Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
This lecture, Meeting in the Upper Room: The Critical Capacity of Blackness in Belkis Ayón's La cena (1988/1991) and Tomás Gutierrez Alea's La ultima cena (1976) by Dr. Erica Moiah James, was recorded at ICA Miami as part of the "Anti-Blackness and the Americas" symposium organized by Jafari Allen and Gean Moreno.
Dr. Moiah James was among the visiting faculty during the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center Fall Semester, "The Black Hemisphere," in 2019. For more information on his seminar, visit: icamiami.org/seminar/dr-erica-moiah-james-and-dr-andrea-queeley
Dr. Erica Moiah James is an Art Historian, Curator, and Assistant Professor at The University of Miami (UM). Her research centers on modern and contemporary art of the Caribbean, African, and African American Diasporas. Recent publications include Charles White’s J’Accuse! and the Limits of Universal Blackness (AAAJ, 2016); Every Nigger is a Star: Re-imaging Blackness from Post Civil Rights America to the Post-Independence Caribbean (Black Camera, 2016); Caribbean Art in Space and Time (Barbados Museum, 2018); Decolonizing Time: Nineteenth-Century Haitian Portraiture and the Critique of Anachronism in Caribbean Art (NKA,2019), and The Black Sublime: René Peña’s Untitled (Archangel), 2018 (Small Axe, 2019). Her forthcoming book is entitled After Caliban: Caribbean Art in the Global Imaginary. She a 2019 fellow at UM’s Humanities Center and a 2019-2022 Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Center, University of Johannesburg, S.A.
The Knight Foundation Art + Research Center (A+RC) is the museum’s research department and graduate-level initiative dedicated to fostering a more robust and critical dialogue in the South Florida region and beyond. Learn more at icamiami.org/arc A+RC is generously supported by the Knight Contemporary Art Fund at The Miami Foundation, and additionally funded by a generous grant from the Wege Foundation, directly supporting the department’s faculty and staff. Additional support is provided by the Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and the State of Florida.
Stay connected: icamia.org/subscribe
Plan your visit: icamia.org/visit
Watch more on ICA Channel: icamia.org/channel
Membership means more at ICA Miami. Join today for expanded access to a world of innovative art and ideas: icamia.org/support.
This lecture, Meeting in the Upper Room: The Critical Capacity of Blackness in Belkis Ayón's La cena (1988/1991) and Tomás Gutierrez Alea's La ultima cena (1976) by Dr. Erica Moiah James, was recorded at ICA Miami as part of the "Anti-Blackness and the Americas" symposium organized by Jafari Allen and Gean Moreno.
Dr. Moiah James was among the visiting faculty during the Knight Foundation Art + Research Center Fall Semester, "The Black Hemisphere," in 2019. For more information on his seminar, visit: icamiami.org/seminar/dr-erica-moiah-james-and-dr-andrea-queeley
Dr. Erica Moiah James is an Art Historian, Curator, and Assistant Professor at The University of Miami (UM). Her research centers on modern and contemporary art of the Caribbean, African, and African American Diasporas. Recent publications include Charles White’s J’Accuse! and the Limits of Universal Blackness (AAAJ, 2016); Every Nigger is a Star: Re-imaging Blackness from Post Civil Rights America to the Post-Independence Caribbean (Black Camera, 2016); Caribbean Art in Space and Time (Barbados Museum, 2018); Decolonizing Time: Nineteenth-Century Haitian Portraiture and the Critique of Anachronism in Caribbean Art (NKA,2019), and The Black Sublime: René Peña’s Untitled (Archangel), 2018 (Small Axe, 2019). Her forthcoming book is entitled After Caliban: Caribbean Art in the Global Imaginary. She a 2019 fellow at UM’s Humanities Center and a 2019-2022 Research Associate at the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Center, University of Johannesburg, S.A.
The Knight Foundation Art + Research Center (A+RC) is the museum’s research department and graduate-level initiative dedicated to fostering a more robust and critical dialogue in the South Florida region and beyond. Learn more at icamiami.org/arc A+RC is generously supported by the Knight Contemporary Art Fund at The Miami Foundation, and additionally funded by a generous grant from the Wege Foundation, directly supporting the department’s faculty and staff. Additional support is provided by the Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs, the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and the State of Florida.
Stay connected: icamia.org/subscribe
Plan your visit: icamia.org/visit
Watch more on ICA Channel: icamia.org/channel
Membership means more at ICA Miami. Join today for expanded access to a world of innovative art and ideas: icamia.org/support.
