Améfrica: Diasporic Connections in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection
Améfrica: Diasporic Connections in the Collection of Jorge M. Pérez brings together artists from different parts of the American and African continents based on their resonances, shared references, related practices, mutual inspirations, continuities of research, and generational and ancestral transmissions that connect the shores of the Atlantic with a vivacity that is sometimes visible and at other times hidden.
The exhibition’s title is inspired by the concept developed by Lélia Gonzalez (1935–1994), an Afro-Brazilian intellectual whose work––articulating gender, race, and class in an innovative manner and in accessible language––opened paths toward a more critical view of the African foundations of the aesthetic and sociocultural formation of the Americas. Trained as a philosopher and active in the Black movement, Gonzalez was one of the principal formulators of Black feminism in Brazil, anticipating many of today’s central debates in cultural, racial, and gender studies. As philosopher Angela Davis remarked during a visit to Brazil in 2019, “Why do you need to look for a reference in the United States? I learn more from Lélia Gonzalez than you do from me.”
