Chris Ofili Included in The Time is Always Now: Artists Reframe the Black Figure

February 22–May 19, 2024

Celebrating artists who work with figuration as a means of illuminating the richness and complexity of Black life, this exhibition considers how artists depict the Black form, both against a social backdrop of high cultural visibility and continued social vulnerability, as well as to address the absence of Black presence within Western art history. Within this context, exhibited portraits will examine the aesthetic, psychological and political considerations involved in representing blackness.

Curated by writer Ekow Eshun, this exhibition includes contemporary artists from the African diaspora, including Michael Armitage, Chris Ofili, Kerry James Marshall, Njideka Akunyili Crosby, and others to highlight the use of figures to illuminate the richness and complexity of Black life. As well as surveying the presence of the Black figure in Western art history, we examine its absence – and the story of representation told through these works, as well as the social, psychological and cultural contexts in which they were produced.

Learn more at National Portrait Gallery.