Art Basel in Basel&nbsp;2024, June 13

Presented in collaboration with Kunstmuseum Basel

When We See Us, A Century of Black Figuration in Painting

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Kudzanai-Violet Hwami, Artist, London Tschabalala Self, Artist, New York Moderator: Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator Zeitz MOCAA, Cape Town
Drawing from nuanced forms of joy, Black artists, whether residing in Africa or within the vast African diaspora, have pursued a spectrum of visual vocabularies that encompass the experiences of Blackness – of being Black; of living within Black cultures and navigating the complexities of representation and visibility. In doing so, they have intentionally explored the poetics of Blackness in a way that subverts reductive tropes. They explore Black subjectivity and Black consciousness through figurative painting as part of a historical continuum. Join curator Koyo Kouoh as she discusses these vocabularies and histories – surveyed and celebrated in the exhibition When We See Us, A Century of Black Figuration in Painting, currently on show at Kunstmuseum Basel – with artists Kudzanai-Violet Hwami and Tschabalala Self.


Presented in collaboration with Kunstmuseum Basel.
Born in Zimbabwe, Kudzanai-Violet Hwami lived in South Africa between the ages of 9 and 17. Now based in the UK, she studied at Wimbledon CoIIege of Arts, and obtained an MFA from Oxford University’s Ruskin School of Art in 2021. Hwami engages with issues of identity and displacement, and with representation of the Black body, sexuality, and spirituality. Her large-scale portraits of herself, her family, and friends combine digitally collaged images with oil paint and other media. She represented Zimbabwe at the Venice Biennale in 2019.
With an MFA in painting and printmaking, New York City-born artist Tschabalala Self is best known for her portrayal of Black female figures. She uses paint and mixed media, creating collages from various items collected over time to depict multidimensional bodies that defy the narrow gendered and racialized spaces in which they have been forced to exist. Her social and political commentary is derived from the history of the African-American struggle. She has exhibited widely in the USA and beyond.
Koyo Kouoh has been the executive director and chief curator of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town since 2019. She formerly served as the founding artistic director of RAW Material Company in Dakar, a center for art, knowledge, and society. Kouoh has organized numerous meaningful and timely exhibitions and biennials, including EVA International 2016, Ireland’s biennial of contemporary art. Active in the critical field of the arts community with a Pan-African and international scope, Kouoh’s publications include Breathing Out of School: RAW Académie (2021) and Condition Report: On Art History in Africa (2020). During her tenure at Zeitz MOCAA, her curatorial work has focused on solo exhibitions by artists from Africa and its diaspora.
The Art Basel 2024 Conversations program is curated by Kimberly Bradley.

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