Joan Kee and Serubiri Moses: Mao and Afro-Asia in Context

“Who are our enemies? Who are our friends?,” asked Mao Zedong in his storied 1926 essay on the failures of revolution. These questions resonate with special force through the constituent assemblies of Afro Asia. A term whose very inception stemmed from the issue of coexistence thrown into stark relief during the Korean War and throughout decades of decolonization on the African and Asian continents, Afro Asia compels thinking beyond allyship and solidarity to speculate on the complexity of being together. What, for example, would an art history for a global majority look like?  How, for example, does Maoism reframe such a history?  If Afro Asia entails different angles of incidence onto ideas of “community,” how do economic, legal, and social structures including caste unfold?

Following the recent publication of Joan Kee’s The Geometries of Afro Asia: Art Beyond Solidarity, join the author and e-flux journal contributing editor Serubiri Moses in conversation with three partner-works: Ed Bereal’s America, a Mercy Killing (1966–1975), Trinh T. Minh-ha’s Reassemblage (1982), and Samuel Fosso’s Raccord #5: Mine à ciel ouvert noyée de Banfora from the series Kolwezi (2011)—on Friday, October 6 at 7pm at e-flux.

For more information, contact program [​at​] e-flux.com.

Accessibility                    
–Two flights of stairs lead up to the building’s front entrance at 172 Classon Avenue.         
–For elevator access, please RSVP to program [​at​] e-flux.com. The building has a freight elevator which leads into the e-flux office space. Entrance to the elevator is nearest to 180 Classon Ave (a garage door). We have a ramp for the steps within the space.                  
–e-flux has an ADA-compliant bathroom. There are no steps between the event space and this bathroom.