Ted Joans. Black Flower

Description

Although his literary work - poems, jazz critiques, and autobiographical stories - is best known today, Ted Joans also created a visual body of work throughout his life, characterized by its richness, formal freedom, and inventiveness. Largely overlooked to this day, a large part of these drawings, collages, and experimental films await discovery. As a result of extensive research and close collaboration with the artist's estate, the exhibition for the first time brings together a series of extraordinary works. Ted Joans was born in 1928 and grew up between Louisville (Kentucky) and Fort Wayne (Indiana) in the heart of a racially segregated America as the son of an African American family of stage artists who performed on steamboats. He discovered Surrealism in magazines his aunt took to the white families where she worked as a housemaid. With words, sounds, or images, Ted Joans made collage a playful yet subversive aesthetic process. His syncretic work is influenced by the black intellectual tradition and full of references to Western art history. Although André Breton called him the 'only African American Surrealist,' Joans aligns himself with a broader tradition that can be called 'Afro-Surrealism,' alongside Amiri Baraka. Fascinated by Africa, which he called the 'surrealist continent,' he sought to deconstruct Eurocentric narratives, driven by a Pan-African commitment to restore the relationships between Afro-descended peoples and their cultural roots.

Highlights

• First monographic exhibition on Ted Joans
• Presentation of drawings, collages, and experimental films
• Influence of Surrealism and African American tradition

General Information

The exhibition at the Musée cantonal des beaux-arts in Lausanne is dedicated to the work of the American artist Ted Joans. It showcases a variety of his visual works, which have largely remained unnoticed so far, and highlights his connection to the Surrealist movement as well as to the African American art tradition.

Location

Place de la Gare 16, 1003 Lausanne, Switzerland

Hide Map

Loading map...

How to get there

Get Directions