“Being in Now”: Ibrahim El-Salahi at the Tate Modern

Ibrahim El-Salahi: A Visionary Modernist, the Tate Modern’s first retrospective of a modernist artist from the African continent, marks both an institutional acknowledgment that the story of modernism in art is not limited to North America and Europe and a commitment to acquisitions that reflect this understanding. Over one hundred pieces from five decades fill seven rooms. After training in Khartoum and London, El-Salahi returned home and developed a visionary, syncretic style that reflected his personal interrogation of Sudanese visual identity. The show—a retrospective of an artist who is looking forward—opens and closes with large-scale recent work, including the epic drawing The Day of Judgement (2010) and intricate depictions of flamenco dancers.