For photographer Dawoud Bey, activism and art have long been linked. Bey, whose portraits of Harlem form the centerpiece of the exhibit “Harlem: Found Ways” now at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art, first connected with his chosen visual medium through a protest.
The operatic opening notes in “Nine Moments for Now,” a sweeping exhibition about democracy, race, and society at Harvard’s Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art, are grounded in violence and grief.
The Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art opened in late October 2014 in Cambridge, Mass., its exterior walls serving as both real and metaphoric grounding for the Hutchins Center for African and American Research at Harvard University (of which The Root’s editor-in-chief, Henry Louis Gates Jr., is director).
“WOLE SOYINKA: Antiquities Across Times and Place,” on view at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art in Harvard Square, features nearly three dozen objects from the famous African playwright’s personal collection. Contemporary works by Nigerian artists who have been inspired by Soyinka’s writing augment his personal pieces. The resulting exhibition presents a dynamic response to the question, “What does it mean when artists collect art?”
Wole Soyinka is someone to celebrate. Africa's most acclaimed writer, dramatist, poet, novelist, "writer of genius", politico activist who spent 22 months as prisoner of conscience and, for the most part has transcended negativity in a host of camps. He’s been iconic across the board, with his mad hair, quick, hip wit, and his work, which will be along …a long time. His is uncommon work, perhaps monumental.
Curated by Awam Amkpa, Professor, NYU Tisch School of the Arts, WOLE SOYINKA: Antiquities Across Times and Place is the first exhibition composed of African art since the Cooper Gallery first opened its doors in 2014. What started as an idea generated from conversations about aesthetics between a student and his mentor have blossomed into a gallery filled with wonder. In an effort to challenge the boundaries of history’s impact on the present, Amkpa juxtaposes works of...
