“After Beauty, let Truth come into the Renaissance picture, ⎯ a later cue, but a welcome one.”
-Alain Locke. “ART OR PROPAGANDA?” Harlem, Vol. I, No. 1
It has been suggested that we are in a new Black Renaissance, the third great cultural revival of Black American social and cultural life. A pan africanist perspective offers a lens into the great revivals across the globe, all of the social and cultural transformations impacting the lives of African descended people. Historically, debates surrounding the ethical framework by which practices and engagement in these movements would be determined left intellectuals and artists contending aesthetics: Beauty or Truth, Art or Propaganda? While the due date of this phenomenon has been contested by creatives and scholars over the years, the same line of questioning is modernized in the creative and intellectual dilemmas of today. One particular contemporary response to this zeitgeist arose in the capital of the U.S. In 2019, Mehari Sequar Gallery opened its doors to a regional community of art enthusiasts with the intention to exist as an interlocutor between this arts community and the arts global community at large. In consideration of the underrepresentation of women and artists of color in the collections and gallery walls of prominent institutions and individual collectors around the globe, Mehari Sequar Gallery became the amalgamation of a movement, a purpose, and a new visual language for an emerging world.
In addition to advancing a more equitable community in the arts realm, the gallery also sought to present the community with a space within which they could explore and experience contemporary fine art. With a focus on narratives and themes in the African diaspora, this year’s exhibition line up and programming will open the minds and hearts of our community members and spark intellectual transformation. Mehari Sequar Gallery seeks to establish itself as a cultural & intellectual hub for creatives and friends of the arts. Through ongoing collaboration and consultation with pillars of this great district, we hope to be initiators of intellectual expansion and missionaries of culture. By providing our exhibition space for artists, thinkers, scholars, students and community organizations, we aim to be a necessary organ in the body of arts and culture in Washington, D.C.
Programming for this year will focus on Film/Media, Music, Literary Arts, and the facilitation of intellectual discourse on the matters concerning the arts and experiences within the African Diaspora. New ideas. Fresh and profound perspectives. Community building. Mehari Sequar Gallery’s approach to bolstering a cultural norm that requires cultural criticism and the acquisition of knowledge, demands community engagement, and breeds innovation in contemporary practices in the arts.
Mehari Sequar Gallery serves the global community, by way of the District of Columbia, through the presentation of experiences and perspectives that welcome community members and friends to survey the arts and stretch the boundaries of innovation.
-Khaleelah I. L. Harris, Lead Curator & Gallery Manager
