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Artwork from the NMAAHC’s “Reckoning” and the National Gallery of Art’s “Afro-American Histories” Exhibits: Part II
In my previous post, I wrote about some of the pieces that I saw when visiting the Reckoning exhibit at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC) and the Afro-Atlantic Histories exhibit at the National Gallery of Art during our recent trip to Washington D.C. Today, I want to continue looking at some other pieces from these exhibits that stood out to me. Again, I cannot detail every piece, partly because that would be too impossible for me to do on this blog. However, there are certain works that caught my attention. While I cannot write about every piece, I suggest you go and visit the exhibits’ websites, linked above, to learn more about each exhibit.
I was able to see a few works by Kara Walker while in Washington, and in the previous post I wrote about Walker’s Restraint. Another work that I saw was no world, from the series An Unpeopled Land in Uncharted Waters. The print depicts the Middle Passage and near arrival in the Western hemisphere. The image shows the silhouettes of two individuals on the left, and they appear to be colonizers seeking success and fortune in the New World. A ship, carrying enslaved individuals is held aloft, above the waves, by two black hands rising from the water. Storm clouds cover the center…
