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‘Shifting Views: People & Politics in Contemporary African Art’ – Baltimore Museum of Art

Senam Okudzeto. Fragment from the series All Facts Have Been Changed to Protect the Ignorant

Senam Okudzeto. Fragment from the series All Facts Have Been Changed to Protect the Ignorant. 2000-01. The Baltimore Museum of Art: Nathan L. and Suzanne F. Cohen Contemporary Art Endowment. BMA 2002.20.

People & Politics in Contemporary African Art – BMA The Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA) presents ‘Shifting Views: People & Politics in Contemporary African Art’, the first exhibition of contemporary African art drawn from the museum’s collection. December 18, 2016 – June 18, 2017.]]>

Source: Baltimore Museum of Art (BMA)

“’Shifting Views’ provides visitors with an opportunity to experience a broader range of African art from the BMA’s outstanding collection,” said BMA Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director Christopher Bedford. “These works on paper demonstrate the common viewpoints of contemporary African artists examining the effects of global capitalism.”

Exhibition highlights include Senam Okudzeto’s “All Facts Have Been Changed to Protect the Ignorant” drawings, reminiscent of early capitalist drives that fueled the trade of Africans into slavery; Julie Mehretu’s “Landscape Allegories” (2003–04), which mark the journeys of migrants in and explore the environmental impact of late-stage capitalism; William Kentridge’s upending racial presumptions in “Industry & Idleness” (1986–87); and Gavin Jantjes’ critique of state-sponsored racial violence in his famed “A South African Colouring Book” (1974–75). David Goldblatt quietly confronts the intersections of capitalism and racism in a 1970 photograph taken on assignment for Anglo American, a giant gold mining conglomeration; Robin Rhode’s “Pan’s Opticon Studies” (2009) addresses race-based surveillance measures; and Diane Victor’s “Smoke Screen (Frailty and Failing)” of 2010 represents the disappeared: people missing and incarcerated

About the Baltimore Museum of Art
The Baltimore Museum of Art is home to an internationally renowned collection of 19th-century, modern, and contemporary art. Founded in 1914 with a single painting, the BMA today has 95,000 objects—including the largest public holding of works by Henri Matisse.

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‘Shifting Views: People & Politics in Contemporary African Art’ - Baltimore Museum of Art