AFRICOBRA Exhibit To Go On Display At Venice Biennale Arte
WDCB’s Gary Zidek catches up with Chicago-based curator Jeffreen M. Hayes to talk about the exhibition she curated, AFRICOBRA: NATION TIME. The exhibit was selected as an official Collateral Event at this year’s Venice Art Biennale.
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“The one thing that I still go back to now is, how amazing is it to have this collective, whose work really turned western art inside-out, presenting blackness in its full array, in Venice, in one of the most important contemporary art exhibitions.” - Curator Jeffreen Hayes talking about her reaction to finding out AFRICOBRA: NATION TIME was selected to be a part of the Venice Biennale Arte.
Jeffreen M. Hayes, curator of AFRICOBRA: NATION TIME
Over fifty years after its formation, the Chicago-based black artist collective AFRICBORA will be exhibited on the biggest contemporary art stage in the world.
The 58th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale kicks off on May 11. Considered by many to be the world’s most important contemporary art exhibition, over 600,000 people are expected to visit Venice specifically to see this year’s Art Biennale.
Italian artist Lorenzo Quinn's Building Bridges, an installation showing six pairs of arching hands creating a bridge over a Venetian waterway in the Arsenal shipyard.
Chicago had a big presence in Venice at last year’s Architectural Biennale. And the city will be represented at this year’s Art Biennale with the presentation of AFRICOBRA: NATION TIME.
Going to NYC, Jae Jarrel (1994). Photo credit: Kavi Gupta
Chicago-based curator Jeffreen M. Hayes originally put the exhibit together for the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami to commemorate AFRICOBRA’s 50th anniversary in 2018. It was then selected as an official Collateral Event of this year’s Art Biennale.
Gerald Williams, Angela Davis, 1971 . Photo credit: Kavi Gupta
