Alleviative Objects: Intersectional Entanglement and Progressive Racism in Caribbean Art

by David Frohnapfel

Overview

The global field of contemporary art is shaped by inter-racial conflicts. Alleviative Objects approaches Caribbean art through intersectional entanglements and combines decolonial epistemologies with critical whiteness studies and affect theory in order to rethink ‘Euro- and U.S.-centric' perspectives on art, race, and class. David Frohnapfel shows how progressive racism in the discourse on Haitian art recenters Whiteness by performing benign, innocent, and heroic identifications with the artist group Atis Rezistans. While the study turns critically towards Whiteness, it also turns away from it and towards the compelling contributions of Haitian curators and artists to the decentralization of contemporary art.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9783837655926
Publication date:	01/19/2021
Series:	Postcolonial Studies
Pages:	318
Product dimensions:	5.83(w) x 8.86(h) x (d)

About the Author

David Frohnapfel studied art history, comparative literature, and religious studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and at the Universidad de la Habana in Havana. He works on contemporary art and visual culture from the Caribbean region and defended his dissertation, Disobedient Musealities. Dialogue and Conflict in the Art Scene of Port-au-Prince, at Freie Universität Berlin in 2017. His research focuses on decolonial theory, critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, and affect theory. He also worked as curator of The 3rd Ghetto Biennale: Decentering the Market and Other Tales of Progress in Port-au-Prince together with Leah Gordon, André Eugène, and Jean Herald Celeur, and curated the exhibition NOCTAMBULES on Queer Visualities on the occasion of Le Forum Transculturel d'Art Contemporain.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter 1
Table of Contents 5
Acknowledgements 7
Glossary 11
Introduction 15
1 Sharing Silences: Inter-klas Dialogues in the Art Scene of Port-au-Prince 57
2 Conditional Hospitality: Atis Rezistans in European and U.S. American Art Institutions 107
3 Gestures of Generosity: Politics of Emotions at the Ghetto Biennale in Port-au-Prince 149
4 Between Harmony and Anger: Exhibition Spaces by Eugène, Guyodo, Getho, and Papa Da 205
5 Disobedient Musealities: The Master's Tools Revisited 249
Resume: Alleviative Objects, or Translating Black Suffering into White Pedagogy 285
Bibliography 291
List of Illustrations 313