Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt

For much of recorded art history, black people have been projected onto fanciful Utopic or Dystopic dreamscapes, that underscore the extremities of their identities. Some of these depictions have been useful to honour the past and to imagine spaces that are ruled by a different, fairer set of relations. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt flips the proverbial script and engages artists who create moments of freedom and upliftment. Rest, relaxation, leisure, intimacy, and domesticity are at the forefront of these pictorial conversations.

Curated by Anelisa Mangcu and Jana Terblanche, this exhibition aims to bring diverse voices into conversation with each other without attempting to be wholly exhaustive. Artistic dialogues differ just as human experiences do, but a common thread of inventing and reinterpreting runs through the heart of the black portraiture movement. The title is taken from Kurt Vonnegut’s 1969 science fiction infused anti-war novel Slaughterhouse-Five where it is presented as an epitaph for the lead character. While on its face, it reads as unreservedly optimistic, the extremity of the language points to its irony and impossibility. This phrase in the context of this exhibition accentuates the complexity and duality of black identity in modern culture; at once a site for trauma and unfettered joy.

The interest in portraiture is built on a long history of black artists writing their experiences into the historical canon through their art. This movement does not orient itself on established European paradigms but rather works to bring the barley perceivable into visibility, to canonise and to create a space of resonance for black experiences. The curators aim to draw connections between the historical and the contemporary, whilst holding space for a polyphony of ideas and positions. The agency of the African story is returned to African makers. This exhibition celebrates the cultural differences of a multifaceted continent, but also looks for moments of camaraderie and connection. Everything was beautiful and nothing hurt aims to be an important homecoming of ideas to the continent and reclamation of African cultural identity.