Joe Minter

Located on the southwest edge of Birmingham, Alabama and begun in the late 1980s and built over the course of thirty years, Minter's African Village in America is part sculpture garden, part history museum, and part memorial.[5] The African Village in America is an ever-evolving art environment, populated by sculptures made from scrap and found materials from footwear, lawn decorations, toys, old sporting equipment, to baking utensils, and more.[6][7] Although Minter's sculpture have a variety of themes and influences, from one commemorating the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting to one dedicated to the victims of Hurricane Katrina, Minter's overriding message is to provide a recognition for the eleven million Africans shipped in bondage to America, and to their descendants who helped to build and defend America.[4] The sculptures in the African Village in America tell the stories of African-Americans over the centuries, from the griots and warriors of West Africa to the deadly 1963 bombing at the 16th Street Baptist Church.[2]

Two images of Joe Minter's African Village in America, a half-acre visionary art environment in Birmingham, Alabama. Scenes include African warriors watching their descendants’ struggles in Alabama, tributes to black scientists and military leaders, recreations of the epic civil rights confrontations in Alabama, and biblical scenes.

• 2022 – Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South – National Gallery of Art – curated by Harry Cooper[8]
• 2019 – Whitney Biennial – Whitney Museum of American Art – curated by Rujeko Hockley and Jane Panetta[9]
• 2018 – History Refused to Die: Highlights from the Souls Grown Deep Foundation Gift - Metropolitan Museum of Art[10]
• 2018 - Revelations: Art from the African American South - de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA[11]
• 2018 - Joe Minter: Once That River Starts to Flow - Atlanta Contemporary, Atlanta, Georgia[12]
• 2017 - The Road Less Traveled Exhibition Series. American Sites: Art Environment Photography - The John Michael Kholer Arts Center, Sheboygan, WI[13]
• 2015 - History Refused to Die - Alabama Contemporary Art Center, Mobile, AL[14]
• 2014 - When Stars Begin to Fall: Imagination and the American South - Studio Museum in Harlem, New York[15]
• 2007 - Alabama Folk Art - Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, Alabama[16]
• 2004 - Coming Home: Self-Taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South - Art Museum of the University of Memphis, Memphis, TN[17]

• National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.[18]
• Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY[7]
• Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C.[5]
• Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA[19]
• High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA[20]
• Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL[21]
• Minneapolis Institute of Art[22]

• Finley, Cheryl; Griffey, Randall R.; Peck, Amelia; Pinckney, Darry. My Soul Has Grown Deep: Black Art from the American South. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018[23]
• Anglin Burgard, Timothy  (Editor), Thornton Dial (Contributor), Lonnie Holley (Contributor), Joe Minter (Contributor), Lauren Palmor (Contributor). Revelations: Art from the African American South, Prestel, 2017[24]
• Horace Randall Williams (Author), Karen Wilkin (Author), Sharon Holland (Author), William S. Arnett (Introduction), Bernard Herman (Contributor). History Refused to Die: The Enduring Legacy of African American Art in Alabama, Tinwood Books, 2015[25]
• Crown, Carol, ed. Coming Home: Self-Taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South, Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2004[17]
• Conwill, Kinshasha; Danto, Arthur C.;Testimony: Vernacular Art of the African-American South. Harry N. Abrams, 2002[26]
• Arnett, William and Paul Arnett, eds. Souls Grown Deep: African American Vernacular Art of the South, vol. II, Atlanta: Tinwood Books, 2001[27]