In the Black Fantastic review: ‘a magnificent experience’
Reality is reshaped into ‘something rich and strange’ at this ‘intoxicating’ Hayward Gallery show

This exhibition showcases 11 artists from the African diaspora “who use fantasy, myth and fiction to address racism and injustice”, said Laura Cumming in The Observer. Each artist is granted the amount of space equivalent to that normally taken up by an entire solo presentation, so that they have “space to breathe, and to sing”; while a “judicious selection also allows for echoes and connections throughout”.
The show incorporates video, painting, sculpture, collage, and even costume design, and the effect is little short of mesmerising. All of the art here is “wildly imaginative”, from a series of “lifesize” papier-mâché sculptures by the Kenyan-American Wangechi Mutu to the “sumptuous” selfportraits of Liberian-British artist Lina Iris Viktor, in which she depicts herself as the prophetess Sibyl foretelling “the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade”. It is “a magnificent experience, spectacular from first to last”.
In this show, decorative flourish comes at the expense of nuance and clarity, said Waldemar Januszczak in The Sunday Times. The American artist Nick Cave, for instance, makes “sound suits” – “human-sized wearable sculptures covered in sequins, buttons and flowers”. These “look like carnival costumes” but apparently commemorate the deaths of black Americans at the hands of the police: one, dedicated to George Floyd, is adorned in an “ornate and busy manner”, leaving “no detail left undecorated”. “How the sculpture refers to the death remains unclear.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Far worse, though, is the British Turner Prize-winning artist Chris Ofili’s life-sized sculpture Annunciation, depicting “a black Angel Gabriel raping a golden Virgin Mary”. “You don’t need to be a fierce Catholic to find it graceless and sick.” It is the nadir of a confused and “neurotic” exhibition.
This show is a response to the long history of black suffering in the West, said Alastair Sooke in The Daily Telegraph. So it’s hardly surprising that some works on display are upsetting. Kara Walker’s “retro, animated cut-paper silhouettes” depict “atrocities by white supremacists” to a ragtime soundtrack, while the Confederate battle flag “looms” large in a picture by the Philadelphia-born artist Sedrick Chisom.
Yet generally the exhibition is “anything but sombre”. Instead, it is defined by its emphasis on “visual fabulousness”, privileging jubilant colour and “party spirit” over historical recrimination. The upbeat atmosphere is evident everywhere from Cave’s colourful suits to Hew Locke’s Ambassadors, four sculptures of “exuberantly attired horsemen” he has “festooned with glittering objects”. The artists here are intent on “reshaping reality into something rich and strange”, and the result is an “intoxicating” show.
Hayward Gallery, London SE1 (southbankcentre.co.uk). Until 18 September
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
-
'We need solutions that prioritize both safety and sustainability'
Instant Opinion Opinion, comment and editorials of the day
-
Book reviews: 'Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference' and 'Is a River Alive?'
Feature A rallying cry for 'moral ambition' and the interwoven relationship between humans and rivers
-
'King of the Hill' actor shot dead outside home
speed read Jonathan Joss was fatally shot by a neighbor who was 'yelling violent homophobic slurs,' says his husband
-
Book reviews: 'Moral Ambition: Stop Wasting Your Talent and Start Making a Difference' and 'Is a River Alive?'
Feature A rallying cry for 'moral ambition' and the interwoven relationship between humans and rivers
-
A city of culture in the high Andes
The Week Recommends Cuenca is a must-visit for those keen to see the 'real Ecuador'
-
Green goddess salad recipe
The Week Recommends Avocado can be the creamy star of the show in this fresh, sharp salad
-
Ancient India: living traditions – 'ethereal and sensual' exhibition
The Week Recommends Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism are explored in show that remains 'remarkably compact'
-
6 well-preserved homes built in the 1930s
Feature Featuring a restored 1934 colonial in Arizona and a cold-storage warehouse turned loft in New York City
-
Things in Nature Merely Grow: memoir of 'harsh beauty' after loss
The Week Recommends Chinese-American novelist Yiyun Li's 'devastating' memoir explores the deaths of her two sons
-
Sirens: entertaining satire on the lives of the ultra-wealthy stars Julianne Moore
The Week Recommends This 'blackly comic affair' unfurls at a 'breakneck speed'
-
Mrs Warren's Profession: 'tour-de-force' from Imelda Staunton and daughter Bessie Carter
The Week Recommends Mother-daughter duo bring new life to George Bernard Shaw's morality play