Le Monde
By Philippe Dagen
At the Marian Goodman Gallery in Paris, Barkley Hendricks, an uncompromising portrait artist.
The African-American artist, rarely shown in Europe, exhibits his works full of ironic or satirical undertones. In the United States, Barkley Hendricks (1945-2017) is now considered a historical figure. Following a museum retrospective that toured between 2008 and 2010, the presentation of his portraits alongside the ancient masterpieces of the Frick Collection in New York in 2023 cemented the African-American artist's reputation. However, he has been shown very little in Europe. No French museum saw fit to repeat the excellent exhibition “Soul of a Nation: Art in the Age of Black Power” at the Tate Modern in London in 2017. The presentation of a collection of his works by the Marian Goodman Gallery is his first solo exhibition in Europe.