Joan Kee
Professor of Art History, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

How might we think about art and its histories from the perspective of a “global majority”? Spanning North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, Joan Kee looks at the relationships that formed between Black and Asian artists at critical historical junctures—including the formation of international communities in the 1940s civil rights struggles in the United States, patterns of migration in and around the Pacific in the 1950s and 60s and intensified Chinese investment in Africa after 2000. Through geometry, a language of magnitudes and alignments, the idea of an “Afro Asia” opens up new ways of seeing how artworks shape our cultural, social, and political lives.

Generous support for Art Matters is provided by the SBMA Women’s Board.