When We See Us / Berlinde De Bruyckere: Khorós

In 2025, Bozar, the Centre for Fine Arts in Brussels, becomes the meeting ground for two monumental exhibitions. When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting (until August 10, 2025) and Berlinde De Bruyckere: Khorós (until August 31, 2025) unfold as parallel, yet distinct inquiries into the fundamentals of the human experience.

When We See Us is the most expansive exhibition project to date centered on Black self-representation in painting. Originally conceived and organized by Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) in Cape Town and now reconfigured for Bozar, it assembles over 150 paintings by 120 artists from across Africa and its global diaspora. The title signals a crucial shift: inspired by Ava DuVernay’s mini-series When They See Us, the transition from “They” to “We” marks an act of appropriation, an assertion of self-determination and narrative agency. Rather than positioning Black identity through the lens of trauma, the exhibition foregrounds joy as a site of resistance and self-articulation. It does so through six themes—The Everyday, Repose, Triumph and Emancipation, Sensuality, Spirituality, Joy and Revelry—which interweave visual genealogies of Black modernity, displacing linear art-historical hierarchies in favor of a relational network.

“The exhibition refuses to put pain and injustice at the forefront and instead reminds us that the Black experience can also be seen through the lens of joy.” —Koyo Kouoh and Tandazani Dhlakama, curators of When We See Us

A layered experience of sound and space, When We See Us extends beyond the image. The South African composer Neo Muyanga has created a soundscape in dialogue with the artworks, while Wolff Architects have designed an exhibition that builds upon the original Zeitz MOCAA installation. A graphical timeline situates the exhibition’s content within the broader movements of Black intellectual and political thought, from the Haitian Revolution to Black Lives Matter, offering critical context to visitors. Accompanied by a comprehensive publication and a series of live discursive events, the exhibition moves towards a polyphonic understanding of Black artistic production.

Running concurrently, Berlinde De Bruyckere: Khorós presents the first large-scale solo exhibition of the Belgian artist in Brussels. Over the past 40 years, De Bruyckere has developed a visceral, sculptural language that negotiates the fragile threshold between corporeality and decay, violence and tenderness, suffering and transformation. Bozar invited her as part of its new series, Conversation Pieces, where artists enter into dialogue with others. The title Khorós references the collective voice of the chorus in Ancient Greek tragedy, which mediates the relationship between action and audience, myth and its contemporary resonances. In this spirit, De Bruyckere’s works interact with historical and contemporary figures, such as Lucas Cranach the Elder, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Patti Smith, and Peter Buggenhout establishing a network of aesthetic and affective correspondences.

“A traditional retrospective was never the plan for Bozar. Instead I chose to focus on dialogues with those who have shaped my work, my vocabulary: distinct and unique voices from different eras that somehow all ask the same universal questions.” —Berlinde De Bruyckere

De Bruyckere’s practice is marked by an ongoing engagement with classical mythology, religious iconography and Renaissance painting recontextualised within contemporary visual culture. Her works resonate with the precarious state of bodies—human, animal, vegetal—both intimate and collective, exposing their vulnerabilities while evoking a form of resilience embedded in decay.

Bozar Books & Mercatorfonds have published a catalogue with an essay by Gary Carrion-Murayari, exploring De Bruyckere’s practice as a Khorós.

Presented within the institutional framework of Bozar, these exhibitions construct two distinct yet intersecting inquiries into representation and selfhood. When We See Us disrupts hegemonic narratives by amplifying Black artistic voices, while Khorós examines the liminality of the human condition through sculptural embodiment. Together, they generate a space of contemplation and confrontation, where art becomes both a mirror and a site of transformation, inviting the viewer to rethink the politics of seeing and being seen.