NEW YORK, NY.- An exhibition exploring the undertold stories of African American artists who sought new possibilities, inspiration and environments in the Nordic countries in the 20th century opened at Scandinavia House on November 26, 2024. Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century looks at the significance of Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden as destinations for cultural figures including Ronald Burns, Doug Crutchfield, Herb Gentry, Dexter Gordon, William Henry Johnson, Howard Smith and Walter Williams through a range of artifacts, artworks (music, paintings, drawings, sculpture, ceramics, textiles), and documentary evidence (photography, film, and journalistic writing). Organized by the National Nordic Museum in Seattle by co curators and ASF Fellows Ethelene Whitmire and Leslie Anne Anderson, where it debuted in March 2024, the exhibition is now on view at Scandinavia House through March 8, 2025.
During the 20th century, African Americans visited, performed, studied, and lived in the Nordic countries for a variety of reasons: a sense of adventure, love, seeking educational and occupational opportunities, freedom to explore their sexuality, freedom from Jim Crow segregation, among many other reasons. Drawing from paintings, photographs, textiles, film, music, and dance, this exhibition captures their journeys as their sense of who they were was transformed through their Nordic encounters. Nordic Utopia? African Americans in the 20th Century is the first comprehensive examination of the stories of these African American visual and performing artists, and features loans from the Smithsonian American Art Museum and National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC; the David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland, College Park; SMK—the National Gallery of Denmark; and Moderna Museet in Stockholm, among other public collections. It also assembles art and artifacts from private collections, including those of the artists.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog co-edited by curators Ethelene Whitmire and Leslie Anne Anderson as well as a range of programs including guided gallery tours, workshops, panels and films.
Nordic Utopia? has been organized by the National Nordic Museum in Seattle.
Ethelene Whitmire is the Director of Graduate Studies and a professor in the Department of African American Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison. Dr. Whitmire received American- Scandinavian Foundation Fellowships in 2012 and 2015 and was a Fulbright Scholar and a Visiting Professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Center for Transnational American Studies in 2016-2017. She has also received a fellowship from the Lois Roth Endowment.
Leslie Anne Anderson is Chief Curator of the National Nordic Museum. She was an American- Scandinavian Foundation Fellow in 2012 and has also been a Fulbright scholar at the University of Copenhagen. For her curatorial work, she received the Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Excellence in Exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue co-edited by curators Ethelene Whitmire and Leslie Anne Anderson, featuring essays by Dr. Temi Odumosu (University of Washington) and Dr. Ryan T. Skinner (Ohio State University).
