racial cartography

For almost 20 years, I have considered myself a student of "negrophilia". This means that I spend much of my time scrutinising how white and black people relate to each other, trying especially to understand their attraction to each other.

As its title suggests, Unnamed Figures not only illuminates Black appearances in the visual culture of this period but also asks how our encounters with them are shaped by the erasure of Blackness from art and archives.

It’s no secret: Black culture drives pop culture. It is “the original avant-garde,” as Felipe Luciano, a former TV producer, has said. But I sometimes wonder if appropriation is a prerequisite of Black culture going mainstream.

Their moves are at once personal and driven by a desire to connect; and if these artists do not expect to feel wholly at home anywhere in the world, neither do they assume America is the only, or the best, place to exercise their collaborative gifts.

“When I started out, they didn’t know what to do with me in the US,” he admits. “My music was rooted in rock’n’roll and that wasn’t what was happening with black artists at that time. Everyone was into categories and putting people in boxes. I looked how I looked and I dressed the way I dressed and so they sent me to Europe – the Europeans will dea... See more