In 1968 the Ghanaian author Ayi Kwei Armah published a brutal and visceral novel of (then) contemporary, post-Independent Ghana, titled “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born”. Armah recounts an unnamed man’s struggle in a society rotten to the core, a result of the aftermath of colonialism, and the failures of the new regime. A dream deferred…
The exhibition The Beautyful Ones takes as its starting point Armah’s utopian lament for a better Africa, and the ongoing problematics of the representation of the continent, especially in the popular European imagination. Africa is often perceived as a monolithic entity, whilst the complexity of its multiple realities, histories, narratives and voices are often lost.
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[Image on top: Meleko Mokgosi, Africanis (Detail), 2013, Oil on canvas, 243 × 548 cm; Courtesy of the artist & Nolan Judin]