Marc James Leger

David Tomas

The artists of the Black Panthers and the Zapatistas were born into a centuries-long struggle against racial capitalism and colonialism, domestic repression and international war and plunder. Not only did these two movements offer the world an enduring image of freedom and dignified rebellion, they also did so with their signature styles, putting culture and aesthetics at the forefront of political life. What is the role of revolutionary art in times of distress? When Emory Douglas, former Minister of Culture of the Black Panther Party, accepted an invitation from the collective EDELO and the artist Rigo 23 to meet with autonomous and Indigenous and Zapatista communities in Chiapas, Mexico they addressed just this question. Zapantera Negra is the result of their encounter. It unites the bold aesthetics, revolutionary dreams, and dignified declarations of two leading movements that redefine emancipatory politics in the twentieth and twenty-first century. A powerful elixir of hope and determination, Zapantera Negra provides an eclectic presentation of interviews, militant artwork, and original documents from these two movements' struggle for dignity and liberation.

Artistic Encounters Between Black Panthers and Zapatistas

Zapantera Negra

The concept of the avant garde is highly contested, whether one consigns it to history or claims it for present-day or future uses. The first volume of 'The Idea of the Avant Garde--And What It Means Today' (ISBN 9780719096914) provided a lively forum on the kinds of radical art theory and partisan practices that are possible in today's world of global art markets and creative industry entrepreneurialism. This second volume presents the work of another fifty artists and writers, exploring the diverse ways that avant-gardism develops reflexive and experimental combinations of aesthetic and political praxis. The manifest strategies, temporalities, and genealogies of avant-garde art and politics are expressed through an international, intergenerational, and interdisciplinary convocation of ideas that covers the fields of film, video, architecture, visual art, art activism, literature, poetry, theater, performance, intermedia, and music.

Marc James Leger

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