THE PENSACOLA MUSEUM OF ART PRESENTS
THE K I NGDOM OF T H IS WOR L D, R E I M AGI N E D by Anna Wall, Pensacola Museum of Arts Chief Curator images courtesy of the Artists
his fall, the Pensacola Museum of Art will present two exhibitions that explore 19th century struggles for freedom through contemporary art. Both projects ask artists with ties to Haiti, Cuba and other Caribbean communities to respond to historical events through a 21st century lens. The exhibitions position events, like the Haitian Revolution, not as finite moments in the past, but rather as part of a continual striving for Black freedom and social justice across the Americas.
Leah Gordon Vagabondaj Mawon: Sitadel, 2019
On September 24, the Pensacola Museum of Art opened The Kingdom of This World, Reimagined on the second floor of the Jefferson Street museum. The exhibition was originally shown in 2019 at the Little Haiti Cultural Center of Miami. The show was timed to coincide with the 70th anniversary of Cuban writer Alejo Carpentier’s historical novel, The Kingdom of This World. First published in 1949, Carpentier’s stunning narrative recounts the Haitian Revolution, occurring between 1791-1804, and its profound impact across social strata in the emergent Caribbean nation. Carpentier used the novel to introduce his innovative literary style, which became known as lo real maravilloso— the marvelous real. In this influential form, fact and fiction become convincingly intertwined,
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