DC | Exhibition Tour – ‘Afro-Atlantic Histories’ at the National Gallery of Art, with curators Kanitra Fletcher and Molly Donovan

Please join us for a tour of Afro-Atlantic Histories at the National Gallery of Art, led by curators Kanitra Fletcher and Molly Donovan.

For centuries, artists have told and retold the complex histories of the African Diaspora. The exhibition Afro-Atlantic Histories explores this enduring legacy through a wide range of works of art inspired by the historical experiences and cultural formations of Black and African people since the 17th century. More than 130 powerful works, including paintings, sculpture, photographs, and time-based media by artists from Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean, bring these narratives to life. This exhibition was initially presented as Histórias Afro-Atlânticas in 2018 by the Museu de Arte de São Paulo in Brazil.

For additional information about the exhibition and related programming, visit the National Gallery of Art website.

This program is free for ArtTable members and non-members.

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Please read before registering:

Covid-19 Guidelines

Please note that by registering for this event you consent to have your contact information shared with ArtTable to be used in the event that contact tracing is needed.

Face Masks

Beginning March 11, face masks are optional at the National Gallery but are encouraged.

Vaccination

At this time, no proof of vaccination is required for entry or dining.

Health Self-Check

Please help protect other museum visitors and staff by conducting on the day of the scheduled visit, prior to entry, a self-check of your health and the health of anyone planning to visit the National Gallery with you. If you or anyone in your group answers “yes” to any of the questions below, you must reschedule your visit for another day.

• Have you tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days?
• Do you live with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days?
• Have you had close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19 in the last 14 days? Note: Close contact is defined as being within 6 feet of an infected person for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period and/or having direct contact with mucus or saliva.
• In the last 48 hours, have you had any of the following symptoms?
• Fever (100.3˚F or higher) or chills; cough; shortness of breath or difficulty breathing; fatigue; muscle or body aches; headache; new loss of taste or smell; sore throat; congestion or runny nose; nausea or vomiting; diarrhea.

An inherent risk of exposure to COVID-19 exists in any public place. Visitors to the National Gallery voluntarily assume all risks related to COVID-19 exposure.

Accessibility

Everyone is welcome at the National Gallery of Art. The museum is committed to making the collection, buildings, and programs accessible to all audiences.

Arriving & Parking

The 6th Street entrance to the West Building and the 4th Street entrance to the East Building have ramps to accommodate wheelchairs and strollers, and elevators at these entrances provide access to galleries and public areas. To provide an address for MetroAccess Paratransit, please use 201 6th Street NW for the West Building or 150 4th Street NW for the East Building.

Limited parking is set aside for vehicles bearing appropriate tags or placards for visitors with disabilities on the 4^th Street Plaza outside of the East Building.

While the East Building is temporarily closed through June 2022, the museum encourages anyone who plans to use these parking spots to first drop off visitors with limited mobility at the 6^th Street entrance to the West Building prior to parking. See more info about getting there.

Wheelchair Access

Visitors may borrow wheelchairs at all entrances on a first-come, first-served basis for use within the East and West Buildings. The two buildings are connected by an underground moving walkway. All public spaces and facilities are accessible by elevator. If you require assistance, please ask a security officer.

Visitors who need assistance standing for long periods are asked to bring a wheelchair or use one of the limited number of wheelchairs the National Gallery has made available.

Please note: for elevator access throughout the East Building, there are two available elevators outside of Tower 1 and Tower 2. For elevator access from the East Building Ground, Mezzanine, Upper Levels, or Towers to the Concourse Level or West Building, please use the elevator outside of Tower 2. A larger elevator, located in Tower 1, is also available and provides access to all levels of the East Building

Service Dogs

Service dogs are permitted in the East and West Buildings as well as in the Sculpture Garden.

Assistive Listening Devices

East Building auditoriums and the West Building Lecture Hall are equipped with listening enhancement systems. The receivers and neck loops necessary to use these systems can be borrowed from Information Desks in the East Building (near the entrance) or West Building (6th Street and Constitution Avenue entrance).

Please email programs@arttable.org if you require additional accessibility information for this program.

Getting There & Parking

The National Gallery of Art campus is located between 3rd and 9th Streets along Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20565.

Metrobus and Metrorail

The museum is located near several Metrorail stops, the closest at Archives–Navy Memorial–Penn Quarter on the Green and Yellow lines. Metrobuses stop along 7th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW.

Circulator Bus

The Washington D.C. Circulator Bus runs between the city's main attractions and some of the more popular neighborhoods for visitors. Circulator Bus fare is $1 per person. The museum is located on the National Mall route.

Capital Bikeshare

A Capital Bikeshare station is located near the East Building at 4th Street and Madison Drive, NW.

Parking

We encourage you to take advantage of public transportation. There is no public parking facility at the National Gallery, though limited parking is set aside for visitors with disabilities whose vehicles have the appropriate tags or placards. Parking is available on surrounding streets and in commercial garages.

Thank you to the Shelley Langdale, ArtTable DC Member, for organizing this program.

Image: Zanele Muholi, Ntozahke II, (Parktown), 2016, photographic wall mural from digital files, sheet: 355.6 x 254 cm (140 x 100 in.), National Gallery of Art, Washington, Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund, 2021.88.1, © Zanele Muholi. Courtesy of the artist, Yancey Richardson, New York, and Stevenson Cape Town/Johannesburg

About the Curators

Kanitra Fletcher is the Associate Curator of African American and Afro-Diasporic Art, Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Art. Fletcher is responsible for guiding the museum’s collection of African American art. Prior to joining the National Gallery, Fletcher worked at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, where she oversaw the presentation of such major traveling exhibitions as Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power and Odyssey: Jack Whitten Sculpture, and began the co-organization of the U.S. iteration of Afro-Atlantic Histories, an exhibition that was first conceived and presented by the Museum de Arte São Paulo in Brazil. The exhibition was displayed at the MFA, Houston in fall 2021/winter 2022 and is now open at the National Gallery. Fletcher has published essays in books and journals and presented research at international conferences on Afro-diasporic art as it relates to politics of the body, gender, and labor as well as aesthetics and the avant-garde. Institutions where she previously worked include the Bronx Museum of the Arts, The Museum of Modern Art, and the New Museum of Contemporary Art. Since 2013, she has curated an ongoing video art series for Landmarks public art program at the University of Texas at Austin. Fletcher received a B.A. in English Literature from Rutgers University-New Brunswick, an M.A. in Latin American Studies with concentrations in Art History and Brazilian Studies from University of Texas at Austin, and a PhD in History of Art from Cornell University.

Molly Donovan is curator of contemporary art at the National Gallery of Art, where she has worked since 1993. Together with NGA colleagues Kanitra Fletcher and Steven Nelson, Molly has co-curated Afro-Atlantic Histories which opened on April 10, 2022, at the National Gallery following its debut at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, and an earlier iteration in São Paulo, Brazil. Donovan’s notable recent projects include the monographic exhibition of work by Lynda Benglis, drawn from the National Gallery’s collections which just closed in January, and the major show featuring British sculptor Rachel Whiteread, on which she collaborated with Tate Britain, where it opened in London in 2017 before traveling to Vienna, Austria, Washington, DC, and ultimately to the Saint Louis Art Museum in 2019. Additional exhibitions that Donovan organized include In the Tower: Barbara Kruger (2016 – 2017); Warhol: Headlines, which opened in Washington in 2011 before it travelled to Frankfurt, Rome, and Pittsburgh; and Christo and Jeanne Claude’s in the Vogel Collection in Washington and La Jolla in 2002. In 2016, Donovan inaugurated thematic installations for the contemporary collection of the National Gallery, including “Bodies of Work,” “Flow,” and “Markers and Signs.”  Her acquisitions for the National Gallery of Art have reshaped its collection to include more works by living artists, particularly women and people of color. Molly has written and lectured on numerous artists (in addition to the aforementioned)—including Janine Antoni, Byron Kim, Kimsooja, Glenn Ligon, Richard Tuttle, and Ursula von Rydingsvard—and on the subject of art in public space. She holds a Master of Arts degree with a concentration in 20th century art from the Graduate Program in the History of Art at Williams College, and a BA in English from Georgetown University.