This exhibition celebrates the 50 year anniversary of the founding of AfriCOBRA, the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, an artists’ collective formed on the south side of Chicago in 1968 at the height of the Black Arts Movement. It was their way of overcoming rejection from the mainstream art community and building a community of African American Artists. “When you look at AfriCOBRA, they were like the Black Panthers of the black arts movement,” according to member Kevin Cole.
The collective has stayed relevant and influential with a changing roster of artists who share a philosophy of functionalism and black aesthethetic. The nine exhibiting artists transcend the individual. They each create works in a rhythmic and colorful Kool-Aid palette of political, social and family narratives using multiple mediums.
This exhibition features work which underscores the tenacity of this art’s ability to survive, influence and continue to strive toward relevance in the art community, in the national dialogue and the art canon. An exhibition catalogue will be available.
Akili Ron Anderson
Kevin Cole
Adger Cowans
Michael D. Harris
Napoleon Jones-Henderson
James Phillips
Frank Smith
Nelson Stevens
Rene’e Stout
About Stella Jones Gallery:
SJG was selected as a 2018 Downtown NOLA Awards Honoree, has been listed as a Cultural Landmark by The Drum newspaper and named by Thrillist as one of THE FOUR SPOTS THAT HAVE TRANSFORMED THE ARTS DISTRICT INTO NOLA’S HOTTEST NEIGHBORHOOD.
