"Village of Yo," a collage by Romare Bearden, recently acquired by the Yale Art Gallery, is among the contemporary works in the exhibit "Imaging Africa" that show how diaspora studies affected 20th-century artists' portrayals of life on the continent.

Exhibit to explore how artists depicted Africa in 20th century

Some of the ways artists have imaged and imagined Africa in the 20th century will be on display at the Yale University Art Gallery beginning Tuesday, May 9. "Imaging African Art: Documentation and Transformation" includes 43 works, most photo-based, by 12 artists of both European and African descent. The exhibition was organized by Daniell Cornell, the Florence B. Selden Fellow in the museum's department of prints, drawings and photographs, and Cheryl Finley, a doctoral candidate in African American Studies. The exhibition takes as its focal point the African diaspora -- the migrations, ruptures and displacements of peoples of African descent and their struggles to reconnect with their cultural heritage. It examines how our understanding of this reality transforms the way we think about African art. The exhibition begins early in the 20th century with photographs produced by Charles Sheeler for the book "African Negro Wood Sculpture." "Stunningly beautiful" as they are, Cornell points out that "they serve more as documents of the modernist ambitions of early 20th-century European and American artists than as documents of the artistic merits of African artifacts." Similarly, says Cornell, Walker Evans's photographs recording the historic 1935 exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, "African Negro Art," tell us more about Evans's art than the aesthetic and cultural traditions of Africa and its arts. Working in the same period, African American artists Loïs Mailou Jones and Wilmer Jennings, who each have a work in the exhibition, were looking to Africa for inspiration in documenting their own experiences. Thus, Sheeler and Evans, according to Finley, "try to come to grips with a central trope of modernist art -- so-called 'primitive art' -- as a key source of creative inspiration and renewal. While Jones and Jennings," she continues, "modernists themselves, also take these statues out of their original context, they simultaneously reach out to the past -- striving to build a bridge to Africa and their diasporic heritage." More contemporary works, beginning with a collage from the mid-1960s by Romare Bearden newly acquired by the museum, may reveal how diaspora studies have opened up new ways to reconsider the very notion of imaging African art. A highlight is a group of gelatin silver prints from Carrie Mae Weems's "Slave Coast" series recording the now-desolate slave forts and dungeons on the West African coast from which millions of chained Africans were shipped across the Atlantic. Works by other artists of African descent include Lorna Simpson's multi-paneled "Wigs"; photographs from Joy Gregory's "Objects of Beauty" series; photographs from Moira Pernambuco's series "Remembrance and Ritual: A Tribute to the Ancestors of the Middle Passage;" and Albert Chong's photographs "Throne for the Ancestors" and "Seated Presence." "Imaging African Art: Documentation and Transformation" will be on view through July 30. A number of programs related to the exhibition will be offered. The opening lecture, "A Conversation on Art and Diaspora," will be presented by Robert F. Thompson, the Colonel John Trumbull Professor of the History of Art, and Kellie E. Jones, assistant professor in the history of art, at 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 9, in McNeil Lecture Hall. The lecture will be followed by a museum-wide celebration, with music in the galleries and a reception. Other events include an Art à la Carte talk by exhibition organizers Cornell and Finley at 12:20 p.m. on Wednesday, May 17; "Sankofa Kuumba," a performance of African dance and drumming, at 3 p.m. on Sunday, May 21; and a gallery talk, titled "Imaging African Art," by docent Daphne Blackwell at 2 p.m. on Tuesday, July 11, and again at noon on Thursday, July 13. Works in the exhibition have been lent by Laura and James J. Ross, The Lane Collection at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, Corrine Jennings and Kenkelaba Gallery, and the Nolan/Eickman Gallery. The project was supported by the Florence B. Selden Fund. The Yale University Art Gallery, 1111 Chapel St., is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m., and Sunday, 1-6 p.m. For more information, call (203) 432-0600 or visit www.yale.edu/artgallery. 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