African Art Works: Artists Creating Change / The Jack Faxon Collection & The Here Project Pride and Belonging in African Art
This dual-book event celebrates the publication of Kevin D. Dumouchelle’s *African Art Works: Artists Creating Change / The Jack Faxon Collection* and *The Here Project: Pride and Belonging in African Art*. Dumouchelle will discuss the books in conversation with Mark Auslander, exploring African art, collecting, social change, queer identity, and belonging.
*African Art Works* presents more than 200 photographs, paintings, sculptures, and textiles from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art, including the collection of Michigan legislator Jack Faxon, who bequeathed it to the museum. The book considers how artists, communities, and collectors use art to transform personal lives, social relationships, and the wider world, with essays addressing art as a call to action, the practice of collecting, and Faxon’s contributions to the arts, education, and public service.
*The Here Project* features more than 200 images connected to the Smithsonian exhibition and celebrates more than 60 LGBTQ+ African artists. Its painting, photography, digital art, fashion, installation, and performance works center African LGBTQ+ identities and experiences while examining the varied political, social, and cultural conditions across the continent and its diaspora. Featured examples include Athi-Patra Ruga’s drag-centered tapestry *Versatile Queen*, Zanele Muholi’s self-portrait *Muholi Muholi, Parktown*, and Mehdi-Georges Lahlou’s sculpture incorporating rainbow blown-glass bananas.
When: Saturday, October 17, 2026.
Showtime: 6:00 p.m.
Venue: Politics and Prose at Union Market, 1324 4th Street NE, Washington, DC 20002.
Tickets: Free admission, with seating available on a first-come, first-served basis.
Featured speaker: Kevin D. Dumouchelle, head of the curatorial department at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art. His exhibition credits include *Heroes: Principles of African Greatness* and *Visionary: Viewpoints on Africa’s Arts*, which received an Association of Art Museum Curators Award for Excellence. He has written and curated extensively on historical and contemporary African art.
Conversation partner: Mark Auslander, PhD, a sociocultural and historical anthropologist who teaches at American University. His work covers art, ritual, race, and the politics of difference, and he is the author of the award-winning *The Accidental Slaveowner: Revisiting a Myth of Race and Finding an American Family*.
Books: *African Art Works: Artists Creating Change / The Jack Faxon Collection* is a $50 hardcover, and *The Here Project: Pride and Belonging in African Art* is a $40 hardcover. These are book prices, not admission charges.
Accessibility: Attendees may request accommodations or ask accessibility questions by emailing events@politics-prose.com. Requests are ideally submitted at least one week before the event, although the organizers will make an effort to accommodate requests made up to the event time.
Run time: Not provided.
Age guidance: Not provided.