The McMullen Museum welcomes Yale Professor of History of Art and African American Studies Nana Adusei-Poku for a lecture contextualizing States of Becoming and its artists within the history of post-Black and Afropolitan art. With States of Becoming, curator Fitsum Shebeshe investigates the relationship between identity and artistic expression. States of Becoming stands in a lineage of exhibitions that emerged in the early 2000s, which attempted to reframe what African Diasporic aesthetics means and in so doing reopened the questions: “What is Afropolitan” and “What is post-Black art?” Are these two debated frameworks still relevant, or should they be dismissed in contemporary curation? To answer these questions, this talk will sketch developments in African Diasporic art since the early 2000s and shed light on the debates that were sparked around Afropolitan and post-Black as markers. Not only do these frameworks allow for discussion and questions about African Diasporic identities, but they also create the possibility to interrogate their aesthetic specificities into the present (if they exist as such!). 

Free; virtual; register here: https://bccte.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJwvfuutpz8pG9U_8GMsQwzUHkAPWlmevSLt

Nana Adusei-Poku is an Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and African American Studies at Yale University. Her research interests include how cultural changes are articulated at the intersections of art, politics, and popular culture; artistic productions from the Black Diaspora, Black exhibition histories, and curatorial practice as a research tool for shaping art historical discourses. She also works as a curator and author. Her latest exhibition,Black Melancholia at the CCS Bard Galleries, Bard College (2022),is the basis for her next monograph of the same title.

Adusei-Poku’s research centers on cultural shifts through the intersections of art, politics, and popular culture; artistic productions from the Black Diasporas, and curatorial practices as a means to shape historical discourses. 

Free; open to the public; registser here.