Abdias Nascimento: O Quilombismo—Documents of a Pan-Africanist Militancy

This November 28th the city of Franca, in the countryside of São Paulo, welcomes the exhibition Abdias Nascimento: O Quilombismo—Documentos de uma Militância Pan-Africanista (Quilombismo: Documents of a Pan-Africanist Militancy), an important highlight of the program that celebrates the opening of a new Sesc unit in that city.

Townsfolk will meet the visual artist Abdias Nascimento (1914–2011), who was also a poet, writer, playwright, parliamentarian and pan-africanist, in a tribute that brings him back to his hometown 110 years after he was born there. Celebrated among international artists and intellectuals who crafted singular critiques of Brazil, Abdias Nascimento has works that belong to the collections of renowned institutions like Tate Britain, Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) and New York’s Museum of Modern Art (MoMA). For his body of work, Abdias Nascimento was a Nobel Peace Prize nominee. In 2024, his name was written in the book of Brazil’s Heroes and Heroines.

In an unprecedented partnership between Sesc São Paulo, Instituto Inhotim and  Instituto de Pesquisas e Estudos Afro-Brasileiros, Ipeafro (Afro-Brazilian Studies and Research Institute), the show brings together some 70 paintings and is curated by Douglas de Freitas, Deri Andrade e Lucas Menezes, from Inhotim, and Elisa Larkin Nascimento e Julio Menezes Silva, from Ipeafro.

The set of works shown at Sesc Franca was first presented to the public, from November 2023 to April 2024, at Instituto Inhotim as the conclusive phase of the Abdias Nascimento and the Museu de Arte Negra (Black Art Museum) Program. It was the last of four acts, as the curators named them in tribute to the Teatro Experimental do Negro (Black Experimental Theater), founded by Abdias in 1944.

The curatorial investigation around Abdias’s legacy, made through Abdias Nascimento and the Museu de Arte Negra Program, has resulted in the featured exhibition at Sesc Franca — which allows not only a broad debate of his artistic, political and intellectual legacy, but which also inspires Inhotim itself and other Brazilian cultural institutions to think through the racial prism.

Far more than an artistic program, the project developed out of the partnership between Inhotim and Ipeafro became an ethical program—of which Sesc São Paulo is now also a signatory, through its new unit.

The show takes its title from the book published by the artist in 1980, presents Nascimento’s work in painting from the perspective of two concepts: Quilombismo on the one hand,  which he described as an “African Brazilian political alternative” harking back to the original meaning of “quilombo” as “fraternal African Brazilian gathering” and, on the other, ” contemporary ritual symbols” that investigate,  assert and value, as a form of antiracist activism, the knowledge brought by African traditions and their “understanding of life and universe’s philosophy”.

All eyes on Blackness
Throughout 2024, as is usual in its annual program, Sesc São Paulo has been promoting relevant art exhibitions that contribute to the dissemination of African Brazilian themes and emphasize Black peoples’ cosmoperceptions and ways of being and doing, considering processes and experiences as enhancers of teaching-learning and of social transformation.

Featured in Sesc’s units across São Paulo State, another eight shows celebrate Black artists and cultures:

Maxwell Alexandre: Novo Poder—passabilidade (Maxwell Alexandre: New power—passability), at Sesc Avenida Paulista, up until December 1

Terra de Gigantes (Land of Giants), at Sesc Casa Verde, up until December 22

Um Defeito de Cor (A Color Defect), at Sesc Pinheiros, up until February 26

Ofício: Barro: Gabriella Marinho: Argila-Griô (Craft: Clay: Gabriella Marinho: Argil-Griot) at Sesc Pompeia, up until December 8

Lélia em nós: festas populares e amefricanidade (Lélia in us: popular festivities and amefricanity), at Sesc Vila Mariana, up until February 9

Mulher Esqueleto (Skeleton Woman), at Sesc Araraquara, up until January 19

Roça é Vida (Farming is life), at Sesc Registro, up until February 2

Retratistas do Morro (Portraitists of the Hill), at Sesc São José dos Campos, up until June 20

As part of the exhibitions, Sesc also promotes dozens of educational activities, workshops, experiences, conversation circles and presentations of different artistic manifestations. All exhibitions are free and open to the public, with the possibility of scheduling mediated group visits. Another important value of the projects is that they offer various accessibility resources.