Paris – An unprecedented exhibition in the Pompidou Center in Paris Explore the presence and influence of black artists in the city from the 1950s to 2000, offering a vibrant immersion in the cosmopolitan capital of France and a history of anti -colonial struggles and civil rights.
The exhibition “Black Paris” presents the works of about 150 main artists of African descent, many of which never before or rarely have been exhibited in France. From March 19 to June 30, it is one of the final shows before the Closing Museum for a five -year renewal at the end of this year.
Éva Barois de Caevel, an associated curator, said the exhibition is not preceded “, with more than 300 paintings and sculptures of artists from various origins.
“Some are African-American, some are Caribbean, some are Africans and others are Afro-descendants,” said Barois de Caevel, adding that the exhibition approach is not geography or race, but the “black consciousness”, formed by the history of slavery and the experience of racism shared by black artists.
After World War II, many African -American painters, musicians and intellectuals went to Paris, looking for a sense of freedom that they could not find in the United States at that time. Barois de Caevel pointed out that for many, Paris represented a break from the racial segregation they faced at home.
“Many enjoyed being free in the streets of Paris: to be able to go out with white women, enter coffees, bars and restaurants, and be treated as white people,” he said.
“But they were not deceived,” he added, noting that African -American writer James Baldwin, “he wrote about this from the beginning, that in France, racism is especially pointing to Africans and black Algerians, who were really extremely mistreated. Therefore, it is an ambivalent relationship with Paris.”
The exhibition also shows how many African artists of French colonies, and then ancient colonies, came to Paris to join a political and intellectual movement that fights for civil rights and racial justice, while others from the Caribbean supported independent movements, which were gaining strength there.
Alicia Knock, curator of the exhibition, praised the ambitious scope of the show, which described as “an incredible epic of decolonization”, highlighting how Paris City served as a “laboratory for Pan -Africanism”, the movement that encouraged solidarity between people of African descent and an “anti -colonial workshop.”
The visitors “will see how these artists contributed to rewriting the history of modernism and postmodernity,” Knock said, and how “they reformed abstraction and surrealism, and at the same time you will also see the black solidarity that occurred at that time.”
“Many of these artists were not only creators, but also cultural ambassadors, teachers, poets and philosophers,” he added.
For some of the United States, Paris was also “an entrance door to Africa,” Knock said, based on the discussions he had with some of the artists’ families: “They told us that, in fact, they had come to Paris to go to Africa, and in the end they found Africa in Paris.”
The exhibition also includes facilities by four artists chosen to provide contemporary information, including Shuck One, Black graffiti and visual artist Native of the Caribbean island of Guadalupe.
In addition, the Pompidou Center has acquired around 40 of the works of art of the show, which will remain part of the Museum’s collection.
“This is just the beginning,” Knock said. “It is a passage for babies so that many French institutions, French museums and French universities begin to work in these artists, begin to collect them, writing about them, preserving their works in their archives and, hopefully, dedicating many solo shows to many of these artists, because they really deserve it.”
