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Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power: Museum of Fine Arts | Houston, TX

Past exhibition
27 June - 30 August 2020
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
Open a larger version of the following image in a popup: Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971

Gerald Williams USA, b. 1941

Wake Up , 1971
Screenprint on wove paper
42 x 28 in
106.7 x 71.1 cm
6868
Copyright The Artist

Further images

  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 1 ) Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 2 ) Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 3 ) Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 4 ) Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 5 ) Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
  • (View a larger image of thumbnail 6 ) Gerald Williams, Wake Up , 1971
View on a Wall
Created as part of a suite of works with the other members of AFRICOBRA, 'Wake Up' debuted as part of AFRICOBRA II in 1971, at the Studio Museum in Harlem....
Read more
Created as part of a suite of works
with the other members of AFRICOBRA,
"Wake Up" debuted as part of AFRICOBRA
II in 1971, at the Studio Museum in Harlem.
A vote was taken to develop prints based on
the best works from AFRICOBRA I the
previous year, "Wake Up" being the piece
selected for Gerald Williams. Votes were
taken at the original Studio Museum show,
as AFRICOBRA wanted the prints to reflect
the interests of the public. The original
painting by Williams is in reference to
"waking up" to social ills. Particular
reference is made in the text component and
in Jeff Donaldson's manifesto for
AFRICOBRA I to the "King Alfred Plan." The
King Alfred Plan was a conspiracy theory
which gained traction in the late 1960s and
early 1970s pertaining to an alleged CIA plan
working towards global genocide of people
of African descent. While the conspiracy
theory was untrue in specific terms, it is
worth noting retroactively that there were
violent anti-Black conspiracies enacted by
the government at the time. Infamously, the
"Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the
Negro Male" now called the Tuskegee
Syphilis Experiments were being conducted
by the US Public Health Service. The
unethical studies, conducted between 1932
and 1972, involved 600 African American
males, 399 of which had syphilis and were
left untreated, and 201 of which were
unknowingly infected with syphilis and left
untreated.
Close full details

Exhibitions

Africobra: Nation Time, 2019, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice, Italy

Recent Select Exhibitions
Met Breuer
AFRICOBRA 50 at Kavi Gupta
Tate Modern Brooklyn Museum
Crystal Bridges Museum of Art
Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts
Cleveland Museum of Art
North Miami MOCA (forthcoming)
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