In spring 2024—the centennial of the first Surrealist manifesto—the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth will present Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940, an exhibition organized by curator Maria Elena Ortiz that will highlight the ways in which the tenets and strategies of Surrealism have been engaged by artists of the African diaspora in the Caribbean and the United States from the 1940s through the present. The exhibition will present over fifty artworks that evoke dreams, spirituality, and the fantastical, while also contextualizing Afrofuturist and Afrosurrealist works within pre-existing narratives of Black creativity and resistance.
Surrealism and Us: Caribbean and African Diasporic Artists since 1940
Myrlande Constant,
Tout Ko Feray Se Dife,
2022, 56.5 × 65 inches,
Beads, sequins, and tassels on fabric.
© Myrlande Constant. Courtesy of the artist and Fort Gansevoort.
Allora & Calzadilla, Graft, 2021 (detail).
Recycled polyvinyl chloride and paint,
Variable dimensions, Courtesy of the Artists and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris. Photo by Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Dalton Gata, Jardín para Maragarita, 2023.
Acrylic on cotton-linen canvas , 90 x 70 in. Courtesy of the Artist and Galería Agustina Ferreyra © Dalton Gata. Photo by Dalton Gata
Ja'Tovia Gary, Citational Ethics (Zora Neale Hurston, 1943), 2023, neon, engraved obsidian, wood base, 75 x 77 x 65 in. © Ja’Tovia Gary. Courtesy Rennie Collection, Vancouver and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York. Photo by Steven Probert
Augustín Cárdenas, 1974, Bronze, 13 ⅜ × 10 ⅝ × 5 ⅞ in. Almine Rech, Paris
Kenny Rivero, Olafs and Chanclas, 2021, Oil on canvas. 72 x 72 in. © Kenny Rivero
Photo by Ed Mumford, Courtesy of the Artist and Charles Moffett, New York
Stanley Greaves, There is a Meeting Here Tonight: The Apotheosis, 1997 Acrylic on canvas, 43 × 48 in. Photo by William Cummins
Hector Hyppolite, Macanda, c. 1947, Oil on board, 18 1/2 x 20 7/8 in. Photo by Matthew Sherman
“I love uniforms! Because if there’s nothing there, clothes are certainly not going to make the man. It’s better to always wear the same thing and know that people are liking you for the real you and not the you your clothes make.”
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