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Artist explores the African diaspora in new exhibition

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UO’s Jordan Schnitzer Art Museum highlights Lewis Watts’ photography in the new exhibition “Likeness or Not: Reflections on the African Diaspora,” which runs through September 4 at Gallery J Focus West.

On Thursday, May 19 at 4 pm, the artist will present “Faces and Places in the Diaspora,” a visiting artist lecture, in Room 177, Lawrence Hall. The talk will also be broadcast live on the UO Media Services YouTube channel.

“Similarity or Not: Reflections on the African Diaspora” is a collection of photographs detailing the culture and history derived from the African Diaspora. The collection includes portraits of artists, activists, authors, and musicians who are important figures in modern African-American culture.

The exhibition, organized by Associate Curator of Photography Thom Sempere, will also feature photographs from historic Watts publications.

“For more than 50 years, the impetus for my photographic practice and research has been based on an interest in the culture, history and migration of people of the African diaspora,” said Watts. “The work has evolved into a variety of related series, two of which are represented in the exhibition: portraits of people I have been drawn to photograph because they do not allow outside forces to determine how they present themselves to the world and who seem comfortable in their own skin, and historical African-American book covers and pages as objects and reflections of the narrative of history and, in some cases, summaries of white supremacy.”

Sempere said the exhibition offers an opportunity to look over the shoulder of a keen observer at historical and contemporary representations of people in the African diaspora.

“Your subjects are often aware of your presence, and your engagement with them is critical to the work,” he said. “Setting against the inherently celebratory nature of the portraits is his series that investigates the history of print depictions of African Americans, the motivations of the authors of those depictions, and the narratives they wish to affirm. Together, this powerful combination is an important and thoughtful gift to the JSMA collection.”

Watts is a photographer, archivist, curator, and professor emeritus of art at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research and works of art focus on the “cultural landscape”, mainly in African diaspora communities in different parts of the world.

He is the co-author of “Harlem of the West: The San Francisco Fillmore Jazz Era,” “New Orleans Suite: Music and Culture in Transition,” and “Portraits.”

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