The painter Gerard Sekoto saw Paris—the city he moved to from South Africa—as the “Mecca” of the art world. It was also a place where he was free to do as he pleased, a relief after the strictures in his home country. Sekoto’s art, deeply humanist and much missed after he left, is now on view at the Centre Pompidou along with works by 150 other African and Afro-descendant artists who lived in Paris. The exhibition is called “Paris Noir” and it highlights the impact of Black artists in France from the 1940s to the 2000s, as well as the artists’ struggles with subjugation and racism during the years between African independence and the end of apartheid. —Carolina de Armas