Alleviative Objects: Intersectional Entanglement and Progressive Racism in Caribbean Art

The global field of contemporary art is shaped by inter-racial conflicts. Alleviative Objects approaches Caribbean art through intersectional entanglements and combines decolonial epistemologies with critical whiteness studies and affect theory in order to rethink `Euro- and U.S.-centric' perspectives on art, race, and class. David Frohnapfel shows how progressive racism in the discourse on Haitian art recenters Whiteness by performing benign, innocent, and heroic identifications with the artist group Atis Rezistans. While the study turns critically towards Whiteness, it also turns away from it and towards the compelling contributions of Haitian curators and artists to the decentralization of contemporary art.

David Frohnapfel studied art history, comparative literature, and religious studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and at the Universidad de la Habana in Havana. He works on contemporary art and visual culture from the Caribbean region and defended his dissertation, Disobedient Musealities. Dialogue and Conflict in the Art Scene of Port-au-Prince, at Freie Universität Berlin in 2017. His research focuses on decolonial theory, critical race theory, critical whiteness studies, and affect theory. He also worked as curator of The 3rd Ghetto Biennale: Decentering the Market and Other Tales of Progress in Port-au-Prince together with Leah Gordon, André Eugène, and Jean Herald Celeur, and curated the exhibition NOCTAMBULES on Queer Visualities on the occasion of Le Forum Transculturel d'Art Contemporain.