"Jacob Lawrence in Nigeria: Black Orpheus & the Mbari Club"
Monday April 22nd, 2024 at 4:45 PM
Goldwin Smith Hall G22
Abstract
Curator Dr. Kimberli Gant will discuss her 2022-2023 traveling exhibition Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence & the Mbari Club, which brought together for the first time in over 50 years the complete series of Nigerian views that African American painter Jacob Lawrence did between 1964-66. She puts his work in conversation with his contemporaries from across the African continent and the Global South, whose images were published in the international arts and culture journal Black Orpheus, produced by the Ibadan-based literary and visual collective the Mbari Club. In addition to presenting the research behind the exhibition, she'll present a virtual tour of the exhibition, discussing her curatorial narrative.
Biography
Kimberli Gant is the Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. She was previously the McKinnon Curator of Modern & Contemporary Art at the Chrysler Museum in Norfolk, VA, and has also worked as the Mellon Doctoral Fellow at the Newark Museum, and Director of Exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary African Diasporan Art (MoCADA).
She has curated numerous exhibitions and gallery reinstallations including Giants: Art from the Dean Collection of Swizz Beatz & Alicia Keys (2024), Spike Lee: Creative Sources (2023), Black Orpheus: Jacob Lawrence & the Mbari Club (2022), Journey’s Across the Border: U.S. & Mexico (2021-22), Tuan Andrew Nguyen: The Boat People (2021), Brendan Fernandes: Bodily Forms (2020), and John Akomfrah: Tropikos (2019).
