Basel Special: When We See Us
Anne Kimunguyi reviews 'When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting' at Kunstmuseum Basel.
Situated along the riverbank in the heart of Basel, the Gegenwart venue of the Kunstmuseum Basel is currently home to the panoramic show When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting. Conceived and produced by the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa, Cape Town, where it first debuted, and curated by Tandazani Dhlakama and Koyo Kouoh, it brings together over 150 works by an immense 120 artists from around the world, working in different times throughout the last one hundred years. The works, many of which are being seen for the first time in Switzerland, are gathered together under a banner of celebrating and showcasing ‘black joy’, through Black artistic ‘self-image’. For its iteration in Basel, the first stop on its international tour, the show was adapted by Anita Haldemann, Maja Wismer and Daniel Kurjakovic. Artists whose works are featured include Toyin Ojih Odultola, Danielle McKinney and Chris Samba. The immense number of works is notably not organised chronologically, but instead organised into six thematic ‘chapters’, across four floors, beginning with ‘Triumph and Emancipation’, and moving onto ‘Sensuality’, ‘Spirituality’, ‘The Everyday’, ‘Joy and Revelry’ and ‘Repose’ (the former marking a change from its display in Zeitz Mocaa, where ‘Triumph and Emancipation’ concluded the show).
The show’s success lies in accomplishing what it says on the tin – presenting a profusion of black figures in moments of joy, love, vulnerability and community, tying together a rich art historical album of portraiture in the process. The opening room features a more overtly political, hopeful work by Cameroonian artist Cheri Cherin (Obama Revolution), a swanky yet engagement with opulence and race by South African- based Katlego Tlabela in his panoramic Tableu Vivant III: Oasis, and a melancholy and dreamy portrait of a woman in influential Cuban artist Wilfredo Lam’s Femme Violette, where they are accompanied by a joyful soundtrack curated by sound artist Neo Muyanga, facilitating an exuberant, if not miscellaneous, entrance into the exhibition space.
In her catalogue essay, Dhlakama, writes that ‘even within a seemingly unifying framework, singular definitions are not useful. One therefore must engage with Blackness and Africanity in the broadest sense.’ The show’s loose framing around an idea of joy and self-visualisation; provides an open and relaxed arena through which these experiences can be appreciated in their many manifestations. The thematic structure allows the visitor to meander through each room without a regard for order, opening the whole building up in service of an open exhibition experience. In the ‘Sensuality’ room, we see Mickalene Thomas’ Never Change Lovers in the Middle of the Night a intimate depiction of two lovers exuberantly intertwined, whose colourful composition energises the scene, as well as Marc Padeau’s All the Light on Me in the final room, ‘Repose’, a relaxed portrayal of an impromptu gathering that evokes closeness and home all the same. The broad section names are deliberately designed to be fluid, Maja Wismer tells me in our upcoming Shade Podcast interview, explaining the potential for thematic overlap between rooms.
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