Printing Black America

This special exhibition presents the complete print portfolio, and an opportunity to experience all 30 works together for the first time in the Midwest. The publication consists of six thematic portfolios—one of which was published by Highpoint Editions in Minneapolis. The complete project brings together the full scope of artist William Villalongo and urbanist Shraddha Ramani’s collaborative reimagining of W.E.B. Du Bois’s groundbreaking data visualizations. Seeing the portfolio together highlights the entirety of the project and the connections between its themes, offering a comprehensive portrait of Black life in the 21st century.

In 1900, W.E.B. Du Bois organized a series of infographics on the progress of Black peoples after Emancipation to be displayed as part of the American Negro Exhibit in the 1900 Paris Exposition world’s fair. Using the still-developing field of data visualization, the American Negro Exhibit worked to upend the conceit of Western superiority and inevitable “progress” of industrialization by rendering in stark relief the dynamic participation of Black peoples in American social and economic life, and their global participation in science, literature, and art.

In Printing Black America, artist William Villalongo and urbanist Shraddha Ramani update and reimagine Du Bois’s infographics. Printing Black America: Du Bois’s Data Portraits in the 21st Century is a fine art print portfolio based on the project of Du Bois and his team for the contemporary moment. Villalongo and Ramani create new images, or “data portraits,” using a range of printmaking techniques, current data, and living projects by Black scholars, social scientists, and activists. This project uses the original data portraits created for the American Negro Exhibit as a springboard for the critical possibilities found at the intersection of art and social science to render portraits of Black life in the 21st century.

To realize the project, Villalongo and Ramani collaborated with printmaking studios across the United States and their communities, with each studio producing one thematic portfolio. Printmaking partners include USF Graphicstudio (Tampa, FL), Powerhouse Arts (Brooklyn, NY), Island Press at Washington University (St. Louis, MO), Highpoint Editions (Minneapolis, MN), Paulson Fontaine Press (Berkeley, CA), and Mullowney Printing Company (Portland, OR). Bringing all six portfolios together offers visitors a unique opportunity to experience the full breadth of the project and the collective work of the artists, scholars, activists, and print studios who made it possible.

In-person viewing: 912 West Lake Street, Minneapolis, MN, 55408