Artists

CONTEMPORARY EXPRESSIONS OF AFRICA AND ITS DIASPORAS

Black Liquid Art presents contemporary voices from Africa and its diasporas, spanning three generations of artists in constant dialogue.

At one end stand the founders: the masters who invented the languages of contemporary African art, from Frédéric Bruly Bouabré and George Lilanga to Esther Mahlangu, Chéri Samba and the great Malian photographers Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé. At the other, the generations they made possible: the artists who carried those languages into the present, from Soly Cissé, Gonçalo Mabunda and Amani Bodo to today's emerging painters of Lagos, Douala, Nairobi and Kinshasa, whose careers the gallery accompanies from their first international exhibitions to their entry into museum collections.

Alongside them stands a small circle of artists whose work reflects a deep and enduring engagement with the continent, expressed through the themes they address, the materials they employ, the collaborations they undertake, or long-term paths of research.

Painting, sculpture, photography, textile practices and mixed media form a broad expressive landscape held together by a single conviction: that the history of contemporary African art is still being written, and that the new generations can only be understood alongside the masters who preceded them.

A CURATORIAL HISTORY

This selection is the result of more than twenty-five years of research, developed through exhibitions that in many cases anticipated the international recognition of the artists presented: Bouabré's first Italian solo exhibitions, the focus on Mahlangu years before her major retrospective and her participation in the Venice Biennale, the first European appearances of the new Cameroonian and Nigerian generations. Many of the profiles in this section draw on primary sources produced by the gallery: video interviews, exhibition texts and catalogues.

WHAT WE MEAN BY A "DIALOGUE WITH AFRICA"

Alongside artists born or active in Africa and those belonging to its diasporas, this selection also embraces non-African artists whose practice maintains a genuine connection with the continent: a connection expressed through the subjects of their research, their technical processes, their materials, their creative partnerships, or studies pursued over time.

CONTINUE EXPLORING BLACK LIQUID ART

Browse the artists' profiles and the works in the gallery, revisit our past and current exhibitions.