McArthur Binion: Notes on Form (Intimate Structures)

Notes on Form (Intimate Structures) explores McArthur Binion’s work from 2009 to the present, highlighting his ongoing use of form, shape, and a deeply personal language of abstraction. Born in 1946 in Mississippi and raised as one of eleven children, Binion’s early life continues to inform the material and conceptual foundation of his practice.

Referring to each work as a self-portrait, he layers oil stick and ink in hatched lines of a grid, a signature characteristic of Binion’s oeuvre, on top of a collage of personal documents such as birth certificates, photographs, address book pages, and images of his childhood home. Each canvas becomes an extension of the “under conscious,” a term he uses to articulate the deeply embedded personal histories that materialize in his work.

While Binion’s compositions gesture towards the minimalist style of a grid, they resist the impersonal aesthetic often associated with this style in art history. The exhibition title nods toward Primary Structures, the Jewish Museum’s influential 1966 exhibition that introduced minimalist sculpture as a formal movement grounded in order and control. Binion’s “intimate structures,” by contrast, speak through touch, rhythm, presence.

This exhibition situates Binion’s work within Washington, D.C.—a city shaped by histories of Black abstraction, from Alma Thomas to Sam Gilliam, where abstraction has long served as a space of both personal expression and political agency. Binion’s shaped canvases enter that conversation with a distinct voice. The use of repetition, fragments, and layers echo both his lifelong stutter and his background in writing; often referring to himself as a “writer who paints.” Through this lens, Binion reimagines minimalism and abstraction as something lived, remembered, and felt.

The exhibition is generously supported by Maria & Alberto de la Cruz. Curated by Jaynelle Hazard.