Interview Broadcaster and curator June Sarpong
“Filling In The Pieces In Black” is a group show that redresses the narrow view of Black history shaped by the colonial lens, instead offering an expansive and emotive perspective that focuses on the power of visual story telling to redefine our understanding of the past. Spanning Maruani Mercier gallery in Brussels (25 October 2023 – 13 January 2024) and Saatchi Gallery in London (31 October – 26 November 2023), the exhibition encompasses international artists, including Larry Amponsah, Mickalene Thomas, Cornelius Annor and Yinka Ilori.
“My aim is to help present a representation of the many strands that make up the rich tapestry of the Black experience,” she says. Here, we discover what makes her tick.
THE WICK: If you could own any piece of artwork, what would it be and why?
June Sarpong: Lenny Kravitz’s Jean-Michel Basquiat painting is quite something! Or anything by Barkley L Hendricks. I had a chance to buy something a few years ago and I didn’t. I still regret it to this day.
TW: They say that history is written by the victors. How does your exhibition Filling in the Pieces in Black aim to redress this imbalance, and reveal the truth about Black history?
JS: What I’m most proud of with this show is the way it conveys so much of the humanity of the Black experience, and challenges the idea of a single narrative. It focuses on the splendour of being human through the beautiful lens of Blackness.
TW: Tell us about one of the most powerful or surprising narratives told by an artwork in the show.
JS: I love all of the works in both the Brussels show at Maruani Mercier gallery and the London show at Saatchi Gallery, but I think the Radcliffe Bailey piece, The Ocean Between (2019), in London is truly extraordinary. It’s a seminal work that explore the journey of the Middle Passage when enslaved Africans were taken across the Atlantic to the Americas. You can’t help but be entranced when looking at it.
TW: What achievement are you most proud of in your career to date?
JS: I don’t think I have one. I like to live in the moment.
“What I’m most proud of with this show is the way it conveys so much of the humanity of the Black experience”
