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    In Pictures: See Practically Every Single Artwork in the Sprawling 2022 Berlin Biennale, Organized by Artist Kader Attia

    The 12th Berlin Biennale has opened its doors.
    Artist-curator Kader Attia has given the event the title “Still Present,” promising that his selection of 82 artists offers an overview of “more than two decades of de-colonial engagement.”
    The resulting show is particularly heavy on art that serves as illustrated lecture or data dump, with an emphasis on “forensic aesthetics.” Early reviews have called it “relentlessly grim,” which may be true—though, as with Attia’s artistic practice, journalistic critiques of injustice are leavened by moments of poetry.
    The show spans traditional marquee art venues like the KW Institute for Contemporary Art and the Hamburger Bahnhof, but also has works into the Stasi Museum, a research and memorial center about the East German secret police, and elsewhere.
    Below, see works featured in “Still Present.”

    KW Institute for Contemporary Art
    Nil Yalter, Estranged Doors (1983) and Exile Is a Hard Job (1983/2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Mathieu Pernot, The Gorgans (1995–2015). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Mathieu Pernot, Dikhav—The Banks of the River (2017). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Nil Yalter, Judy Blum, and Nicole Croiset, La Roquette, Frauengefängnis Women’s Prison (1974–75). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Jeneen Frei Njootli, Thunderstruck (2013/2022) and Alex Prager. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Susan Schuppli, Icebox Detention Along the U.S.-Mexico Border (2021-2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Mayuri Chari, I Was Not Created for Pleasure (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Simone Fattal, In Our Lands of Drought the Rain Forever Is Made of Bullets (2006). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Deneth Piumakshi Veda Arachchige, Self-Portrait as Restitution—from a feminist point of view (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Antonio Recalcati, Enrico Baj, Erro, Gianni Dova, Jean-Jacques Lebel, and Roberto Crippa, Large Collective Anti-Fascist Painting (1960). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Ariella Aïsha Azoulay, The Natural History of Rape (2017/2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    João Polido, Replica Song (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Zuzanna Hertzberg, Individual and Collective Resistance of Women During the Shoah (2019). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Zuzanna Hertzberg, Shibboleth Ż (2019). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Myriam El Haïk, Please Patterns (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Christine Safatly, Piece 1 (2019), Piece 2 (2019), and Unknown Body (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Mila Turajlić, Screen/Solidarity/Silence – Debris from the Labudović Reels (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Detail of Mila Turajlić, Screen/Solidarity/Silence – Debris from the Labudović Reels (2022
    Mónica de Miranda, Path to the Stars (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Etinosa Yvonne. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Mai Nguyen-Long, Vomit Girl (Berlin Cluster) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Amal Kenawy, The Purple Artificial Flower (2005). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Maithu Bùi, Mathuật – MMRBX (2022) Photo by Ben Davis.
    Binta Diaw, Dïà spora (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Taysir Batniji, Suspended Time (2016). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Tejswini Narayan Sonawane, Femininity I (2015). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Taysir Batniji, The Sky Over Gaza #2 (2001-2004). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Marta Popivoda/Ana Vujanović, Moss Does It Better (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Asim Abdulaziz, 1941 (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.

    Hamburger Bahnhof
    Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Air Conditioning (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Driss Ouadahi, Aerohabitat (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Oh Shining Star Testify (2019/2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    David Chevalarias, Shifting Collectives (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Detail of David Chevalarias. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Alex Prager, Crowd #4 (New Haven) (2013/2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Birendir Yadev, Walking on the Roof of Hell (2016). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Forensic Architecture, Airstrike on Babyn Yar (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Amal Kenawy, Silence of Sleep (2010). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Elske Rosenfeld, Circling (Another Round) (2012/2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Layth Kareem, The City Limits (2014). Photo by Ben Davis.
    PEROU, Considering That It Is Possible That Such Events May Occur Again (2015). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Praneet Soi, Paraphernalia (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Tammy Nguyen. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Noel W Anderson, Line Up (2016-2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Raed Mutar, Untitled (2012). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Jean-Jacques Lebel, Besatzung in Bagdad Soluble poison: Scenes from the American occupation in Baghdad (2013) and Sajjad Abbas, I can see you (2013). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Zach Blas, Profundior (Lachryphagic Transmutation Deus-Motus-Data Network) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Tuan Andrew Nguyen, The Specter of Ancestors Becoming (2019). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Calida Garcia Rawles. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Thuy-Han Nguyen-Chi, This undreamt of sail is watered by the white wind of the abyss
    Mónica de Miranda, Path to the Stars (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz
    Work by Sajjad Abbas on the facade of the Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Elske Rosenfeld, Interrupting (A Bit of a Complex Situation) (2014). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Moses März. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Jihan El-Tahri, Complexifying Restitution (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Display of crucifixes. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Prabhakar Kamble, Broken Foot (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    The School of Mutants (Boris Raux, Hamedine Kane, Lou Mo, Stéphane Verlet-Bottéro, Valérie Osouf), All fragments of the word will come back here to mend each other (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Taloi Havini, Beroana (Shell Money) IV (2016). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Prabhakar Kamble. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Uriel Orlow, Reading Wood (Backwards) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Dubréus Lhérisson, Untitled (2015). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Prabhakar Kamble, Chandelier (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Khandakar Ohida, Dream Your Museum (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.

    Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg
    Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Sammy Baloji, …and to those North Sea waves whispering sunken stories (II) (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Temitayo Ogunbiyi, You will order taxonomies according to your days (2021-2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Yuyan Wang, The Moon Also Rises (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Imani Jacqueline Brown , What remains at the end of the earth? (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Ammar Bouras, 24°3′55″N 5°3′23″E (2012/22). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Mai Nguyễn-Long, Specimen (Permeate) (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Lamia Joreige, After the River (2016). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Susan Schuppli, Cold Rights (2021-2022) and Weaponizing Water Against Water Protectors (2021-2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Đào Châu Hải, Ballad of the East Sea (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Dana Levy, Erasing the Green (2021/2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Forensic Architecture, Cloud Studies (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Florian Sông Nguyễn, les chiens errants (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    DAAR, Entity of Decolonization – Borgo Rizza (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Works by Tejswini Narayan Sonawane. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Tuan Andrew Nguyen, My Ailing Beliefs Can Cure Your Wretched Desires (2017). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Sven Johne, Medicinal Plants in the Death Strip, Germany (2021). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Clément Cogitore, Lascaux (2017). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Dana Levy, History Lessons (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Paintings by Tammy Nguyen. Photo by Ben Davis.

    Stasi-Zentrale. Campus für Demokratie
    Exterior of the Stasi Museum. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Ngô Thành Bắc, Trồng Cây Chuối – Headstand (2007/2022) installed at the Stasi Museum. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Two works show Ngô Thành Bắc’s Trồng Cây Chuối – Headstand performances (2007/2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Omer Fast, A Place Which Is Ripe (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.Omer Fast, A Place Which Is Ripe (2020) installed at the Stasi Museum. Photo by Ben Davis.
    Omer Fast, A Place Which Is Ripe (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Haig Aivazian, They May Own the Lanterns But We Have the Light, Episode 1: Home Alone (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Susan Schuppli, Freezing Deaths & Abandonment Across Canada (2021-2022). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Hasan Özgür Top, The Fall of a Hero (2020). Photo by Ben Davis.
    Selection of Zach Blas’s “Fag Face Masks.” Photo by Ben Davis.
    Zach Blas, Facial Weaponization Communiqué: Fag Face (2012). Photo by Ben Davis.
    The School of Mutants (Valérie Osouf), Ziheng Jie (2022). Photo by Ben Davis.

    Dekoloniale Erinnerungskultur in der Stadt
    Work by Nil Yalter. Photo by Ben Davis.
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    in Street Art

    New Works by Headache Stencil in New York

    Headache Stencil is a street artist from Thailand who has created many works of political art in both national and international contexts. The artist had recently gone to New York and left a series of murals. His most recent works highlights the ongoing war of Russia in Ukraine.Headache Stencil stated in his post that these works are dedicated to everyone who is in every war going on. No matter who wins there will also be families of those who have lost their lives and that no matter how much money is involved, it shouldn’t be enough to pay for the lives lost.“Stop all wars, make love, and kiss peace.” -Headache Stencil , NYC 2022Take a look below to see more photos of the murals. More

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    in Exhibitions

    Artist and Curator Kader Attia’s Relentlessly Grim Berlin Biennale Forces Audiences to Confront the Ills of Capitalism

    Take a deep, long breath before heading into this year’s Berlin Biennale, because it is heavy.
    The six-venue exhibition, which opens to the public June 11, offers little reprieve from the weight of the world. Instead, the show, titled “Still Present,” has an unrelenting focus on the destruction wrought by colonialism, patriarchy, and capitalism.
    During a rainy press preview day on Thursday, the show’s curator, French-Algerian artist Kader Attia, spoke at length about the urgency of art, which makes “the invisible visible.” Together with his curatorial team, seventy artists, including Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Omer Fast, and Uriel Orlow, have been invited to show across six venues, one of which is the Stasi headquarters, the central office of former East Germany’s secret service.
    Curator and artistic team of the 12th Berlin Biennale (from left to right Ana Teixeira Pinto, Noam Segal, Kader Attia, Đỗ Tường Linh, Rasha Salti, Marie Helene Pereira). Photo: Silke Briel
    The show starts off at Akademie der Kunste’s Tiergarten location with a boxed-away assortment of plants in a steamy greenhouse. The work, by Sammy Baloji of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, critiques the imperialist motivation to collector the world; beside it, there is an adjoining audio recording from the early 20th century made by the state-funded Royal Prussian Phonographic Commission, which sought to index sounds made by African prisoners at the time.
    Next to it is a work by the Chinese, Paris-based filmmaker Wang Yuyan that depicts a 2018 Chinese initiative to launch three fake moons into orbit to offer continuous light in order to keep society more productive.
    Sammy Baloij, Installation view, 12. Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, 11.6.–18.9.2022. Photo: dotgain.info. Sammy Baloji, … and to those North Sea waves whispering sunken stories (II), (2021).
    The tack of the exhibition, which triangulates post-colonialism and capitalist criticism, is not surprising given Attia’s CV. In Paris, he founded a now-closed arts space called La Colonie that hosted community talks and events focused on racism and colonialism. The Berlin-based artist, who is represented by a slew of international galleries, is also well-known for his sculptures considering the symbolic relationship between injury and repair. His Berlin Biennale feels like a thesis-driven dive into the collective and individual traumas wrought by modernity.
    Set against this beating sense of a foreboding, a pair of canvases by painter Calida Rawles offer a short moment of rest. Yet even these works, depicting Black children gently floating in clear blue water, deal with the trauma of centuries of oppression and the tragedies of the Middle Passage.
    Đào Châu Hải, Installation view, 12. Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg, 11.6.–18.9.2022. Photo: dotgain.info. Đào Châu Hải, Ballad of the East Sea, (2022).
    “Art confronts algorithmic governance by nurturing our ability to dream and enabling us to de-automate dreams,” Attia said in his opening curatorial statement. Yet much of the work confronts disturbing realities. At KW Institute for Contemporary Art, for example, acclaimed Israeli cultural theorist Ariella Azoulay has on view a research work titled The Natural History of Rape, which examines the mass rapes that took place in Berlin after the end of the Second World War. And at the Hamburger Bahnhof, Jean-Jacques Lebel presents documentation of torture from Abu Ghraib prison.
    The show also presents several documentary displays in an approach not dissimilar to Cecilia Alemani’s in “The Milk of Dreams” at the 2022 Venice Biennale. But instead of lyrical whimsy, Attia’s time-capsules offer historic books and other artifacts that bring more context to some of the contemporary art on view.
    In all, one may leave the exhibition unsettled but wiser—and radicalized to alter the present moment.
    The 12th Berlin Biennale takes place from June 11 to September 18, 2022.
    Nil Yalter, Installation view, 12. Berlin Biennale, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, 11.6.–18.9.2022. Photo: Silke Briel. From left to right: Nil Yalter, Estranged Doors, (1983). Nil Yalter, Exile Is A Hard Job (1983/2022).
    Kruzifixe, Installation view, 12. Berlin Biennale, Akademie der Künste, Pariser Platz, 11.6.–18.9.2022. Photo: dotgain.info.
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    in Street Art

    New mural by ARYZ in Mannheim, Germany

    “What the lion represents in my mural I will leave up to the viewer to interpret. Sometimes their interpretations are even better than mine”. A comment from the celebrated Spanish mural artist ARYZ, as he reflects on his finished mural at the end of seven days of painting at Stadt.Wand.Kunst in Mannheim Germany. The mural which is intense and engaging opened the 2022 SWK mural season and set the bar high from the beginning for those artists coming up after him.Sometimes their interpretations are even better than mineThe mural features a reclining lion in complementary colors. But not in a way that could make the artwork seem obvious or predictable. A diverse array of surface covering and mark-making ranges from color fields to hectic linework that elude to giant scribbles. Tonal variations suggest the profound skills that ARYZ cleverly mixes with graphic representations. All spread over the last three of a four-story building that seems to be protected by the regal reclining beast, with its paw securely holding a globe-like sphere in position.ARYZ himself was unaware of the significance of the lion ARYZ, who is not one to “overcook the brew” kept his idea, and the direction of the mural, fresh and unpreditable by creating the sketch for the mural a day in advance. Over one intense week, the mural came to life with just the right amount of conscious direction and plenty of accidental success. But there no accidents here as the viewer is easily convinced that every mark or color is consciously placed. With perfect weather and plenty of fascinated onlookers, ARYZ himself was unaware of the significance of the lion for both the city of Mannheim and the state of Baden-Württemberg. Featured on the coat of arms for both entities, the lion was fast at home in its new surroundings of color, visual plantlife, and artistic experimentation.This freshly completed ARYZ mural makes it appear as if the Montana Cans supported Stadt.Wand.Kunst, has hit the ground running for the 2022. And why not, the SWK team has managed to feature some of the world’s best mural artists while gathering experience, momentum, and international recognition from the international street art community over the last decade. An achievement and a playing field that is just right for an artist the caliber of ARYZ, who himself is no stranger to the main stage of the international mural making. Not to mention his achievements in the fine art space with his innovative studio and gallery works.  If you are ever in the neighborhood of Mannheim Germany, you can find the ARYZ mural at A4,1 in all its glory. Looking across its territory, making sure that everything is under control.Check out below for more photos of the mural.Credits:Text is by Rene van KanImages by Alexander Krziwanie More

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    in Exhibitions

    In Pictures: See Inside Artist and Poet Penny Goring’s Moving, Funny, and Confrontational World in a New Show at ICA London

    The artist and poet Penny Goring’s clever and biting work has been getting a lot of attention lately, and now she’s having her first U.K. retrospective, at the ICA in London.
    The exhibition, “Penny World,” takes us through 30 years of Goring’s emotive, political, and confrontational practice that encompasses sculpture, painting, drawing, video, and poetry, including some of her key series, “Anxiety Objects” (2017) and “ART HELL” (2019-20).
    As an artist who has worked through trauma and poverty, Goring makes a point of using food dye, biros, and other inexpensive or free materials to make her work. If she uses a computer, she takes advantage of the free program Microsoft Paint that often comes preloaded on it. In her more recent work, she uses her financial restrictions, lack of therapy, and housing issues to address the reality faced of a lot of creatives in London at a time of a cost-of-living crisis.
    Penny Goring, Yearn (2013). Image courtesy of the Artist and Arcadia Missa, London
    “Despite the violence they depict, there is a sense of comfort to be found in Penny’s work,” Rosalie Doubal, curator at the ICA, said in a statement. ” Her works are empathetic; they embody the disorientation and stasis brought on by states such as grief. They also offer strength and, in their humor, disarming normality.
    “ART HELL” (2019-20) looks specifically at the effects of recent legislation by the conservative government in the U.K. It was inspired by the PTSD visions of two alter egos of Goring’s, which comment on structural and systemic violence.
    Penny Goring, Those who live without torment (Red 4), (2020). Photo courtesy of the Artist and Arcadia Missa, London
    “I have always lived under the rule of men and money, and right now, I am angry at the ways it hobbles my life and my body,” said Goring. “I find the future we are in to be terrifying. Also ridiculous, in the way of a murderous clown. And I hate that it somehow feels inevitable, relentless, like a speeding juggernaut.”
    Goring’s work communicates themes of violence, humor, and emotional health or the lack thereof through her use of fabric, color, and texture. Her “Anxiety Objects” (2017), designed to be worn on the body to alleviate anxious feelings, and her dolls offer a kind of comfort for darker times. Through addressing these themes in the places that they exist her works offer solidarity and humor.
    Penny Goring, Dust Doll, (2019). Photo: Tim Bowditch. Courtesy of the artist and Arcadia Missa, London
    “The body of work that Penny has produced over the last three decades is astonishing, and her very human compulsion to create as a form of coping is profoundly moving. I could not be more honored that the ICA has had the great privilege of staging this significant exhibition,” said Doubal.

    Repeat Offender, from Fail Like Fire by Penny Goring. Photo courtesy the artist.
    Penny Goring, Dim Jaw, (1995). Photo courtesy of the Artist and Arcadia Missa, London

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    in Street Art

    “An Ark Of Love” by Zed1 in Russi, Italy

    Brainchild of Zed1 and Bonobolabo , “An Ark Of Love” is an intervention made in Russi (RA) that deals with the idea of universal love.Lev Tolstoj wrote “Love prevents death. Love is life.” and in this time that we are currently living, in which everything seems to be overwhelmed by pride and brutality, perhaps the only thing that could save us would be an ark. On this utopian ark everyone loves without impositions, limits, and arrogance: the boundaries of stereotypes and violence are broken down and no one is judged. Noah’s Ark is revisited in a modern key that includes many nuances of the same love which connects all living beings on our planet. The selection of animals that have boarded the boat was not made only for the purpose of reproduction of the species, according to tradition, but from love’s point of view, which doesn’t follow rules.Alligators hug walruses and cranes, a zebra kisses a cow, two lions with thick manes huddle together, two people weave their bodies, a rooster stares at a hen, while the red-dressed artist looks into the eyes of his pug, showing what love means to him.On the Zed1’s Ark everything is possible, differences do not exist and are levelled out, the sea is rough, but no one is afraid of the waves because they are in the arms of their loved ones.Scroll down below for more photos of the mural. Text and translation by @benedettapezzii More

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    in Street Art

    “Transboundary Haze” by Ernest Zacharevic in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

    To coincide with World Environment Day, Lithuanian Artist Ernest Zacharevic reveals ‘Transboundary Haze’, a new artwork in Kuala Lumpur launching a collaboration with Greenpeace Malaysia, Splash and Burn and filmmakers Studiobirthplace. The project is the first in a series of creative intervention planned throughout the year, urging those in authority to hold polluters accountable for clean air as a basic human rightSpeaking on the subject Ernest explains; “living in Malaysia, the transboundary haze has become a natural part of life. It’s a regular occurrence for many and from what I can see, it seems like people are just trying to learn to live with it rather than finding ways to prevent or solve it.”The complexity of the issue and its dire consequences have resulted in many misconceptions, with blame often passed to neighbouring countries Singapore and Indonesia. Leading the project, Greenpeace Malaysia campaigner Heng Kiah Chun emphasised that there are solutions within reach, but it requires strong actions taken by the government.“Deforestation and transboundary haze pollution happened in the region for years. This is why it is important that haze pollution and forest protection be part of the main agenda in the upcoming general election,” he said. “We must consider the harm increased air pollution will bring when we are still grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic devastation it has brought. The government should enhance air quality governance, strengthen the recognition of environmental rights – that having a clean, healthy and sustainable environment is a human right , as has recently been done by the United Nations Human Rights Council.”In 2020, the Malaysian government shelved the tabling of the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act. Civil society organisations were calling to enact a domestic Transboundary Haze Pollution Act due to the ineffectiveness of diplomatic efforts to curb the toxic haze. According to the Meteorological Department (MetMalaysia), a rise in temperature along with the haze phenomenon is expected to hit the country from July to September this year. [1]Additionally, during the last hard hitting haze in 2019, the Malaysian Health Ministry stated that haze led to a rapid rise in asthma (15.8% increase) and conjunctivitis cases (24.9% increase) nationwide. [2]Data on haze/non-haze episodes and Healthcare Utilisation (HU) retrieved from the Department of Environment and Ministry of Health Malaysia for four consecutive years (2012–2015) showed the percentage of haze episodes recorded in all stations was higher (67%) as compared to non-haze (33%) episodes. Findings from this study indicated that haze episodes incurred a significant healthcare burden due to an increase in HU. [3]“We believe art can help the general public to understand and relate to the issue on a more personal level. We hope it can start the conversation and encourage policymakers to address the issues meaningfully. We should not have to wait for another haze season to look for solutions,” Ernest ZacharevicPhoto Credits: Joshua Kok, Wei MingCheck out below for more photos of Ernest Zacharevic’s latest mural. More

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    in Exhibitions

    With ‘Afro-Atlantic Histories,’ the Often-Staid National Gallery of Art in Washington Finally Acknowledges Contributions It Long Ignored

    For a week in May, the sculpture garden at the National Gallery of Art was the noisiest spot in the U.S. capital.
    Each afternoon, a steam-powered carnival organ designed by Kara Walker huffed and puffed on the National Mall, drawing curious crowds. Her piece, The Katastwóf Karavan, is a calliope, a mechanical organ once common on the steam engines that lumbered up and down the Mississippi River. The cacophony is broadcast from a parade wagon wrapped in steel silhouettes depicting the artist’s storybook scenes of antebellum nightmares.
    Kara Walker, The Katastwóf Karavan (2017). Installation view: Prospect 4: The Lotus in Spite of the Swamp, New Orleans, 2018. Photo: Alex Marks © Kara Walker.
    The sour melody piping from Walker’s contraption cast a spell over onlookers. More so than its traffic-stopping appearance at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2019—more so, even, than its magical debut at the Prospect 4 triennial in New Orleans in 2018—The Karavan’s disruptive, dyspeptic residency in DC marked a turning point for its venue. Walker’s work came to the city as part of “Afro-Atlantic Histories,” a consequential show for one of the most staid institutions in Washington. Perhaps no longer.
    “Afro-Atlantic Histories” is like nothing else ever shown before at the National Gallery. With artworks dating from the 1700s to the present moment, it traces the paths of the African diaspora as enslaved peoples arrived in the Americas and pursued their liberation. The exhibition couples collection items alongside contemporary acquisitions as well as Indigenous works, including objects that the National Gallery might not have acknowledged as art only a few years ago. 
    For the first time, a museum that has been silent on so many of these fronts in art history—or art histories—has decided to get loud.
    The show opens with A Place to Call Home (Africa America Reflection) (2020), a mirror by Hank Willis Thomas shaped like a Western hemisphere from an alternate Earth, with the North American continent tethered to Africa by way of Central America.
    The entrance to “Afro-Atlantic Histories” at the National Gallery of Art with Hank Willis Thomas’s A Place to Call Home (Africa America Reflection) (2020) in the background.
    This is one of several new acquisitions by the National Gallery for its presentation. Other new permanent-collection works in the show include a totem by Daniel Lind-Ramos of Puerto Rico and a drawing by Njideka Akunyili Crosby of Lagos. A striking, monumental, ebony portrait by Zanele Muholi (Ntozakhe II, (Parktown) from 2016, also new to the collection, can be seen all over town in promotional ads.
    Zanele Muholi, Ntozakhe II, (Parktown) (2016). © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of the artist, Yancey Richardson, New York, and Stevenson Cape Town / Johannesburg.
    While these contemporary works are welcome additions for a museum with a laserlike focus on the canon, “Afro-Atlantic Histories” makes its strongest case through 18th- and 19th-century portrait and landscape works. This ought to be firmer territory for the National Gallery, but “Afro-Atlantic Histories” finds the museum on new footing.
    Édouard-Antoine Renard’s Slave Rebellion on a Slave Ship (1833) depicts a heroic Black man holding a mighty oar as if it were a baseball bat, the feet of a white slaver decked out beneath him. Nathaniel Jocelyn’s Portrait of Cinqué (1839–40) is a rich contemporaneous portrait of the Mende farmer who led the revolt on the Spanish slave ship La Amistad. Alongside these idealized paintings are more ambivalent scenes, such as George Morland’s European Ship Wrecked on the Coast of Africa (1788–1790), which shows benevolent Africans saving distressed Europeans, as well as Thomas Satterwhite Noble’s The Last Sale of Slaves in St. Louis, Missouri (1880), a picture of social stagnation in the heartland. Fantasy, testimony, and other ideas on view, sometimes side by side, help to ground the concept of competing histories, plural. 
    Edouard Antoine Renard, A Slave Rebellion on a Slaveship (1833). La Rochelle, Musée du Noveau Monde, France.
    Originally organized by the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Brazil, “Afro-Atlantic Histories” has been adapted for presentations in the U.S. at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (where it was on view from October 2021 to January 2022) and the National Gallery (on view through July 17). From the Museu de Arte come flattened figurative oil paintings by Heitor dos Prazeres of Afro-Brazilian work and play, while the MFAH contributions include paintings on cardboard of Louisiana plantation life by Clementine Hunter. As much as anything else in the show, these self-taught artists challenge and expand the histories that the National Gallery has sought to elevate in the past.
    It would not be too strong to say that the National Gallery’s presentation of Black figurative artworks feels contemporary—hip even. The showcase of mid-century paintings by dos Prazeres, Horace Pippin, Hayward Oubre, William H. Johnson and other outlier artists aligns with similar gestures elsewhere, whether that’s Azikiwe Mohammed’s deskilled-looking installation across town at Transformer or Célestin Faustin’s inclusion at this summer’s Venice Biennale. In the art world, there’s always something in the water; the National Gallery is just usually nowhere near it.
    Heitor dos Prazeres, Musicians (1950s). Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand.
    The shift at the museum starts with staff. At the top of the org chart is Kaywin Feldman, who made “Afro-Atlantic Histories” a priority upon her arrival as director in 2019. She hired Kanitra Fletcher, the museum’s first curator of African American and Afro-diasporic art and organizer for the exhibition’s U.S. tour. (Fletcher also brought the Tate Modern’s “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” exhibition to Houston.) In addition, the National Gallery appointed Steven Nelson, professor of African and African American art history at the University of California in Los Angeles, as dean of the museum’s prestigious Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Joining them is Eve Straussman-Pflanzer, the new curator and head of Italian and Spanish paintings, among scores of other recent hires.
    Appointing a feminist art historian to run the Southern European paintings department or naming a curator to bring the African diaspora into the collection might seem like planting seeds for future growth. But changes are already happening. The National Gallery just acquired a painting of a noblewoman by the 16th-century Mannerist artist Lavinia Fontana, perhaps the West’s first professional woman artist. It picked up a second piece by Jaune Quick-to-See Smith, the first Native American painter in the National Gallery collection. And the museum is aggressively acquiring works by Black artists, among them Genesis Tramaine, Marion Perkins and David Driskell. (The National Gallery would not confirm the acquisitions of Fontana or Perkins.)
    This is a reversal from a dismal record that stretches back decades. Recent shows spotlighting Oliver Lee Jackson and Lynda Benglis (curated by Harry Cooper and Molly Donovan, respectively) represent two of just a handful of exhibits by living artists who are women or people of color. The story isn’t much better for marginalized artists of the past.
    “Afro-Atlantic Histories” can only tell so much about the National Gallery’s trajectory. It’s not a perfect fit for the museum, or for the U.S. It’s shallow on Afro-Latino artists from Haiti and Cuba: Rigaud Benoit, Wilson Bigaud and Wifredo Lam didn’t make the cut for the U.S. tour. While the exhibit proceeds both thematically and chronologically, by the end, it sprawls. A painting of the Emperor Haile Selassie by Ethiopian painter Alaqa Gabra Selasse, for example, doesn’t seem to fit the theme.
    But the show has already demonstrated what a new outlook for the National Gallery could mean for the museum, and for Washington. Incoming U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson toured the exhibition. So did the Obamas. The National Gallery has yet to produce an original show under the imprimatur of its new director, Feldman, but with a startlingly relevant first outing, the museum is already making noise.
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