IDEAS OF AFRICA: PORTRAITURE AND POLITICAL IMAGINATION
This new MoMA exhibition explores how African studio portraits articulated alternative visions of freedom
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art examines how photographic portraiture has shaped and sustained visions of Pan-African subjectivity, solidarity, and political imagination. On view from December 14, 2025, through July 25, 2026, the exhibition explores the transatlantic call-and-response that constructed Africa not only as a continent but as a political idea shaped−by the “winds of decolonial change” sweeping across Africa in parallel with the Civil Rights movement in the United States. This exhibition marks the third presentation at MoMA celebrating the 2019 gift of modern and contemporary African art from collector Jean Pigozzi. Ideas of Africa brings together core works from this gift alongside recent acquisitions and key loans, offering a rich panorama of African and African diaspora image-making. The show is organized by Oluremi C. Onabanjo (the Peter Schub curator), with the assistance of Chiara M. Mannarino, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography.
Conceptually informed by the landmark text The Idea of Africa by philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe (1941–2025), the exhibition spans the “golden age of African portraiture,” featuring 20th-century photographers such as Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, Jean Depara, Sanlé Sory, and Ambroise Ngaimoko, whose work emerged across key urban centers in West and Central Africa. The exhibition also highlights the circulation of Pan-African visual strategies across the diaspora through images by James Barnor and Kwame Brathwaite. Contemporary artists of African descent−including Samuel Fosso, Silvia Rosi, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby−alongside archival materials from the artist collective Air Afrique, trace the ongoing transmission of these ideas through space, time, and medium.
“As we continue to witness transformative shifts in the global geopolitical order, it is instructive to revisit a moment in history that saw the disintegration of colonial territories and the formation of transnational solidarity across the African continent and diaspora,” says Oluremi C. Onabanjo. “This exhibition locates dazzling modes of Pan-African possibility in images made by inventive photographers who registered and beckoned in new worlds.”
A specially curated reading room extends the exhibition’s engagement with knowledge and image culture, offering visitors access to historical and contemporary photobooks, periodicals, and publications that trace the proliferation of photography and print media during the decolonial era. In tandem with the exhibition, MoMA is publishing a richly illustrated catalogue featuring a lead essay by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, contributions from poet Momtaza Mehri and film programmer Yasmina Price, and reproductions of foundational texts by Brent Hayes Edwards and V. Y. Mudimbe. This publication complements the exhibition’s critical inquiry into photography as a medium of memory, imagination, and transnational connection, situating African portraiture as both archive and catalyst for ongoing conversations about identity, freedom, and collective possibility.
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination is on view until July 25, 2026. All images courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art.
This new MoMA exhibition explores how African studio portraits articulated alternative visions of freedom
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination at The Museum of Modern Art examines how photographic portraiture has shaped and sustained visions of Pan-African subjectivity, solidarity, and political imagination. On view from December 14, 2025, through July 25, 2026, the exhibition explores the transatlantic call-and-response that constructed Africa not only as a continent but as a political idea shaped−by the “winds of decolonial change” sweeping across Africa in parallel with the Civil Rights movement in the United States. This exhibition marks the third presentation at MoMA celebrating the 2019 gift of modern and contemporary African art from collector Jean Pigozzi. Ideas of Africa brings together core works from this gift alongside recent acquisitions and key loans, offering a rich panorama of African and African diaspora image-making. The show is organized by Oluremi C. Onabanjo (the Peter Schub curator), with the assistance of Chiara M. Mannarino, Curatorial Assistant, The Robert B. Menschel Department of Photography.
Conceptually informed by the landmark text The Idea of Africa by philosopher V. Y. Mudimbe (1941–2025), the exhibition spans the “golden age of African portraiture,” featuring 20th-century photographers such as Seydou Keïta, Malick Sidibé, Jean Depara, Sanlé Sory, and Ambroise Ngaimoko, whose work emerged across key urban centers in West and Central Africa. The exhibition also highlights the circulation of Pan-African visual strategies across the diaspora through images by James Barnor and Kwame Brathwaite. Contemporary artists of African descent−including Samuel Fosso, Silvia Rosi, and Njideka Akunyili Crosby−alongside archival materials from the artist collective Air Afrique, trace the ongoing transmission of these ideas through space, time, and medium.
“As we continue to witness transformative shifts in the global geopolitical order, it is instructive to revisit a moment in history that saw the disintegration of colonial territories and the formation of transnational solidarity across the African continent and diaspora,” says Oluremi C. Onabanjo. “This exhibition locates dazzling modes of Pan-African possibility in images made by inventive photographers who registered and beckoned in new worlds.”
A specially curated reading room extends the exhibition’s engagement with knowledge and image culture, offering visitors access to historical and contemporary photobooks, periodicals, and publications that trace the proliferation of photography and print media during the decolonial era. In tandem with the exhibition, MoMA is publishing a richly illustrated catalogue featuring a lead essay by Oluremi C. Onabanjo, contributions from poet Momtaza Mehri and film programmer Yasmina Price, and reproductions of foundational texts by Brent Hayes Edwards and V. Y. Mudimbe. This publication complements the exhibition’s critical inquiry into photography as a medium of memory, imagination, and transnational connection, situating African portraiture as both archive and catalyst for ongoing conversations about identity, freedom, and collective possibility.
Ideas of Africa: Portraiture and Political Imagination is on view until July 25, 2026. All images courtesy of The Museum of Modern Art.