WHEN WE SEE US Comes to Bozar Next Year

When We See Us, A Century of Black Figuration in Painting comes to Bozar in 2025. The event runs 7 February - 17 August 25 2025 at  Ravenstein Circuit.

How have artists from Africa and its vast diaspora depicted daily life over the past century? Koyo Kouoh, director of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, and her team have sought to answer this question with a monumental exhibition. Bozar proudly presents this vast mosaic of Black figurative painting from the 1920s to the present day.

Inspired by Ava DuVernay's Netflix series "When They See Us," the exhibition title "When We See Us" reflects a fundamental perspective exploring Black self-representation and global Black subjectivities. The approximately 140 works by around  100 artists are grouped into six themes: "The Everyday”, "Joy & Revelry”, "Repose”, "Sensuality”, "Spirituality”, and "Triumph and Emancipation”.

By focusing on these themes, the exhibition offers a rich, nuanced view of Black life and thought, emphasizing the resilience, essence, and political charge of Black joy. It highlights relationships between artists and artworks across geographic, generational, and conceptual contexts, fostering a deeper understanding of a complex and underrepresented genealogy rooted in African and Black modernities.

When we see us encourages discussion on Black liberation and intellectual movements and celebrates experiences from Africa and African diaspora contributing to the Black art historical canon.