When We See Us

Name: When We See Us
Start: 2025-02-07T10:00:00+01:00
End: 2025-02-07T18:00:00+01:00
Location: Bozar

Schedule

Fri Feb 07 2025 at 10:00 am to 06:00 pm

UTC+01:00

Location

Bozar | Brussels, BU

A Century of Black Figuration in Painting
𝗜𝗻𝗳𝗼 & 𝗧𝗶𝗰𝗸𝗲𝘁𝘀 ⟶ https://bozar.link/ExpoWhenWeSeeUs
► 7 Feb.'25 → 10 Aug.'25
Tue - Sun, 10 am - 6 pm
Closed on Monday
► #expoWhenWeSeeUs
► Choose your timeslot and start your visit on time: https://bozar.link/TicketsWWSU
How have artists from Africa and its vast diaspora depicted daily life over the past century? Koyo Kouoh, Executive Director and Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, and her team have sought to answer this question with a landmark exhibition. Bozar proudly presents this vast kaleidoscope of Black figurative painting from the 1920s to the present day.
Inspired by Ava DuVernay's 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 150 works by around 120 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, emphasising 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 the African diaspora contributing to the art historical canon.
This exhibition is conceived and organised by Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (MOCAA) In Cape Town.
When We See Us is presented at Bozar under the Patronage of Her Majesty the Queen.