Varanasi: ‘NEGRITUDE’ – a week-long exhibition of African American Art organized by the Department of History of Art in collaboration with Bharat Kala Bhawan, Banaras Hindu University began on Monday.
The exhibition has 26 participating artists from the United States with 31 works of art that include collection from the Apex Museum and North Carolina A & T collection.
The artistic skills of the artisans from Africa became the reason for their being in America brought as slaves. Some of the subsequent generations of those artisans became renowned artists of modern America. One of the biggest revolutions in the history of World Art was the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 30s, which changed the course of the entire nation’s culture. The works reflect upon the life and struggle of the African American artists in the past century and that of the present.
Inaugurating the exhibition, the dean of the Faculty of Arts Prof Ashok Singh expressed the need of such exhibition and its significance in contextualizing world culture. He said. “This exhibition will add a new chapter to the understanding of art here”. He greeted the guests and emphasized on the mandate of Bharat Kala Bhawan towards academic outreach programme through the arts.
The curator of the show and distinguished professor from Savannah State University Prof Peggy Blood expressed her gratitude to BHU and said, “We are happy that the exhibition has been accepted by the viewers in India, which just came from Kochi and will further travel to Santiniketan and Goa from Varanasi. The exhibition will attract the attention of the young minds and inform them of the American struggle of the Africans and their manifestation in art”.
The exhibition has been coordinated in India by Neeta Omprakash, who will organise a curatorial walk for the students on March 7. Prof. Pradosh Kumar Mishra from the Department of History of Art has coordinated the exhibition for BHU.
