AFRICOBRA
Individual Works
Installation Views
AFRICOBRA™, or the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, was an artist collective founded on the south side of Chicago in 1968. The group had its roots in the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), which used art to address social and cultural
challenges affecting the African American community. One of the most high profile projects OBAC accomplished was the Wall of
Respect, a monumental mural painted on the side of a business in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago in 1967.
The five founders of AFRICOBRA™ were Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu and Gerald Williams. Another early collaborator was the artist Robert Paige, in whose home some of the early meetings of the group were hosted. Over the next few years, Nelson Stevens, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Carolyn Lawrence, Frank Smith and James Phillips joined the group.
As their ideas matured, they made work that translated the AFRICOBRA™ philosophy into physical form. That work incorporated multiple mediums, including drawing, painting, sculpture and fashion. Jae Jarrell, a skilled fashion designer and clothing maker, helped define the attitude of the collective with her wearable artworks. The group then published a manifesto in 1969 titled "Ten in Search of a Nation". It outlined three basic goals they hoped to achieve with their art:
1.definition—images that deal with the past
2.identification—images that relate to the present
3.direction—images that look into the future
Bio
AFRICOBRA™, or the African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists, was an artist collective founded on the south side of Chicago in 1968. The group had its roots in the Organization of Black American Culture (OBAC), which used art to address social and cultural challenges affecting the African American community. One of the most high profile projects OBAC accomplished was the Wall of Respect, a monumental mural painted on the side of a business in the Bronzeville neighborhood of Chicago in 1967.
The five founders of AFRICOBRA™ were Jeff Donaldson, Wadsworth Jarrell, Jae Jarrell, Barbara Jones-Hogu and Gerald Williams. Another early collabo-rator was the artist Robert Paige, in whose home some of the early meetings of the group were hosted. Over the next few years, Nelson Stevens, Napoleon Jones-Henderson, Carolyn Lawrence, Frank Smith and James Phillips joined the group.
The AFRICOBRA™ founders showed their work in a series of landmark traveling exhibitions, which attracted nationwide attention. By the time their first exhibition reached the Studio Museum in Harlem in the early 1970s, the group’s aesthetic had begun to define the look of the Black Arts Movement.
Exhibition History
2019
Soul Of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, The Broad, Los Angeles, CA (upcoming)
2018
AFRICOBRA: Messages to the People, Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, Miami, FL(upcoming)
Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY (upcoming)
The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago’s South Side, 1960-1980, Smart Museum of Art, Chicago, IL
AFRICOBRA: Now, Kravets Wehby Gallery, New York NY
2017
Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power, Tate Modern, London, UK
2016
The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to now, ICA Philadelphia, PA
2015
2013
AFRICOBRA: Philosophy, Logan Center Gallery, Chicago, IL
AFRICOBRA: Art and Impact, The DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago, IL
1977
AFRICOBRA/Farafindugu, Afro-American Historic & Cultural Museum, Philadelphia, PA
1973
AFRICOBRA III, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, MA
AFRICOBRA III, Howard University, Washington, D.C.
1972
AFRICOBRA II, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL
AFRICOBRA II, Howard University, Washington, D.C.
AFRICOBRA II, Malcom X College, Chicago, IL
AFRICOBRA II, Hati Gallery, Rochester, NY
AFRICOBRA II, Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY
1971
AFRICOBRA II, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
AFRICOBRA II, Langston Hughes Center for Visual & Performing Arts, Buffalo, NY
AFRICOBRA I, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL
1970
AFRICOBRA I, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, NY
AFRICOBRA I, Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Roxbury, MA
AFRICOBRA I, Black Expo, Chicago, IL