Renée Stout

Photo courtesy of Power Plant Gallery

"Book of Paintings" (detail) by Renée Stout

The art tells only part of the story in Visionary Aponte: Art & Black Freedom, a nine-week program of exhibits, conversations, screenings, performances, and more centered on Duke’s Power Plant Gallery. The series illuminates the life, times, and art of José Antonio Aponte, who was hanged in the early nineteenth century for inciting a rebellion against slavery on Cuban sugar plantations. Specifically, it focuses on artistic responses to Aponte’s book of paintings, drawings, collages, and more, illustrating a liberated cosmology and an alternate history. Artist talks, such as this one by Washington, D.C.-based artist Renée Stout, provide crucial context that the art objects themselves might only allude to. As an artist who refracts the experiences of the African diaspora through vivid, imaginary characters, Stout should provide key insight into the semi-hidden world of Aponte. —Brian Howe