BARCELONA ASTRAL PROJECTION CLINIC

Guest Contribution - Response to Project A Black Planet: The Art And Culture Of Panafrica at the Art Institute of Chicago | By Zeniya Soro

15.12.24 - 30.03.25

Notes by the editorial team:

Following the release of Project A Black Planet: The Art And Culture Of Panafrica at MACBA by Lauren Wojcicki the review was left incomplete. Formulated as an abecedarium, some letters remained absent. After reaching out to our overseas guest contributor, Zeniya Soro, these gaps were filled by following the original approach. Soro’s approach hones in on the exhibition at the Art Institute of Chicago, giving the reader further insight on the show itself, along with its surrounding programming.

C: Collaboration

This exhibition is most notably a collaboration between the AIC and MACBA; however, within Chicago, the AIC partnered with several institutions across the city for its titular “Panafrica Across Chicago”.  This is a series of exhibitions highlighted by the AIC’s Panafrica Symposium, as well as an artist talk with Wangechi Mutu, John Akomfrah’s: Four Nocturnes, Wrightwood 659, and “Let’s Get It On: The Wearable Art of Betye Saar” exhibited at the Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society.

H: Hierarchy

One of the more notable aspects of this exhibition is the absence of a notable hierarchy (i.e., scale, order) when displaying works. Whether the work is displayed using a salon hang or the more conventional single-hang format, the works themselves never step over each other. The works are always in conversation both with one another and the viewers.

P: Proximity

Both within the space itself and the subject, viewers are meant to come out of the exhibition with a better understanding and curiosity of Pan-Africanism, the moments, and the artists who inform the movement. The space itself is good for this, as the viewer must go one way: towards the present and through the past. In this way, Pan-Africanism as a subject is made more accessible through the didactics seen throughout the exhibit, but through its themes of joy, grief, and resistance.

T: To Start in Africa

The late curator Koyo Kouoh stated, “Everything started in Africa”. Kouoh, while speaking during her keynote address at the “Panafrica Days Symposium,” had stated this not as opinion, but fact. When we look at the exhibition itself, the viewers must navigate through a showcase of works by African artists (as well as those in the Diaspora), literature, and video works that reflect the ethos of what a “Black Planet” could look like. To start in Africa means you must end in Africa; The exhibit closes with the “Queer African Manifesto/Declaration” as well as related works of contemporary Black and African artists. The exhibition does not act as a relic or time capsule, but as a showcase of self-determination and what the potentialities of Panafricanism could look like in the contemporary world.