Schedule of Events
ART AFRICA 2017 explores how Black Arts respond to the assaults that currently beset the global African Diaspora and the world at large and how artists of African descent and of the global south create modes of intervention of radical autonomy.
BACK TO BLACK: No On/Off Ramps is a multimedia presentation including paintings, sculptures, photography, installation and video as well as performance exploring how alternative narratives confront the resurgence of oppression and the idea of Black arts’ intervention in the cultural sphere as both necessary and urgent.
BACK TO BLACK: No On/Off Ramps brings about 25 artists from the United States, Africa, Europe, the Caribbean and Latin America. Spaced between the Pan-African Pavilion at 919 Lyric Plaza and the opposite 920 historic Clyde Killens’ building both on NE 2ND Avenue in Overtown, ART AFRICA 2017 covers approximately 9000 sq. of exhibition-space; doubling that of previous years.
BACK TO BLACK: No On/Off Ramps honors all participant artists whose works have been deemed retaining a truth dimension of liberation.
The surrounding programs include:
Tuesday ART + PRESS
December 5th
Noon - 2:00pm SOTHEBY'S x MARCUS SAMUELSON LUNCHEON @ ART AFRICA [INVITATION ONLY]
Private Luncheon powered by Sotheby's Auction House of New York
1pm - 3pm PRESS PREVIEW
Guided gallery tour by Neil Hall, Art Africa Miami Founder & Babacar M'Bow, Art Africa Miami Curator
6:00pm - 8:00pm. VIP OPENING RECEPTION GUIDED TOUR
Wednesday ART + FASHION
December 6th
Noon Gallery Opens to the Public
6:00pm - 11:00pm. "THE BLACK PARTY" CELEBRATION
Experience an artistic explosion of Black amidst the artistry of Caribbean Carnival mas. Dance the night away in the Black Lounge to Reggae & Soca beats by the one and only DJ Dorenzo & join the Steel Pan Vibes outdoors when you ready to slow down. Carnival de yah! Supporting #CaribbeanStrong {ATTIRE: BLACK}
Thursday ART + COMMUNITY
December 7th
Noon Gallery Opens to the Public
4:00pm - 5:30pm It's a Watch Party, join us to view the 2017 documentary "Chasing Trane: The JOHN COLTRANE
Documentary"
CHASING TRANE is the definitive documentary film about an outside-the-box thinker with extraordinary talent whose boundary-shattering music continues to impact and influence people around the world. This smart, passionate, thought-provoking and uplifting documentary is for anyone who appreciates the power of music to entertain, inspire and transform.
Written and directed by critically-acclaimed documentary filmmaker John Scheinfeld, the film is produced with the full participation of the Coltrane family and the support of the record labels that collectively own the Coltrane catalog. Scheinfeld brings his strong story-telling skills to the creation of a rich, textured and compelling narrative that takes the audience to unexpected places.
Set against the social, political and cultural landscape of the times, CHASING TRANE brings John Coltrane to life as a fully dimensional being, inviting the audience to engage with Coltrane the man, Coltrane the artist.
6:00pm - 7:00pm Talk by Neil Hall: ART + COMMUNITY, an introspective discussion with local and international street
artists on the importance of an ongoing commitment to the cultural resurgence of the Historic Overtown
neighborhood through the activation of art and culture.
7:00pm - 8:00pm ALTERNATIVE REALITIES
Moderated by: Melissa Hunter Davis, Executive Editor, SUGARCANE MAGAZINE
In Conversation with: Abdoulaye Konaté (Mali), José Bedia (Cuba/USA), Philip Thomas (Jamaica) and
Peter Wayne Lewis (Beijing)
The conversation engages a re-reading of the contemporary in art history through the prism of decolonization to offer perspectives in challenging contemporary canons. The conversation also links the process of decentering contemporary discourses with renewal of forms from non-European zones.
08:00 pm Gallery Closes
Friday ART + DESIGN
December 8th
NOON Gallery Opens to the Public
4pm - 6pm ART + YOUTH - Youth Art Insiders; An Afterschool Interactive Workshop with the youth from Overtown
Youth Center and Urgent, Inc. powered by Code Fever.
Screening of Miami's own Elijah Wells movie, Seven.
8:00pm Gallery Closes
Saturday ART + CULTURE
December 9th
NOON Gallery Opens to the Public
1:00pm
The Local and The Global: Black Aesthetics and the Legitimization Process in Global Contemporary Art
CURATORIAL LECTURE by Babacar M'Bow
The emergence of new stars in the contemporary global art scene seems to validate a particular geography; a particular type of art and a particular race of artists. Their "global fame" carefully wrapped in layers of beautifully ornamented museums and galleries and in glossy art magazines and blockbuster exhibitions is awaited with great anticipation. Critics dedicate thousands of words to the announced work. Yet, sometimes, the density of the work and the words appears not to be backed by a complexity of thought. Building on recent theoretical works which redefine blackness away from abjection, post-ness and erasure, this panel explores the process of artistic legitimization and issues connected to this dynamic.
3:00pm
Centering the Margins: Contemporary Situations and Differences in African Diaspora: Mutations, Migration, Multiculturalism
There have been innovations in classifying and exhibiting African Diaspora art. Among the issues that grid these dynamics: Who classifies it? How, by whom, is it legitimated? What and who defines what is ‘authentic' or ‘contemporary' in ‘African Diaspora Art'?
This panel explores notions of distinction between center and periphery in contemporary art circles, modernity / contemporaneity, change and tradition in African Diaspora Art. Is this distinction still prevalent? Has the recognition of innovation in African Diaspora Art amounted to dissociating it from the exotic, even when included in global art circuits under the rubric of contemporary African Diaspora art? The panel explores points of entries and departures to question and discuss criteria of classification and canonization.
8:00 pm Gallery Closes
Sunday FINAL DAY
December 10th
NOON Gallery Opens to the Public
2:00 pm ARTIST ROUNDTABLE, a not to be missed closing event.
5:00 pm Gallery Closes
