Afro Modern

Detail from Blue Shade by Romare Bearden 1972
© Romare Bearden Foundation/DACS, London/VAGA, New York 2009

An exhibition, featuring artists ranging from Trinidadian Christopher Cozier to American Kara Walker,  opens today at the Tate Liverpool, UK.

"Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic explores the impact of different black cultures from around the Atlantic on art from the early twentieth-century to today. The exhibition takes its inspiration from Paul Gilroy's influential book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness 1993. It features over 140 works by more than 60 artists.

Gilroy used the term 'The Black Atlantic' to describe the transmission of black cultures around the Atlantic, and the instances of cultural hybridity, that occurred as a result of transatlantic slavery and its legacy. Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic reflects Gilroy's idea of the Atlantic Ocean as a 'continent in negative', offering a network connecting Africa, North and South America, the Caribbean and Europe. It traces both real and imagined routes taken across the Atlantic, and highlights artistic links and dialogues from the early twentieth-century to today"--Tate Liverpool.

FIND out more here . READ more here . CHECK out Cozier's Tropical Night, which is featured in the exhibition, here .

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