Pensacola, Florida (Primary Title)
[Liberty] (Alternate Title)
Anthony Barboza, American, born 1944 (Artist)
Barboza was only nineteen when he joined the Kamoinge collective in 1963, which he later described as “a whole college to me.” After joining the Navy when he was drafted in 1965, Barboza had to leave the group for three years. He took this photograph of a broken neon sign while he was stationed in Pensacola, Florida. For Barboza, this image illustrates what he learned from the collective. As he explained, “I wouldn’t have seen these things if I wasn’t in Kamoinge, even for that short a time. And Liberty was broken for us.”
Working Together: Louis Draper and the Kamoinge Workshop, VMFA, February 1 - June 14, 2020; Whitney Museum of American Art, November 20, 2020 - March 28, 2021; Cincinnati Art Museum, February - May, 2022; J. Paul Getty Museum, July-October, 2022
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