The exhibition is based on artist Derrick Adams’s extensive research into the archive of the influential African-American fashion designer Patrick Kelly (1954–1990), housed at the Schomburg Center.

Derrick Adams: Patrick Kelly, The Journey is an inHarlem project presented by The Studio Museum in Harlem in partnership with the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture and the New York Public Library’s Countee Cullen Library branch.

In a diverse practice that spans collage, sculpture, performance, drawing, and video, Derrick Adams explores the force of popular culture in our lives and plays with perception in relation to objects and texts. Rooted in deconstructivist philosophies, Adams’s work focuses on the fragmentation and manipulation of structure and surface.

He frequently reconfigures familiar objects; for one series he updated mass-produced African figurines, turning them into superhero-like icons. “Most of my work resides in this idea of how outside influences impact the construction of self-image,” he has said. His series "Deconstruction Worker" includes 100 pieces that examine the construction of the figure and image, including collaged profiles of heads composed of mashed-up elements that suggest architectural floorplans.

American, b. 1970, based in New York, New York