Afro-Latinx Intersections

Abstract

This essay examines the work of Afro-Brazilian painter Abdias do Nascimento and Nuyorican artists Jorge Soto Sánchez and Marcos Dimas from the late 1960s to early 1980s, revealing the creation of an Afro-Latinx visual language as a tool of transnational protest against racism and inequality. The artists drew on African diasporic symbolism seen in the art of the Taíno and in African-derived religions such as Candomblé in Brazil and Santería in the United States and the Caribbean, to counter persistent racism and discrimination against these faiths in the Americas. Their work foregrounded issues of racial justice, Black and brown empowerment, resistance, and urban poverty. In positioning Nascimento within the milieu of Afro-Latinx artistic production and in parallel to Soto and Dimas, I understand his art not only through the lens of the post–civil rights United States but also in relation to a community of artists who combatted the injustices of their time from diverse and transnational positionalities.