Project a Black Planet review: Panafrican theory overwhelms art at Barbican
The Barbican's 'Project a Black Planet' exhibition, exploring Panafrica in art and culture, is criticized for prioritizing theoretical whimsy over its artworks. Lynette Yiadom-Boakye's new paintings, displayed in a dedicated white-walled room, are highlighted as a standout. Her fictional portraits—a young woman reading, a man in Pierrot-like clothes, another in a green coat—evoke novelistic depth, compared to Zadie Smith or Jonathan Franzen. The room contrasts contemporary figures on side walls with somber ancestral elders at the ends, forming an absorbing epic. However, the review argues the exhibition loses superb pieces in an indigestible intellectual stew, failing to let the art sing.
Key facts
- Exhibition titled 'Project a Black Planet' at Barbican, London
- Focuses on Panafrica in art and culture
- Lynette Yiadom-Boakye contributes new group of paintings
- Her works depict fictional people, not portraits
- Paintings include a young woman reading, a man in Pierrot-like clothes, another in a green coat
- Yiadom-Boakye's room has white walls with contemporary figures on side walls and somber ancestors at ends
- Review criticizes exhibition for being overly theoretical
- Review compares Yiadom-Boakye's imagination to novelists Zadie Smith and Jonathan Franzen
Entities
Artists
Institutions
- Barbican
Locations
- London
- United Kingdom