Institute for Research in the Humanities

Ethelene Whitmire’s Exhibition “Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century” Opens

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Former IRH Fellow Ethelene Whitmire‘s (Race, Ethnicity, and Indigeneity Fellow, 2017-2018) exhibition Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century opened  recently at the Chazen Museum of Art. Connected to research Ethelene completed while at IRH, Nordic Utopia? “assembles drawings, paintings, photographs, textiles, film, music and dance to explore the ways in which travel impacted some African Americans’ visual and performance art. New scholarship chronicles the experiences of singers Josephine Baker and Anne Wiggins Brown; jazz tenor saxophonist Dexter Gordon; dancer and choreographer Doug Crutchfield; painters Herbert Gentry, William Henry Johnson and Walter H. Williams; multimedia artist and designer Howard Smith and others. The objects on view offer insight into their lives, the social climates in which they worked and the reasons they relocated.” For more information, see the Chazen Museum’s website here.

black and white image of saxophonist resting on one arm and holding cigarette.
Kirsten Malone, “Dexter Gordon at Jazzhus Montmartre in Copenhagen, Denmark,” 1964, gelatin silver print from original. Courtesy of Kirsten Malone.

Ethelene will be leading curatorial tours and other events associated with the exhibition: