CODART, Dutch and Flemish art in museums worldwide

Hidden in Plain Sight: Black African Lives and Visual Histories in the Early Modern World

Symposium: 17 January - 19 January 2025

From 17 to 19 January, NIKI, in collaboration with NYU Florence, is organizing a symposium on the representation and role of black Africans in the visual arts of early modern Europe, where they were often marginalized in roles such as servants, musicians or footmen.

How do representations of marginalized bodies challenge dominant narratives in history? What new realities are revealed about the absence and agency of black Africans by a more global approach to the fourteenth to seventeenth centuries? This symposium will explore a range of interrelated themes, drawing from art history, anthropology, African studies, history, musicology, and other fields. Dutch and Flemish painting will be explicitly discussed. By critically re-examining histories of colonialism and slavery, the event seeks to reshape our understanding of disciplinary boundaries and spark new scholarly debates.

The symposium takes places at the NIKI in Florence, but can also be followed online, with the exception of 19 January.

Visit the website of NIKI for more information.

Hidden in Plain Sight