Afro-Atlantic Histories (Portuguese: Histórias Afro-Atlânticas) is the title of a touring art exhibition first held jointly at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Brazil in 2018.[1] The exhibition was made up of artworks and historical artifacts from and about the African diaspora, specifically focusing "on the 'ebbs and flows' among Africa, Americas, Caribbean and also Europe."[1][2] Built around the concept of histórias, a Portuguese term that can include fictional and non-fictional narratives, Afro-Atlantic Histories explores the artistic, political, social, and personal impacts and legacies of the Transatlantic slave trade.[3] The exhibition was hailed by critics as a landmark show of diasporic African art.[4][5][6]
Afro-Atlantic Histories was first shown at the São Paulo Museum of Art (MASP) and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake from June 29 to October 21, 2018, as part of MASP's ongoing Histórias exhibition series, each exploring a different community, identity, or artistic practice in depth.[7][8][1][9] The exhibition was curated by Adriano Pedrosa, Ayrson Heráclito, Hélio Menezes, Lilia Moritz Schwarcz, and Tomás Toledo.[1]
Following the first exhibition, then-Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (MFAH) curator Kanitra Fletcher worked with the original curators to adapt the show for MFAH and the National Gallery of Art (NGA), where she was named the NGA's first Associate Curator of African American and Afro-Diasporic Art in 2021.[10][4] The adapted version featured a smaller number of artworks with a broader geographic focus.[4] Molly Donovan of the NGA and Steven Nelson of the NGA's Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts contributed to the curation of the American tour.[2] The exhibition was shown at MFAH from October 24, 2021 to January 17, 2022 and the NGA from April 10 to July 17, 2022.[3][2]
The opening reception for Afro-Atlantic Histories at the NGA was attended by Vice President Kamala Harris.[4][6] Over 140,000 people visited the show at the NGA and a museum spokesperson said it was "one of the exhibits that has generated the most interest in recent years."[11]
Activism and Resistance (Ativismos e Resistências)
Adapted exhibition themes
The American tour of Afro-Atlantic Histories featured six of the eight themes from the original exhibition, with several themes slightly modified.[14]NGA curator Kanitra Fletcher said that while the changes to the exhibition contextualized it for North American audiences and included more works by African Americans, "we're not thinking of it as an African American show," further noting a "global Blackness" present in both the original and adapted versions.[15]
James Phillips: Description of a Slave Ship (1789);[17]Frank Bowling: Night Journey (1969-1970);[18]Rosana Paulino: The Permanence of Structures (2017);[19] Jaime Lauriano: Portuguese Stones #2 (2017); José Alves de Olinda: Slave Ship (2019);[20]Hank Willis Thomas: A Place to Call Home (Africa America Reflection) (2020)[21]
Frans Post: Landscape with Anteater (c.1660);[29]Clementine Hunter: Untitled (c.1970);[30]Barrington Watson: Conversation (1981);[31] Ad Junior, Edu Carvalho, and Spartakus Santiago: Intervention in Rio: How to Survive an Improper Approach (2018)[32]
Writing in The New York Times, Holland Cotter called the original showing of Afro-Atlantic Histories "piece for piece one of the most enthralling shows I’ve seen in years, with one visual detonation after another," further describing the exhibition as "fundamentally about resistance, and black sovereignty. It’s about change, not chains."[5]Hyperallergic listed the original showing as one of the 20 best exhibitions of 2018 outside the United States, with critic Seph Rodney calling it "breathtaking in ambition, scope, and display," and hailing it as "one of those few exhibitions that actually delivered what it said it would."[51]ARTnews named the Saõ Paulo showing the 3rd most important art exhibition of the 2010s.[52]
Following the opening of the American tour at the NGA, Philip Kennicott wrote in The Washington Post that the mixture of artistic media & time periods in the show "makes for some stunning juxtapositions," adding that the show "has tremendous symbolic importance for the National Gallery" due to its location in the NGA's West Building, the wing of the museum traditionally devoted to canonical artworks that has long included very few Black artists.[4] Describing the NGA exhibition in ARTnews, Alex Greenberger wrote that "though Afro-Atlantic Histories features depictions of violence, it also proposes that, under the most dehumanizing circumstances, Black people across the world found means of self-possession."[53] Writing for The Guardian about the NGA showing, David Smith said the exhibition "resists a grand narrative or definitive history but contains multitudes," noting that the first and final works of the exhibition - Hank Willis Thomas' A Place to Call Home (Africa America Reflection) (2020) and David Hammons' African-American Flag (1990), respectively - "form powerful bookends."[6]
Writing in The New Yorker, critic Julian Lucas called the NGA showing "a powerful corrective" to traditional historical narratives of slavery that do not include Afro-Latino perspectives, further noting that the show "explores the creation of transnational unity by people of African descent." Lucas also praised the juxtapositions of works in the show; specifically, the contrasts between Arthur Jafa's Ex-Slave Gordon (2017), Eustáquio Neves' Untitled (1995), and McPherson & Oliver's The Scourged Back (c.1863); between Sidney Amaral's Neck Leash (Who Shall Speak on Our Behalf?) (2014) and Kara Walker's Restraint (2009); and between James Phillips' Description of a slave ship (1789), Emanoel Araújo's The Ship (2007), José Alves de Olinda's Slave Ship (2019), and Rosana Paulino's The Permanence of Structures (2017). Writing about the "Portraits" section of the exhibition, Lucas noted that works like Flávio Cerqueira's Amnesia (2015) and Samuel Fosso's Self-Portrait (as Liberated American Woman of the ’70s) (1997) represent "contemporary challenges to the erasure of Blackness in the West."[54]
Critic Chase Quinn wrote in frieze that the NGA showing "[serves] as a quiet rebuttal to representations of the ‘Black experience’ that historically isolate Black history in the broader context of Western history." Quinn hailed the exhibition as a "benchmark" for its message that non-Black people are inherently intertwined with Black history.[55] Writing in the conservative National Review, Brian T. Allen negatively reviewed the show's curatorial texts and time range, calling them "arbitrary ... jumping from one place to the next," but praised the art included in the show.[56]
Gallery
McPherson & Oliver: The Scourged Back (1863), portrait of Gordon
