A continent. A diaspora.
A conversation.
OPENING THE JOURNAL
Loading content…Selected source-grounded coverage. Source dates are shown on each story; the edition date is a curation date in Africa/Accra.
Victor Ehikhamenor’s first Australian solo exhibition brings questions of displacement and cultural memory to the Chau Chak Wing Museum. ART AFRICA reports that the Nigerian artist connects communities in Sydney, Cairo and Port Harcourt, while a partnership with Blacktown Arts includes mentoring for African and African-descended creatives.
Reviewing Paulo Pedro Leal’s exhibition at the Pinacoteca de São Paulo, Mateus Nunes argues for the painter’s place in Brazilian art history. His ArtReview essay examines scenes of violence, religious gathering and everyday life, connecting their formal construction to race, displacement and the neglect of Black painters.
ArtThrob previews a Nairobi exhibition developed through Kairos Futura’s eight-week arts programme with young people around Kenya’s Mau Forest. Through sculpture, printmaking, wearable design and collective storytelling, participants imagine the forest in 2099, exploring ecological recovery and possible relationships between communities and their environment.
Sandra Mujinga has been selected for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2027 Great Hall commission, according to Hyperallergic. Her installation is planned for November 2027. The report describes her engagement with Afrofuturism, science fiction and postcolonial thought; Danh Vo receives the separate facade commission.
A conservation project at Harlem Hospital has restored murals by Charles Alston and Vertis Hayes, alongside a sculpture by John Rhoden. Hyperallergic places the work within the history of Black artists gaining access to federal public commissions during the New Deal.
Zeitz MOCAA has introduced IMPRINT, a publishing residency bringing three Cape Town collectives into its Koyo Kouoh Atelier. (B)andWi(d)th, Medupi Publishing and Creative Knowledge Resources will use the museum as a place for production and experimentation, with the programme running until April 2028.
In an ART AFRICA interview, Senegalese artist Caroline Gueye discusses WURUS, her Venice Biennale pavilion curated by Massamba Mbaye. The installation transforms Palazzo Navagero through architecture, sculpture and changing viewpoints, using the idea of gold to examine how perception shapes the value people assign to things.
Hyperallergic reports that Egyptian antiquities officials recovered parts of two monumental statues of Ramses II at Behbeit Al-Hagar in the Nile Delta. Excavation followed a resident’s discovery of an inscribed stone. The find includes a large carved head and part of an inscribed back pillar.
Réunionese artist Brandon Gercara’s exhibition Destin Vogoya at La Ferme du Buisson combines performance and visual art with a fictional world of queer protagonists. ART AFRICA describes how the work brings Réunion’s maloya tradition into conversation with voguing to explore cultural memory, identity and collective liberation.
Zeitz MOCAA has announced a moving-image exhibition developed with the African Film and Media Arts Collective. Curated by Khanyi Mawhayi, it brings together six artists and filmmakers, including Mati Diop and Wanuri Kahiu, to explore Pan-African connections, learning and artistic exchange.
The 16th Dakar Biennale will take place from 19 November to 19 December 2026, with Morad Montazami as artistic director. An official announcement from Biennale de Dakar, dated 24 September 2026 and posted on 13 October, details 75 artistic proposals: 54 for the international exhibition and 21 for the design section. The theme, “(Anti)fragility,” explores repair, care and responses to disruption. Faouzi Laatiris is the Grand Témoin, alongside a Carte blanche for Serigne Mbaye Camara.