黑料不打烊

"Visionary Aponte: Art and Black Freedom" brings together twenty contemporary artists working across a range of media to interpret an extraordinary鈥攁nd now lost鈥攈istorical artifact: a so-called 鈥淏ook of Paintings鈥� created by Jos茅 Antonio Aponte, a nineteenth-century Afro-Cuban revolutionary and artist. Authorities found the 鈥淏ook of Paintings鈥� in 1812 during the investigation into a major antislavery conspiracy in Havana. During the trial, Aponte was forced to describe his book in detail. Its pages portrayed lush landscapes and Biblical stories; Roman goddesses and Spanish kings; black men as warriors, emperors, and librarians; Rome and Ethiopia; Havana and the heavens. Shortly after testifying, Aponte was publicly executed, his head severed from his body, and placed on a pike inside a cage in a well-travelled crossroads in the city. Then, his 鈥淏ook of Paintings鈥� disappeared. 

Using Aponte鈥檚 trial testimony鈥攚hich is all that is known to remain of the 鈥淏ook of Paintings鈥濃�攖he artists included in Visionary Aponte have reimagined Aponte鈥檚 book for our present. They experiment with ways to mitigate the violence of the colonial archive and invite us to think about the role of art in envisioning and making social change.