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Black Ancient Futures, William Klein and Catarina Dias at MAAT

Building alternative futures for black people: this is the core idea behind Afrofuturism, a cultural, philosophical and artistic trend that combines sci-fi, African history and Afro-descendant culture to craft narratives that transcend a range of limiting and stereotypical representations imposed by history on black identities. Celebrities like Beyoncé, Janelle Monáe and Rihanna have helped expand Afrofuturism to large audiences whilst, on the contemporary art scene, artists of African descent from all over the world have brought the creation of dystopian worlds to their productions.

One of the most prominent in this current is Sandra Mujinga, a Congolese artist living in Norway, currently presenting one of her ghostly works in the exhibition Black Ancient Futures at MAAT. And My Body Carried All of You consists of three sculptures, two hanging and one on the floor, in which patterns in a thick red fabric create uncanny beings reminiscent of animal carcasses. In the next room, Trinidad and Tobago artist Jeannette Ehlers presents We’re Magic, We’re Real, a sphere of synthetic hair which, hanging in the middle of the gold-walled room, uses ‘afro hair’ as a symbol of black counter-culture empowerment.

Games have also often been harnessed to reimagine alternatives that challenge the dominant representations of Africa in the Western imagination. In Third World: The Bottom of Dimension, renowned Brazilian artist Gabriel Massan uses Afrofuturist aesthetics in a fantastic universe that challenges and invites the audience to rethink their actions in the world. The work, made with several collaborators and developed in a partnership between the British Serpentine Galleries and MAAT, uses recreation and participation to commit players to decolonial perspectives and queer theories. Eight other artists from the black diaspora round off the show, curated by Camila Maissune and João Pinharanda.

The William Klein – All the World’s a Stage exhibition, held at the same time at the museum, gathers around 200 works by the New York artist based in Paris, including photography, fashion, cinema, painting and graphic design. Arranged in five sections, the exhibition offers a journey through cities such as New York, Paris, Rome, Moscow and Tokyo, featuring Klein’s interactivity with his models and the performance present in his works. The exhibition will be topped off with a retrospective of the artist’s cinematographic output, a lesser-known aspect of his production, at Cinemateca Portuguesa in January 2025.

The exhibition season also features a solo show by Catarina Dias. The title of the exhibition, Inverted on Us, is also the piece written on the floor of the venue, in large distorted letters, emphasising the reflections and echoes that shape our perception. In works that have been digitalised, printed on paper and then almost imperceptibly hand-painted, the London-born artist explores agreements and disagreements between images and words.

William Klein – All the World’s a Stage is on show at MAAT, in Lisbon, until February 3, 2025, while the group show Black Ancient Futures and the solo show Inverted on Us, by Catarina Dias, continue until March 17.

Julia Flamingo, a native of São Paulo, is a journalist and researcher specializing in contemporary art. Driven by a fervent commitment to making contemporary art more accessible, Julia established the digital platform Bigorna (@bigorna_art). She holds positions as the primary writer at the global network for art curators, Artpool.xyz, and as Curator & Writer of the Portuguese group Cultural Affairs. Julia has worked as an art journalist and critic at Veja São Paulo and contributed to celebrated cultural projects, including the Creative Europe-funded initiative 4Cs, the SP-Arte fair, and the São Paulo Biennial. She holds degrees in Journalism from Universidade Mackenzie, History from PUC-SP, and a Master's degree in Culture Studies from Universidade Católica Portuguesa in Lisbon.

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