lifestyle brand Ralph Lauren launched an unprecedented campaign featuring models meant to evoke the residents of Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts a historic enclave on Martha's Vineyard that has served as a summer haven for upper-class Black Americans since the 19th century.

- By NADINE MATTHEWS Special to the AmNews

Though Black presence on the island dates back to the 1700s, the campaign sparked widespread media discussion and marked a turning point in the public visibility of the Black middle and upper class and in how Black leisure is depicted for mainstream audiences. 2025 also marks 61 years since the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, yet Black Americans still often have to fight to be seen in the fullness of their humanity through the American cultural lens.

Derrick Adams is one of the most celebrated artists working today, precisely because his work offers vibrant, joyful, and expansive counter-narratives to these cultural omissions. In a media landscape that too often positions Black subjects as threats or trauma symbols, Adams provides glimpses of everyday Black life - unburdened, unguarded, and fully alive.

His just-published monograph (Monacelli in collaboration with Gagosian), "Derrick Adams," arrives at a time when such representations feel especially urgent.

Even as society has shifted towards more inclusion, recent political undercurrents have reversed much of that progress. Beginning with the first Trump administration and continuing into the present day, executive actions targeting diversity initiatives have taken aim at monuments, museums, hiring practices, public broadcasting, literature, and more. The goal is clear: to rewrite or erase the visibility of marginalized histories.