This book chapter is forthcoming in The Routledge Companion to African Diaspora Art History (Fall 2024). It engages art by Vladimir Cybil Charlier and Texas Isaiah; as well as writings by Katherine McKittrick, Krista Thompson, Jessica Lynne and others.

In art history, the terms “African American” and “African Diasporic” are commonly used to describe art by and about Black life. These genres, though, are imperfectly defined. I hope to show that, even with all their messiness, the genres of “African American” and “African Diasporic” art are always and already connected. This chapter is an effort to do what Black geographer Katherine McKittrick asks: to risk “the sovereignty of our own stories.”

Image [icon]: Texas Isaiah. Taj. 2020. photograph.

Image [banner]: Vladimir Cybil Charlier. Marissa Andy and Basquiat. 2017. digital print on archival paper.