SAIC Awarding Honorary Doctorates to Three Living Members of AFRICOBRA

The School of the Art Institute of Chicago is awarding honorary doctorates to the three living co-founders of AFRICOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists). The three living co-founders of AFRICOBRA (African Commune of Bad Relevant Artists) are Gerald Williams, Wadsworth Jarrell, and Jae Jarrell.

Kavi Gupta congratulates the three for their receipt of honorary doctorates from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, “for their extraordinary contributions to culture.” This honor comes on the one-year anniversary of the opening of AFRICOBRA: Nation Time. AFRICOBRA: Nation Time is an award-winning, official collateral exhibition at the 58th Venice Biennale.

Kavi Gupta, bardoLA, and MOCA North Miami organized and sponsored the exhibition. It was curated by Jeffreen M. Hayes, Ph.D. Numerous press outlets had noted AFRICOBRA: Nation Time as a highlight of the Biennale. The outlets further enshrined AFRICOBRA as a crucial voice in the international artistic landscape.

The exhibition was installed in the gothic palazzo Ca’ Faccanon. It featured both classic and recent works by the artists of AFRICOBRA, including some pieces which had not been displayed publicly since their original showings with the group in the 1970s. The exhibition was accompanied by extensive historical material to contextualize the state of 1960s America, and Chicago specifically.

AFRICOBRA was founded in 1968 on the South Side of Chicago. It was on the vanguard of the global Black Arts. The group didn’t focus on the violent revolution. They focused on nurturing a revolutionary cultural spirit. The group was soon joined by five more members: Napoleon Jones Henderson, Nelson Stevens, Sherman Beck, Omar Lama, and Carolyn Mims Lawrence.