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When We

See Us

By Robert J. Parsons

Copyright: © bei This extraordinary exhibition at the Basel The space is not at all too much, for its ample
der Künstlerin Kunstmuseum’s center for contemporary art wall surfaces make it possible to set off most of
/the artist (Gegenwart) is a remarkable example of images the paintings distinct from the others. This is
Courtesy of given meaning by words. In this case, the words are particularly striking in some cases such as the
Jorge M. Pérez the exhibition’s title, “When We See Us: A Century Botswanan Meleko Mokgosi’s 2014 three-panel
Collection, Miami
of Black Figuration in Painting”, in essence telling spread Pax Kaffraria: Graase-Mans. Measureing
us how we are to view them. overall 244 x 884 centimeters and covering an
entire wall of a gallery, it draws in the spectator to
The message is succinct and clear: we are seeing almost life-size settings to the exclusion of all else.
Black people as Black people see Black people, and
we are being invited to approach the images from More than that, this spatial spread reinforces
the perspective of the subjects rather than from the idea of the great geographic spread of their
our own outsiders’ perspective, which more often provenance. Thus, Koyo Kouoh explained, the
than not is tainted with negativity. paintings, representing figuration stretching
back some one hundred years, are drawn from
The title was inspired by the 2019 Netflix series the world’s “Black countries”. For her, countries
When They See Us, which examined how white of Africa’s diaspora such as Jamaica, Cuba, Brazil
people indiscriminately perceive Black teenagers and the United States with their significant
as potential criminals, fostering prejudice and populations of African descent, are every bit as
tolerance for wrongful prosecutions. much “Black countries” as those of Africa.

Substituting “we” for “they” transforms the We find from the United States, Horace Pippin’s
paintings into so many privileged views of another Victory Garden from 1943, when people were
world: Africa and its vast diaspora. We become in encouraged to plant vegetable gardens to
a sense invited guests, even participants, rather avoid food shortage in the midst of war-time
than suspicious observers on the periphery of a rationing. An elderly woman sits in a white
world so many of us know so little about. cap sits embroidering next to the fruits of her
labors. From the other side of the Atlantic in the
The paintings were assembled in Cape Town Democratic Republic of Congo, Chéri Samba’s
under the direction of Koyo Kouoh, the executive Une femme conduisant le monde from 2017,
director of the world’s largest museum for African celebrates women’s accession to positions of
contemporary art, Zeitz MOCAA, where they prestige and power.
were shown from November 2022 to September
2023. The Basel exhibition, running until 27 Rather than arranging these disparate works
October 2024, is their debut away from their home of art in a temporal sequence or by countries
continent, and for the occasion, the Kunstmuseum of origin, the exhibition gathers them under
has emptied all the vast galleries of the Gegenwart six universal themes titled Triumph and
building (2,460 square meters of exhibition space!) Emancipation, Sensuality, Spirituality, The
and turned them over to the exhibition’s 150-plus Everyday, Joy and Revelry and Repose. Any one
works of art. of the themes reveals artists working with the

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