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From the African diaspora to Ancient Egypt and Western Civilisation, Blackness has been distinctly missing from discussions of art history. In Reframing Blackness, art historian Alayo Akinkugbe, challenges this void, bringing it into the mainstream and interrogating its consequences on culture, society and education. Alayo covers a wide range of topics, exploring the presentation of Black figures in western Art, Blackness in Museums, contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora and Blackness in the curriculum. This is a book that will unveil a long buried, but integral part, of our collective art history and start a much needed conversation. Accessible and incredibly refreshing, Reframing Blackness tells the history of art as it''s never been told before.
About the author
Alayo Akinkugbe graduated from the University of Cambridge with a BA in History of Art in 2021 and graduated with an MA in Curating the Art Museum from the Courtauld Institute of Art in 2023. She runs the Instagram platform @ABlackHistoryofArt, which highlights Black artists, sitters, curators and thinkers from art history and the present day; and hosts the podcast A Shared Gaze. Alayo is a contributing editor and writes the column ‘Black Gazes’ for AnOther Magazine. She was awarded a curatorial research grant by the Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art for the exhibition Entangled Pasts: Art Colonialism and Change at the Royal Academy of Arts.
Alayo was on the advisory panel and contributed to the book African Artists: From 1882 to Now, published by Phaidon in 2021, and has written for publications including Dazed, Tate Etc. and The World of Interiors. Reframing Blackness is her first book.
