Consuelo Kanaga

The exhibition, organised from the collection of the Brooklyn Museum, which has been the custodian of her archive, features nearly 180 photographs (mostly vintage prints) and a variety of documentary material. While tracing and contextualising Consuelo Kanaga’s work and presenting some of her iconic images, it also focuses on the role of photography in the representation of the African-American world.

In response to the dominant racism, from the end of the 19th century, in cities such as San Francisco, Washington and New York, magazines and novels created by black men and women began to be published. This literary boom was the precedent for what is known as the “New Negro Movement” , which emerged in Harlem between 1920 and 1930, and which also gave its name to the most complete anthology on this cultural current, written by Alain Locke and considered at the time to be “the foundation of the black canon”. Also known as the “Harlem Renaissance”, the movement marked a period of flourishing for black artists, while at the same time appealing to whites to join in this vindication of African-American equality through culture. This is the case of Kanaga, who became linked, through his personal relationships and his photographic work, to the demands for a redefinition of the African-American identity.