ABS viewing: Maxwell Alexandre | Black Painter, White Figuration

About ABS viewing: Maxwell Alexandre | Black Painter, White Figuration

Join the Anglo-Brazilian Society on Saturday 14 November at 14:00 for a specially arranged visit to Brazilian artist Maxwell Alexandre’s exhibition black painter, white figuration (pintor preto, figuração branca) at Carlos/Ishikawa in Stepney Green (E1 4UN).

Places are limited, so be sure to secure yours as soon as possible!

About the exhibition

In black painter, white figuration, Maxwell Alexandre explores race, privilege and representation in art by deliberately reversing the traditional relationship between the Black artist and the white subject.

Building on his acclaimed Clube (2020–) and Cubo Branco (2025) series, Alexandre depicts white people enjoying leisure and comfort in privileged spaces, taking Rio de Janeiro’s Flamengo sports club as a starting point. Seemingly peaceful and removed from the inequalities surrounding them, these environments nevertheless expose the social and racial power structures that underpin privilege.

At the heart of the exhibition is the concept of “white figuration”, which challenges the assumption that depicting white people represents a neutral or universal standard in art, whilst the depiction of Black people is treated as a distinct category. By explicitly naming and foregrounding whiteness, Alexandre exposes this double standard, encouraging us to consider the representation of white bodies as consciously racialised as that of Black bodies.

Ultimately, the exhibition reclaims the power of representation, prompting us to question who gets to be depicted, how race is portrayed and whose experiences have historically been considered universal in art.