Georg Kolbe Museum Opens Call for Digital Symposium on African American Sculpture

The Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin is calling for submissions for a digital symposium focused on African American figurative sculpture from around 1900, scheduled for January 2027. This event will delve into transatlantic connections and the impact of early 20th-century Black sculptors such as Edmonia Lewis, Augusta Savage, Selma Burke, Richmond Barthé, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller, and Nancy Elisabeth Prophet. The symposium aims to fill voids in global art history and encourage new research exchanges between North America and Europe. Supported by the Terra Foundation for American Art, it will provide a platform for discussions on Black figurative artists’ roles within wider artistic networks. Proposals, limited to 500 words, along with a two-page CV, should be submitted as a single PDF to info@georg-kolbe-museum.de by August 24, 2026. Presentations will be conducted in English. A diverse committee will evaluate submissions, and selected speakers will receive a €500 honorarium. The organizing team includes Paulina Alvarez, Dagmawit Abebaw Hunz, and Kathleen Reinhardt.