When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting at Zeitz MOCAA

Posted by Olerato Ramafsi on 23 November 2022

The new art exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA aims to explore black self-representation while celebrating global black subjectivities.

This exhibition boldly brings together artworks from the last century by black artists working globally into dialogue with leading black thinkers, writers and poets who are active today. With a focus on painting, the exhibition celebrates how artists from Africa and its diaspora have imagined, positioned, memorialised, and asserted African and African-descendant experiences.

The exhibition features works by artists such as Tunji Adeniyi-Jones, Ibrahim El-Salahi, Ben Enwonwu, Zandile Tshabalala, Robert Saidi, Ancent Soi, Amy Sherald, Sthembiso Sibisi, Nirit Takele, Kangudia, Peston Lombe, Wangari Mathenge, Neo Matloga, Aboubacar Diané and Charles Kamangwana amongst others.

During the press conference, Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum Koyo Kouoh explained that a lot of forethought went into naming the project which is inspired by African American director Ava DuVernay’s When They See Us, the 2019 miniseries. Flipping ‘they’ to ‘we’ allows for a dialect and shift that centres around the conversation in a different perspective of self-writing as theorised by Cameroonian political scientist, Professor Achille Mbembe.

When We See Us is the largest exhibition of this scope to be held on the African continent, with the architecture designed by Wolff Architects.

The whole experience is organised around six themes: The Everyday, Joy and Revelry, Repose, Sensuality, Spirituality, and Triumph & Emancipation. The exhibition highlights relationships between artists and artwork across geographic, generational and conceptual contexts, and foregrounds that lead curator Koyo Kouoh describes as ‘parallel aesthetics’.

Published to accompany the exhibition is a hardcover poetic catalogue by Thames & Hudson in collaboration with Zeitz MOCAA and edited by Kouoh. Richly illustrated with selected works from the art exhibition, it includes a contextual essay by exhibition co-curator Tandazani Dhlakama and four specially commissioned texts by acclaimed female writers Maaza Mengiste (Ethiopia), Robin Coste Lewis (USA), Bill Kouelany (Republic of Congo) and Ken Bugul (Senegal).

To create a well-rounded experience for the aesthete a sonic translation compiled by South African composer and sound artist Neo Muyanga plays throughout the exhibition space.

Date and time:

Sunday, 20 November 2022 – Sunday, 3 September 2023
Tuesday – Sunday, 10 am – 6 pm

Book your ticket here

Picture: Zandile Tshabalala, Two Reclining Women, 2020. Acrylic on canvas, 122 x 91.5cm. Courtesy of Zeitz MOCAA

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