Black Exhibition Histories

Undergraduate

What makes an exhibition? What makes a Black exhibition? Since when do “ Black Exhibitions” exist? What is the role of museums in the History of Black Diasporic Artists? What is the role of the curator and what are curatorial limits? What is the relationship between the cultures of display emerging out of colonial expansion and racial capitalism and the display of artworks? What is the relationship between socio-political developments, identity politics, the fight for equity, art-historical discourse, and artistic self-determinacy? There is no better site to look at in the History of Art than Exhibitions. Those sites of public display are particularly charged when it comes to Black Artists. Not only is Black Exhibition Histories an emerging field in the field of Exhibition Histories itself it is also a missing piece in understanding the complexities of Black Art. This seminar explores how Black Artists have been exhibited, organized exhibitions, and created their own spaces as well as the ways in which the discourses around Blackness have shifted over time in tandem with the ways in which Black Artists works have been framed. When we look at the history of Black exhibitions, we look at more than just the intricacies of artistic display and inclusion or exclusion. The reason why Black art exhibitions are a tremendously rich resource to understand artistic movements, political shifts and aesthetic developments is that Black exhibitions tell cultural histories and allow for revelatory debates to emerge about our current moment and potentially moments to come. HU T 9:25am-11:20am