How do we embark on a history of art from the assumption of a global majority, outside of the essentializing categories like race or hollow proclamations of solidarity? The Geometries of Afro Asia presents a framework for understanding the rich and surprisingly understudied relationship between Black and Asian artists and the worlds they initiate through their work. Kee breaks down this relationship and chronology into points, angles, and trajectories. Spanning North America, Europe, Asia, and Africa, Kee looks at the relationships that formed between Black and Asian artists at critical historical junctures—from civil rights struggles in America and the development of South Korea amidst U.S. military occupation in the 1960s and 1970s, to debates over multiculturalism and critiques of globalization in the 1990s and 2010s. Through geometry, a language of magnitudes and alignments, the book opens up new ways of seeing artworks as active participants in the lives and politics of those who commit some of their most valuable resources—time and attention—to one another.

University of California Press, 2023