The exhibition curated by Ana Beatriz Almeida and Lauren Haynes, Ancestral: Afro-Américas [United States and Brazil], featuring more than 100 works by 73 artists, invites a return to dream, body, and space through a transversal lens—where the three elements that structure the exhibition are placed in tension through a dialogue with Western art traditions. Rodrigo Lopes writes

When a people’s psychological history is marked by continuous loss—when entire histories are denied, hidden, or erased—documentation becomes an obsession.[1]

The word ancestral carries meanings of ancestry, forebears, lineage, continuity. To consider the history of African and Afro-descendant peoples in the Americas is to reckon not only with the terror of slavery—which began in the 16th century—but also to embrace the cultural inheritances that preceded and survived that chapter of History. Weaving with memory is delicate work. Curated by Ana Beatriz Almeida and Lauren Haynes, the exhibition Ancestral: Afro-Americas [United States and Brazil] approaches the African diaspora through its manifestations in the visual arts, bringing together over 100 works by 73 Afro-descendant artists from Brazil and the United States, including Abdias do Nascimento, Betye Saar, Emanoel Araújo, Kara Walker, Paulo Nazareth, and Faith Ringgold. The exhibition has previously been shown at the FAAP Brazilian Art Museum and the Banco do Brasil Cultural Center in Belo Horizonte.

Paintings, sculptures, photographs, drawings, installations, documents, and videos are featured in the show, which commemorates 200 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Under the artistic direction of Marcello Dantas, the exhibition is organized around three thematic pillars: Body, Space, and Dream. Right at the entrance, visitors encounter a fork in the road, a symbolic crossroads marked by iron sculptures by José Adário dos Santos: one can turn left toward Body, or right toward Space. All paths lead to Dream, which interconnects them. The representation of the Black body is one of the central themes. Among the first works encountered is Leite de Pedra [Milk from Stone], an installation by Rosana Paulino. A set of wooden bowls supports small soapstone sculptures molded by the artist in the shape of breasts. Like a web, the pieces are connected by white satin ribbons adorned with red beads—materials that evoke images of milk and blood.

The Portuguese expression tirar leite de pedra [to draw milk from a stone] refers to accomplishing an almost impossible task. It's used when someone achieves positive results in an extremely adverse situation. By invoking this expression, the piece brings forth the theme of motherhood, continuing Paulino’s decades-long artistic engagement with critical reflections on the experiences of Black women’s bodies. 

In the economy of slavery, the social role of Black women was deeply tied to domestic labor. According to sociologist Lélia Gonzalez, the “Black mother” is neither a traitor to her race nor an extraordinary example of love and devotion: she is simply the mother. It is this ambiguity of Black motherhood in Brazilian culture that Paulino’s work explores.

Toyia, Kelvin & Erica II is part of a large-format portrait series by photographer Dawoud Bey. Unlike his previous outdoor work with portable cameras, Bey used a large, heavy Polaroid camera that required studio sessions. Over eight years, these sessions allowed him to build more sustained and intimate connections with his subjects. Bey chose to photograph Black, white, Asian, Latinx, and mixed-race teens in the U.S. in order to challenge the stereotypes often imposed upon them. Rather than portraying these youths as troubled or rebellious, he sought to represent them with dignity, as they wished to be seen. During each session, Bey shifted the camera—upward or sideways—and then assembled the resulting images into a composite work.

Each portrait consists of multiple panels. As we try to piece them together into a complete image, we notice that they don’t fit perfectly. This multi-panel arrangement pushes the boundaries of photographic technique, questioning its relationship to reality. As philosopher Susan Sontag reminds us, no photograph can fully capture the complexity of a person.

In a dimly lit corner, dramatically illuminated, we see ceramic pieces resting on piles of bricks: Djaniras by Jota Mombaça are on display. The presence of clay directs our gaze toward the earth, prompting reflection on migration, belonging, and the unpredictability of climate change. At stake is our relationship with the space we inhabit.

Inspired by the 1979 album Vinte Palavras ao Redor do Sol by Cátia de França, Mombaça undertook a poetic study of soil, digging deep through drawings, paintings, performance, video, and ceramics created at the Sertão Negro – Studio and Art School, envisioned by artist Dalton Paula. These pieces bloom in space like as filhas do menor chuvisco [daughters of the lightest drizzle].

A mix of water and earth—fluid, ever-changing material—they are not perfectly smooth, but retain the marks of the artist’s touch. Their earthy tones—ochre and brown—emphasize the tactile quality of clay, with a matte, unglazed finish. Mombaça’s work echoes the inevitable bond between us and the planet we inhabit: every body becomes matter and returns to Earth.

Three Black girls recline on the grass. They wear floral-patterned clothing and pose in a pastoral setting. Their faces and bodies have been carefully aligned in the composition. The central figure gazes directly at the camera—and at us. For a moment, we are suspended in this instant of rest.

May Flowers by Carrie Mae Weems is part of the series May Days Long Forgotten, which not only celebrates the arrival of spring but also references May Day—International Workers’ Day. Class, race, and gender are central concerns in Weems’ work, developed over more than 40 years.

To portray these girls from working-class American families, Weems draws on historical elements from painting and photography: the tondo format—a circular close-up frame popularized during the Italian Renaissance—paired with a sepia tone that gives the image a historic aura, as if it were something one might find in a 19th-century parlor.

Some works in the exhibition engage directly with the history of Western art, allowing for a critical revision of its traditions, canons, and implications for critical thought. One such piece is Cama Romeu e Julieta [Romeo and Juliet’s Bed] by Arthur Bispo do Rosário. It’s said that he dedicated the work to psychologist Rosângela Magalhães upon her departure from the Colônia Juliano Moreira—a psychiatric institution in Rio de Janeiro where he was confined for over half a century (now home to the Bispo do Rosário Museum).

His intent was to reenact, with Rosângela, the story written by Shakespeare—a classic of 16th-century English drama about two lovers whose forbidden love ends in tragedy. In the face of failed attempts to defy fate and be together, they choose death.

Made of wood and fabric, the bed suggests parting, intimacy, and desire. A domestic object functioning as a portal between dream and reality. Like his banners, ribbons, and embroidery, the bed testifies to Bispo’s commitment to the divine mission revealed to him by a voice: to inventory all the world’s things in preparation for Judgment Day.

Also featured is Las Meninas by Simone Leigh. Nearly two meters tall, the female figure stands upright, hands on hips, with a bare torso—a monumental presence. Yet her imposing and solid stance contrasts with her face: instead of features, we see a void—a hole—surrounded by delicate porcelain rosettes reminiscent of seashells.

The torso, modeled in terracotta and painted with white glaze, draws from body-painting traditions such as ancestral Haitian rituals of communicating with the dead and the South African use of white clay to protect the skin from the sun. The sculpture wears a voluminous skirt made of dry raffia—a material common in Leigh’s work—its shape inspired by both Afro-Brazilian Candomblé traditions and the architecture of Mousgoum communities in Cameroon.

The work’s title references Diego Velázquez’s famous 1656 painting depicting the Infanta Margarita Teresa with her Spanish court entourage. The optical complexities of that portrait are echoed in Leigh’s sculpture, which invites viewers to linger in its mystery.

In her 1995 essay In Our Glory: Photography and Black Life, writer bell hooks reflects that the struggle for civil rights must not be separated from the struggle for images. Just as we hear stories about our ancestors in front of photo-covered walls, the works gathered here seem to compose a pictorial genealogy of the diaspora—a way of protecting ourselves from the losses of the past

*Footenotes*
[1] hooks, bell. In our glory: Photography and Black Life. In: hooks, bell. Art on my mind: visual politics.The New Press: New York.1995.