Carnegie Hall

Aventureras showcases a collection of paintings by Mexican naïf artist Ximena Castro, who fearlessly confronts and challenges conventional notions of female sexuality while paying homage to the pivotal moment in history when women, fresh from the crucible of World War I, seized newfound freedoms, igniting an artistic renaissance during the Weimar Republic.

Germany had a profound influence on the intellectual development and worldview of author and civil rights activist W. E. B. Du Bois. Through four insightful online talks, we celebrated the release of Tim Fielder’s graphic novel adaptation of The Comet, a seminal work Du Bois wrote in 1920. Discussion topics included the themes of race and religion, and the work’s standing within the Afrofuturist lexicon. Arthur McFarlane II, great-grandson of Du Bois, also joined as a special guest.

Drawing on historical events and family heritage, Claudia Monteith and Akila Richards used speculative writing and spoken-word performances to explore the experience of mixed-heritage people born during the Weimar Republic. Introduced by Reynaldo Anderson, this multifaceted event, part of the International Black Speculative Writing Festival presented at Goldsmiths, University of London, is available for free, online viewing.

A new extension to the Afro-Remix online exhibition features new works by Afro-Brazilian artists reflecting on the period from 1919 to 1933 in Brazil and its parallels with the fall of the Weimar Republic, including political crisis and instability, historical erasures, and the rise of modernist movements in art and culture.

This multimedia exhibition explores the artistic influence of Germany’s Weimar Republic on the African diaspora and vice versa. The exhibition takes inspiration from René Maran, the first Black recipient of the Prix Goncourt in 1921, whose subtle critique of Africa diaspora liberal governance proved an influential catalyst for many Afro-diasporic people living in Germany at the time.

Curated by Reynaldo Anderson and The Black Speculative Arts Movement, this visual exhibition explores the intellectual, social, and cultural impact of the Weimar Republic on the African diaspora; how people of African descent engaged and responded to the era; and the lessons to be learned in dealing with present-day threats to democratic values.

This exhibition illustrated how commercial camera work contributed to the visual language of modernism. Critical to this project were works by photographers from the Weimar Republic, including August Sander, Ringl and Pit (Grete Stern and Ellen Auerbach), Adolf Lazi, and Grit Kallin-Fischer.

This exhibition—the first-ever museum retrospective in New York City devoted to Käthe Kollwitz—presented a focused exploration of Kollwitz’s career in rarely seen examples of her drawings, prints, and sculptures from the 1890s through the 1930s, a period of unprecedented turmoil in German history.