Raymond Saunders's first retrospective, a small but potent exhibition at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, surveys 35 of his bewitching paintings. The works, described as elusive and Rauschenbergian, feature messy scrawls, collected trinkets, and media clippings, with pieces like *Passages: East, West 1* (1987) layering chess boards, paint strokes, and appropriated still lifes. Saunders, who joined Andrew Kreps and David Zwirner last year, has never before received a retrospective, despite his influential 1967 essay "Black Is a Color" and steady institutional acquisitions.
This retrospective matters because it reclaims Saunders as a hometown legend and argues for his canonization, highlighting a major Black artist who has long been underrecognized. The show, curated by Eric Crosby, brings together loans from top museums like the National Gallery of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, proving Saunders's importance while underscoring how rarely his work has been exhibited. It challenges viewers to embrace art's slipperiness, rewarding those who linger on its mysteries.