Diotima Schuck
12 January 2023

On 19 January 2023, a study of Black figurative painting by artists from Africa and its diaspora entitled When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting will be published. It will accompany a major exhibition at Zeitz MOCAA.

The publication will explore the question of Black representation through portraiture and figuration from a pan-African and pan-diasporic perspective, from the 1920s to the present. As African artists have seen a rise in popularity on the international art scene and in the art market over the past decade, the book will trace a general history of practices long sidelined in the West and in art history as it has been written so far.

With the study of more than 200 works of art, the exhibition that guided the development of this publication brings artists into dialogue in a global way by intersecting them with the work of thinkers, writers and poets. A major event in favour of less Eurocentric historical perspectives.

exhibitionart historycontemporary African art