HASA Speaker Series - Black Art: A Critical Introduction

Join HASA on February 28th at 6 pm for our Field Notes Lecture Series with Professor Maya Harakawa presenting Black Art: A Critical Introduction.

Unlike other fields within art history, the term “Black Art” is difficult to define. While the terms “Renaissance” or “Modern” denote a historical time period and “Latin American” or “Chinese” encompass geographic regions, the term “Black”—one forged through an awareness of global struggle and solidarity in the 1960s—operates between identity and politics. In this talk, we will discuss the origins of the term, its pros and cons, and its applications within art history. Through a series of case studies, we will ask how artists and art historians have productively defined and redefined “Black Art” across history.

Maya Harakawa is an assistant professor of Art History at the University of Toronto. After studying Gender Studies and Art History as an undergraduate, she received her doctorate in Art History from the City University of New York in 2022. At U of T, she teaches courses on the African Diaspora in the United States and the Caribbean, as well as courses on modern and contemporary art.