We will be webcasting the symposium "American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora" on October 4-5, 2013. This symposium will examine the role of Africa and its diaspora in the development of art in the United States, from nineteenth-century portraiture to American modernism; from the Harlem Renaissance to the contemporary art world. Amelia Goerlitz, fellowship and academic program coordinator for the museum, previewed the event in a recent blog post; see below for an excerpt. The webcast will be available on our website. Join the conversation online during the event by following @americanart and using #amartafrica on Twitter. |
| American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora
 | Loïs Mailou Jones' Les Fétiches |
On October 4-5, 2013, the museum will convene an international symposium entitled, "American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora". Nineteen speakers from across the country and around the globe-Uganda, Nigeria, England, France, and Germany-will discuss the ways in which American artists have engaged with the objects, cultures, histories, and people of Africa and the global black diaspora. For centuries, American artists of diverse racial and ethnic backgrounds with various agendas have imagined and depicted Africa and African peoples in their work. Or they have turned to African cultures and art objects for inspiration and a source of shared identity. A review committee of Smithsonian scholars and one outside professor selected papers for the symposium from among ninety-five proposals. The resulting program is grouped around several themes: nineteenth-century portraiture; primitivism and modernism; the development of a trans-African aesthetic in art of the Harlem Renaissance and beyond; postwar artists' travels to the African continent; and contemporary artists' interrogation of history and appropriation of traditional forms. The first day will open with presentations by scholars of American, African, and African Diasporic art, while the second day includes a talk by renowned artist and scholar David C. Driskell. Attendees of the symposium and online viewers of the live webcast may be familiar with some of the artists discussed: Charles Willson Peale, William H. Johnson, Jeff Donaldson, Carrie Mae Weems, and Kehinde Wiley. Other names may be new: Augustus Washington, Winold Reiss, Willis "Bing" Davis, and Wura-Natasia Ogunji. Some artists are represented in the museum's own collection; among them is Loïs Mailou Jones, a painter whose works reflect an increasing fascination and identification with Africa and its diaspora. Read Amelia's full post on the blog for more about Loïs Mailou Jones and the symposium. |
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| Smithsonian American Art Museum P.O. Box 37012 Washington, D.C. 20013 |
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