This fall, Stamps Gallery at the University of Michigan invites visitors to experience Cosmo Whyte: Under the Quiet, Beyond the Eye, an ambitious mid-career survey of the interdisciplinary artist and Stamps School of Art & Design alumnus.
On view September 11 through December 12, 2026, the free exhibition in downtown Ann Arbor, Michigan, brings together drawing, sculpture, installation, and research-driven works that examine two recurring ideas in Whyte’s practice: the archive as a generative site of exploration, and migration as an unfinished arc of motion and reinvention.
Whyte’s Jamaican heritage and experience living in Atlanta, Ann Arbor, Chicago, Florida, and Los Angeles inform his explorations of Black identity, migration, displacement, and belonging. The exhibition marks a return to the place where Whyte began more deeply exploring these themes while earning his MFA from the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design in 2015.
Whyte frequently draws from public and personal archives connected to African diaspora and Caribbean histories, transforming and disrupting their records through distinct materials. Archival photographs become large-scale drawings, pixelated images, sculptural installations, and hand-painted beaded curtains that visitors physically pass through, momentarily interrupting an image’s legibility and revealing the unstable nature of recorded history.
“I don’t have the answers, and I’m not interested in providing them,” says Whyte. “The goal is for you to think through a set of complex questions with me. Collective questions that encompass politics, race, identity, displacement, and the power to determine how history is recorded.”
Part of the Penny W. Stamps School of Art & Design at the University of Michigan, Stamps Gallery is committed to deepening the understanding of contemporary art and design practices that spark action and conversation. Through lively, experimental, and inclusive exhibitions like Whyte’s, the gallery creates space for artists, designers, and audiences to encounter challenging ideas and imagine new ways of looking, making, and thinking.
As part of Whyte’s return to the University of Michigan, visitors can also hear directly from Whyte during the popular free Penny Stamps Speaker Series at the Michigan Theater on September 24 at 5:30p. A public reception immediately follows from 6:30–8:30pm at Stamps Gallery, just blocks away.
Cosmo Whyte: Under the Quiet, Beyond the Eye is free and open to the public at Stamps Gallery, 201 S. Division St. in downtown Ann Arbor.
Plan your visit and learn more.
