Black Gods in Exile

UNESCO estimates that around 12 million Africans were abducted by europeans to work as slaves in the “New World”. The collective remembrance of the largest robbery of people in the history of the world is kept alive in Brasil through ritual practices, such as the Candomble, as well as music, dance, architecture and art. 

No other photographer in the 20th Century has so extensively researched and documented the reciprocal relationships and the continuous transfer of knowledge and experience between Africa and Afro-America as Pierre Verger (1902-1996). “Black Gods in Exile” (“Schwarze Götter im Exil”) is the first exhibition in Germany, along with multimedia-installations, of c.100, mainly preveiously unpublished, photographs from the archives of the Fundação Pierre Verger (Salvador/Bahia), supplemented with objects from the Museum. It brings into focus the transatlantic, changing, relationships between West Africa and Brazil. 

“Schwarze Götter im Exil” emphasizes the meaning of ritual in the everyday life of modern creole societies: ritual practices manifest themselves as actions in a “practical sense”, as an ethnical, boundry crossing practice of cultural resistance against social isolation and political oppression.

The Exhibition is presented under the patronage of the Culture Minister of Brasil and the musician Gilberto Gil.