Gustavo Nazareno in ‘UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe’
Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco
04 November 2025
The Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD) in San Francisco presents ‘UNBOUND: Art, Blackness & the Universe’, which will be running until 16 August 2026, a landmark exhibition that expands the boundaries of how we imagine Blackness. Curated by Key Jo Lee, MoAD’s Chief of Curatorial Affairs and Public Programs, the exhibition spans all three floors of the museum and features a group of international artists including Lorna Simpson, Harmonia Rosales, Rashaad Newsome, Didier William, and Opera Gallery artist Gustavo Nazareno.
Rooted in Lee’s curatorial essay “Gesturing Toward Infinitude: Painting Blue/Black Cosmologies”, ‘UNBOUND’ asks: What if we approached Blackness with the same awe and curiosity we reserve for the cosmos? Through painting, sculpture, installation, and new media, the exhibition imagines Blackness as an expansive, luminous force—one that transcends fixed definitions and becomes a metaphor for creation, power, and transformation.
Structured around three thematic constellations—Geo-Cartographic, Religio-Mythic, and Techno-Cyborgian—the exhibition traverses earthly and celestial terrains, spiritual stories, and posthuman futures shaped by technology and hybridity. Visitors can encounter works that bridge metaphysics and cosmology, merging scientific wonder with ancestral mythologies. From Mikael Owunna’s ultraviolet portraits inspired by Igbo and Dogon cosmologies to Rashaad Newsome’s holographic sculptures of cyborgian guardians, ‘UNBOUND’ reframes Blackness as a generative, cosmic principle.
Among these voices, Gustavo Nazareno’s work stands out for its deep spiritual resonance. Known for his lush depictions of Black bodies infused with Afro-Brazilian religious iconography, Nazareno bridges the sacred and the celestial. His figures—often saints, orishas, and mythic beings rendered in rich blacks and radiant golds—inhabit a world where ritual and metaphysics intertwine. In ‘UNBOUND’, his contribution speaks to the Religio-Mythic theme, situating Black divinity within an expansive universal framework. Nazareno’s practice, informed by his connection to Candomblé and classical art traditions, reclaims the sacredness of Black life and locates it in cosmic continuity.
