LA’s LACMA just unveiled the exhibition Imagining Black Diasporas: 21st-Century Art and Poetics, examining the artistic creation of the Black Diaspora through 60 artists derived from Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Starting Dec 15, 2024, through Aug 3, 2025, Imagining Black Diasporas is the first catalog to showcase a quarter of a century of creativity produced by Black Artists.
Curator of Contemporary Art Dhyandra Lawson speaks of the upcoming display focused on intertwining the present with cloudy visions of the past.
“The distance between where one is and where one’s ancestors came from conjures images, words, sounds, and textures,” Lawson said in an interview with a4arts.org.
Journeying through the eyes of those who migrated, The Black Atlantic – Diaspora is reinvented in the 21st century. The exhibit reveals design through the predecessor’s lenses of the slave trade and migrants in this century.
The exhibition gives organization within four themes – Speech and Silence, Movement and Transformation, Imagination and Representation. Each shines a light on the slave trade and the creations of those who experienced the effects of the Diaspora.
Speech and Silence reveals the power and limitations of language. Due to the punishment of speaking out against oppressors, artists explore the themes of quiet and erasure through visual motifs.
Movement and Transformation anticipates the power of movement within bodies to capture the history of migration. Artists capture motion to demonstrate bodies enacting or resisting confinement.
Imagination uses fragmentation to question authority. Dehumanization played a role in how the Black race was perceived worldwide. The European acquisition was set to justify its actions through abstracted lenses of African people. Frederick Douglas presented photography to showcase realism. Artists pay homage through the lens of longing and disappearance. Placing themselves in the center of their ancestor’s stories.
Representation engages with the imperialism of being seen. Artists feature visuals of themselves through their ancestral journeys in this century.
Artist Frida Orupabo uses her imaginative expression through the collection of digital images to reveal abstract compositions that defy the logic of space. This conveys the way Black people have been seen and portrayed.
The collection of the Diaspora revolves around a multitude of Black artists contributing their perceptions of ancestral heritage within the 21st Century, Igshaan Adams, Mark Bradford, Sanford Biggers, Nick Cave, Deana Lawson, Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Josué Azor, Samuel de Saboia, Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo, Edgar Arceneaux, Widline Cadet, Patrisse Cullors, and other artists.
