Venues & Dates:
Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP)
Instituto Tomie Ohtake
São Paulo, Brazil
30 June to 21 October 2018

Histórias afro-atlânticas (Afro-Atlantic Histories) was the second in the “historias” series, taking place across two major venues in São Paulo in 2018 – Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand (MASP) and Instituto Tomie Ohtake. The exhibition was motivated by an exploration of parallels and frictions across what Paul Gilroy termed the Black Atlantic, considering the visual cultures of Afro-Atlantic territories – their experiences, creations, patterns of worship and philosophy. The exhibition also underscored the fraught Brazilian context within Afro-Atlantic histories, the country having received around 46% of the roughly 11 million Africans brought against their will during the transatlantic slave trade that lasted for more than 300 years. Brazil was, in adition to this, the last country to end slavery, with the so-called Golden Law of 1888, which perversely did not include any social integration plan, setting the stage for enduring economic, political and racial inequalities. Yet, what Histórias afro-atlânticas undeniably also illuminated, is the way in which Brazil maintains a deep-rooted legacy of African cultures.