Talented tint

Afro-Atlantic Histories moves through a world of pain on a ray of hope

In the first few galleries of the Afro-Atlantic Histories show at the National Gallery (from Brazil’s Museu de Arte de São Paulo and Instituto Tomie Ohtake, running through July 17) I got defensive, for reasons partly aesthetic and partly ego. I’ve never liked long explanations of what I’m supposed to be looking at. Not that I knew much about the art of…