Contemporary And

1 week ago | contemporaryand.com | Daniella Brito

Scrolling onto whitehouse.gov, you are immediately confronted with a portrait of Donald Trump striking a dictatorial pose. In the tradition of Uncle Sam, Trump points his finger militantly towards an invisible “you.” It doesn’t take much looking past the blaring red, white, and blue of the US-American nationalism painting the screen to guess just who “you” might be “AMERICA IS BACK,” the webpage reads.

Jan 15, 2025 | contemporaryand.com | Mwende Ngao

Uhuru, Uhuru!At long last,Uhuru!I have these wonderful memories of family Sundays as a child. We’d troop to church and then go to Uhuru Park immediately after for ice-cream and pictures. I have this distinct memory of jumping up and down while tugging at my mom’s dress sleeves begging her to wrap up her long greetings with other parishioners in the parking lot. My dad would be the one to save me and my siblings with a honk and wave for us to hurry as he was holding up the exit.

Nov 27, 2024 | contemporaryand.com | Elisa Pierandrei

Elisa Pierandrei: Your acrylic paintings are seen as exploring belonging, identity, and systems of power. Are these topics important in your work? Massoud Hayoun: People have told me I’m a mess of identities. I’m a middle-class queer Arab American North African man of Jewish faith living in Los Angeles, practically on the edge of all Western-drawn maps. I was raised by my Tunisian and Moroccan-Egyptian grandparents, while my single mother worked very hard to support us. I’m left-handed.

Sep 26, 2024 | contemporaryand.com | Obidike Okafor

More than a year and a half after its grand inauguration by former President Muhammadu Buhari, the John Randle Center for Yoruba Culture and History remains an enigma. Nestled in the heart of Lagos, this highly anticipated museum has kept its doors closed to the public, stirring curiosity and frustration among art enthusiasts, artists, curators, and the general public.

May 29, 2024 | contemporaryand.com | Kim Reynolds

Manyaku Mashilo makes large-scale figurations that concern themselves with ritual, movement, essence, and paths of becoming for Black people. Born 1991 in Limpopo, raised mostly in Pretoria, and based in Cape Town, South Africa, Mashilo studied fashion and developed a practice of abstracting figures before coming full-time to visual art. She drew silhouettes that moved away from literal renderings of “man” or “woman” toward a non-specific figure, a place.