Afropick

Biggers, who earned his MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1999, was first exposed to printmaking during a trip to Japan as an undergraduate. In this print the artist took an Afro pick in the shape of a Black Power salute—a popular commercial item in the 1970s—and depicted it in the style of Pre-Columbian art. The work references speculative theories regarding possible transatlantic trade networks between ancient Africans and native peoples in Mexico prior to the colonization of North America by Europeans.