FIAF’s Crossing The Line Festival Opening Reception

On Friday, September 9, join us for the start of the Crossing The Line Festival and enjoy a glass of wine at the opening reception from 6–8pm in the FIAF Gallery.

To open the festival, FIAF is delighted to present Clin d’oeil, an exhibition of one of artist Omar Ba’s most important historical works, at the FIAF Gallery.

This wall-sized painting is characteristic of the artist’s style, with a black ground layered with a vivid palette on large cardboard boxes placed directly on the floor. In this work from 2017, Omar Ba pays homage to Senegalese historian and politician Cheikh Anta Diop. He references Diop’s thesis from the 1950s in which he affirms that the societies of Ancient Egypt were populated by Black Africans, as well as his ground-breaking book of The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality. This volume, published in 1974, asserts the influence of ancient African civilizations on the rest of the world.