Encruzilhadas da Arte Afro-brasileira: Curadoria: Deri Andrade | MUNCAB - Salvador

The Black presence in Brazilian art extends across centuries. From the painters and architects who built the county’s iconography to the eras of premodern, modern, and contemporary art, Afro-Brazilian art has journeyed through extensive interactions and divergences. This prolific contribution has been present at the pivotal moments – and movements – that have shaped Brazil’s history. Often unacknowledged, the art produced by Black people is synonymous with plurality.

In recent years, books, catalogs, exhibitions, and research focused on this artistic presence have given rise to new initiatives aimed at staking out a place in keeping with the evolving thoughts and dissonant practices. The artwork by Black artists introduces innovative concepts, driven by a continuous quest for refined aesthetics and political awareness. These works evince a notable shift in conventional ideas, marked by a drive to deconstruct established norms, reinvent spaces, and take center stage.

Conceived as an outcome from the Projeto Afro [Afro Project], a platform dedicated to cataloging Black artists, the exhibition Encruzilhadas da arte afro-brasileira [Crossroads of Afro-Brazilian Art] presents 69 artists from across Brazil, selected from among the project’s mapping of over 300. This exhibition aims to reinterpret a history traditionally viewed through a hegemonic white lens, presenting works by key figures who allow us to rethink the tangles of an unequal system. Artworks by Arthur Timótheo da Costa, Rubem Valentim, Maria Auxiliadora, Master Didi, and Lita Cerqueira are shown in the institution’s building, each representing one of five thematic axes: Becoming; Languages; Worldview; Orun; and Everyday Life.

Engaging in dialogues with contemporary artists, these relationships span various eras, themes, techniques, forms, and hues, connecting artists from different regions and times, without, however, exhausting the scope, complexity and diversity of artistic and intellectual investigations carried out by Black people in Brazil. Although collective confluences emerge, the individual subjective essence of each artwork featured in the show is maintained.

While on the one hand these intersections open paths, on the other, Afro-Brazilian art is the crossroads that manifests the directions of narratives that reinterpret territories and histories.