From Revisionism to Resonance: Exploring the black figure in contemporary art

A composite gold figure looks almost dismissively as people pass by in this new exhibition about the black figure by black artists at the National Portrait Gallery. It’s an exhibition that is in part revisionist, looking back at how black figures were represented but is mainly forward-looking, as new artists look at the black figure anew and shorn of Western baggage.As the exhibition’s curator, the writer Ekow Eshun explained, there’s a long history of depicting the black figur