AMERICA brings together and connects artists from various parts of the American and African continents based on their resonances, shared references, related practices, mutual inspirations, research continuities and transmissions – both generational and ancestral – that connect, with a vivacity sometimes visible, sometimes hidden, the shores of the Atlantic.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by a concept developed by Lélia Gonzalez (1935-1994), an Afro-Brazilian intellectual whose work, by innovatively articulating gender, race, and class in a democratic language, paved the way for a more critical examination of African foundations in the aesthetic and sociocultural formation of the Americas. A philosopher by training and an activist in the Black movement, Lélia Gonzalez was one of the leading figures in the formulation of Black feminism in Brazil, anticipating debates that are now central to cultural, racial, and gender studies. “Why do you need to look to the United States for reference? I learn more from Lélia Gonzalez than you learn from me,” philosopher Angela Davis remarked during a visit to Brazil in 2019.
