Wicked Local Cambridge: 'Around Cambridge'

March 27, 2018

The Cooper Gallery’s spring 2018 exhibition “ReSignifications” links classical and popular representations of African bodies in European art, culture and history as it interprets and interrogates the “Blackamoor” trope in Western culture that emerged at the intersection of cross-cultural encounters shaped by centuries of migration, exchange, conquest, servitude and exile.

Bay State Banner: 'Blackamoor no more: Contemporary artworks shatter oppressive colonial narrative'

March 21, 2018

Through May 5, the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art presents “ReSignifications,” a reimagined slice of a 2015 exhibit staged at New York University’s Villa La Pietra in Florence, Italy. Guest curator Awam Amkpa has whittled down the most poignant pieces of work, which completely overhaul the depiction of black bodies over time.

Boston Globe: 'The Ticket: What’s happening in the arts world'

March 8, 2018

RESIGNIFICATIONS Curator Awam Amkpa asked several contemporary artists to interrogate and respond to the Western art history trope of the blackamoor, an African depicted as servile or decorative. Through May 5.

Boston Globe: 'Harvard's Cooper Gallery updates the blackamoor'

April 18, 2018

‘ReSignifications,” at the Ethelbert Cooper Gallery of African & African American Art, is a pointed object lesson. What can we learn from blackamoors, the servile black figures in art history?

Thirty-six blackamoor statues, mostly made in the 18th and 19th centuries, reside in New York University’s Villa La Pietra, a historic home housing an art collection in Florence. Curator Awam Amkpa invited an international slate of artists to respond to these figures for a 2015 exhibition there.

ReSignifications

The Cooper Gallery spring 2018 exhibition features an interpretive version of the remarkable installation, ReSignifications, by our guest curator, Awam Ampka. ReSignifications was originally presented in 2015 at New York University’s Villa La Pietra in Florence, Italy as part of “Black Portraiture[s] II: Imaging the Black Body and Re-Staging Histories.”

ReSignifications links classical and popular representations of African bodies in European art, culture and history as it interprets and interrogates the “Blackamoor” trope...

ReSignifications

Wicked Local Cambridge: 'Around Cambridge'

Bay State Banner: 'Blackamoor no more: Contemporary artworks shatter oppressive colonial narrative'

Boston Globe: 'The Ticket: What’s happening in the arts world'

Boston Globe: 'Harvard's Cooper Gallery updates the blackamoor'

ReSignifications

ReSignifications

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