Jorge M. Pérez Collection Explores African Diaspora in ‘Améfrica’ at Spain’s CAAC

The Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo (CAAC) in Seville presents Améfrica: Diasporic Connections in the Jorge M. Pérez Collection (Améfrica), an exhibition curated by Brazilian curator and scholar Helio Menezes and drawn from the holdings of the Jorge M. Pérez Collection and El Espacio 23 in Miami. The presentation brings together 128 works by 99 artists and examines the global influence of the African diaspora across generations and geographies.

On view in the museum’s North and East Cloisters through January 10, 2027, the exhibition opens CAAC’s 2026 program with a project that deepens cultural dialogue across the Atlantic.

The exhibition offers a renewed reading of Africa’s imprint on the formation of the Americas, approached through relational, political, and aesthetic lenses. Spanning painting, sculpture, photography, installation, and textile practices, the presentation includes artists born in more than thirty countries across Africa, the Americas, Europe, and Australia, reflecting the global dimension of the African diaspora and its enduring impact on contemporary culture.

Featured artists include internationally recognized figures such as Kara Walker, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Wifredo Lam, Rubem Valentim, Igshaan Adams, Zanele Muholi, El Anatsui, and Esther Mahlangu. The presentation also establishes a dialogue between pioneers such as Rubem Valentim, Bertina Lopes, and Mahlangu and later generations including Nnenna Okore, Ayan Farah, and Kapwani Kiwanga.

“As a collector, I am interested in supporting works that expand our understanding of history and challenge simplified narratives,” says Pérez. “Améfrica underscores that we share intertwined origins and that no artistic expression, nor any society, emerges in isolation. We are the result of crossings, trajectories, and shared memories.”

The exhibition unfolds across five chapters inspired by ideas that Lélia Gonzalez identified as central to processes of africanidade.

Adaptation

This section examines both the forced and voluntary crossings that shaped relationships between Africa and the Americas. Works by artists including El Anatsui, Ibrahim Mahama, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, and Juan Carlos Alom reflect on migration, material circulation, and memory across geographies.

Resistance

Here, artists engage the visual languages of resistance and contemporary activism, translating socio-racial tensions into material form. With attention to themes of care, protection, and collective struggle, works by Mickalene Thomas, Bisa Butler, and Zanele Muholi foreground resilience and identity.

Reinterpretation

Focusing on spiritual and religious traditions reshaped through displacement and survival, this section draws on ancestral presences, ritual, and trance as sites of knowledge and power. Artists Manuel Mendive Hoyos, Belkis Ayón, Frida Orupabo, and Turiya Magadlela reinterpret inherited frameworks.

Creation of New Forms

Highlighting experimentation and innovation, this chapter features artists such as Stanley Whitney, Sam Gilliam, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Sonia Gomes, and Kapwani Kiwanga, who work across abstraction, sculpture, and textile to construct new aesthetic vocabularies.

Amefricanas

Centering Black women artists, this final section explores self-representation beyond colonial narratives. Through diverse media, artists including Kara Walker, Carrie Mae Weems, Lorna Simpson, Nandipha Mntambo, and Faith Ringgold propose new visions of the body and image.

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Author: Karren Franco from AETOSWire on behalf of El Espacio 23.

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