Organized by the American Federation of Arts and the Fisk University Galleries, African Modernism in America is the first major traveling exhibition to examine the complex connections between modern African artists and patrons, artists, and cultural organizations in the United States, amid the interlocking histories of civil rights, decolonization, and the Cold War.
‘The First World Festival of Negro Arts’ Screening & Discussion
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‘The First World Festival of Negro Arts’ Screening & Discussion
Washington University, Steinberg Auditorium |
Join us to open the Washington University African Film Festival with a screening of The First World Festival of Negro Arts (1966), the official documentary of the Festival Mondial des Arts Negrès (FESMAN) held in Dakar, Senegal, in 1966. Over 2,000 artists, dancers, intellectuals, performers, and writers from Africa and the African diaspora gathered to celebrate Black culture in the newly independent nation of Senegal. Director, producer, actor, and writer William Greaves documented this historic event that included exhibitions of classical, modern, and contemporary African art, performances and theatrical productions, and a colloquium of philosophers, authors, and cultural critics.
The screening will be followed by a Q&A with Baba Badji, postdoctoral associate in Comparative Literature, Institute for the Study of Global Racial Justice at Rutgers University, and faculty from the Department of African and African-American Studies in Arts & Sciences.
