African Metropolis: 34 Artists Reimagine Africa at MAXXI Rome

The MAXXI museum in Rome presents 'African Metropolis,' a group exhibition curated by Simon Njami and Elena Motisi, featuring over 100 works by 34 African artists. The show challenges stereotypical views of Africa as a continent of poverty and migration, instead presenting it as a complex, evolving urban reality. Works are organized into five 'metropolitan actions': wandering, belonging, recognizing, imagining, and reconstructing. Highlights include Pascale Martin Tayou's 'Falling Houses'—inverted houses suspended in air inspired by Chinua Achebe's novel 'Things Fall Apart'—and Abdulrazaq Awofesobi's 'Behind This Ambiguity,' 120 figurines evoking a crowd exiting a metro, rooted in Yoruba culture. Kiluanji Kia Henda's provocative photograph 'The Merchant of Venice' depicts a Senegalese musician as a street vendor of counterfeit bags. The exhibition runs concurrently with 'Road to Justice' (until October 14) and includes a program of talks with artists, writers, and architects.