A striking exhibit of 18 musicians from the African continent takes a look at how appearances occasionally aim to deeper facts.
“Now Look Below: The African Art of Appearance,” on view at a pop-up area in Amsterdam with February 23, showcases jobs by Tabi Benny, Blinky Costs, and also Omar Victor Diop along with 15 other musicians in a presentation arranged by Renny Ramakers, that curated the N’Gola Biennial last summer in the island country of São Tomé and also Príncipe.
Ramakers thought of the idea while preparing the biennial, seeing the extreme degree to which apparently abundant, outrageous style and also design had ended up being a signifier of self-respect and also identification. The resulting show provides a “mystery of noticeable superficiality that actually operates as a severe counter-force,” according to a news release for the exhibit.
The program provides artists whose work “in the beginning glance, sticks out for its focus to external look: everything is vivid, glowing, smooth, and also aesthetic,” the declaration says. “On closer inspection, the sexy surface verifies to be a lure that draws visitors right into a much deeper tale, in which point of views are reversed: white becomes black, stigma ends up being charm, a skivvy ends up being a high priestess, and obvious explanations to history are disclosed as popular figures.”
While a number of the pictures in the program are lovely and abundant, there is an undertone of the systemic abuses enacted on African people, both historically and also presently, in your home and also abroad.
See much more pictures from the show listed below.


Tabi Bonney, Le Bon Trip(2018). © Tabi Bonney. Now Look Right Here– The African Art of Look– Pop-up Exhibition ‘New North’ Asterweg Amsterdam
