African-descended people have preserved their stories through a rich diversity of material sources, oral histories, and artworks in a range of media. Before, during, and after enslavement, artists in Africa and artists of African descent have engaged with history and reflected upon gender, race, religion, and resistance in powerful ways. This exhibition brings together artworks of the Bambara peoples of Mali and the Luba peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with contemporary artists such as Faith Ringgold, Carrie Mae Weems, and Romare Bearden to show how art and historical records can converse with one another and preserve critical stories. These artists engage with the silences and erasures that are part of the Black past, and show how—despite the historical violences waged upon them—Black people have survived and thrived.

Image: Deborah Muirhead (American, b. 1949), Document, 2002. Color intaglio and collograph. Art Acquisitions Fund, 2005.7.