Over at Tate Liverpool, the latest show to take over the fourth floor galleries is called ‘Afro modern: journeys through the black Atlantic‘: it’s an exploration of the cross-pollination that took place between artists in Africa, America and Europe during the twentieth century.
Conventional art history tells us about the influence that African art had on the Cubists, but this exhibition offers the chance to consider how far this appreciation went beyond merely taking delight in the ‘primitive’ or the ‘exotic’, and whether it amounted to a genuine two-way conversation between cultures. We’re aware of the extent to which Picasso (for instance) appropriated African forms, but less well known are the ways in which European modernism influenced black artists in Africa and the States.
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