Breaking Canons: Intersectional Feminism and Anti-Racism in the Work of Black Women Artists

Ana  Balona de Oliveira

doi:10.21814/vista.3060

Authors

Ana Balona de Oliveira Institute for Art History, New University of Lisbon, Portugal

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21814/vista.3060

Keywords:

intersectional feminism and anti-racism, black women artists, Grada Kilomba, Eurídice Kala aka Zaituna Kala, Keyezua

Abstract

In this essay, I will argue for the relevance of the visual production of several contemporary black women artists for the shattering of Eurocentric stereotypes and racist and patriarchal narratives, which, as legacies of the colonial and enslaving past, continue to wound the social and psychic lives of non-white people. While envisaging contemporary artistic practice as being in close dialogue with, or located within, other epistemic and cultural practices – such as the disciplinary fields of history and art history, and visual culture at large –, which have produced and reproduced racist discourses and racialized subjectivities for centuries, I will examine the ways in which black women artists break Eurocentric canons and counter racism, patriarchy, capitalism, homophobia, transphobia, and ableism from within the specific field of contemporary art, in between theory and practice, and drawing on the invaluable lessons of intersectional feminism. Relevant examples will be works by Grada Kilomba (Portugal, 1968), Eurídice Kala aka Zaituna Kala (Mozambique, 1987), and Keyezua (Angola, 1988). This essay will consider the ethico-political valences of such critiques through contemporary art, while not avoiding the problems that are inherent to the ways in which neo-liberal capitalism and white privilege remain structurally at the heart of numerous artistic institutions.

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References

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