Meleko Mokgosi: Democratic Intuition

Last October, the artist Meleko Mokgosi told The New York Times that “first-world” viewers need to embrace the fact that “the world doesn’t revolve around them. There are other histories.” The exhibition title “Democratic Intuition” is a reference to Gayatri Spivak’s theory that democracy is dependent upon accessible education. Mokgosi has created an eight-part epic of multiple panels that depict southern African life and folklore. Once again, he adopts a traditional European painting style to express a distinctly southern African experience of history and life. —E.C.