A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography presents Africa through its own lens. The art is exhilarating, dynamic, compelling, profound. It is a vital experience, just in terms of pure knowledge alone.

 

From the girl gangs of Marrakech to the kings of Nigeria, Bedouin family portraits to the tumult of megacities, this superbly curated show of 36 artists at the Tate Modern in London unites an entire continent in remarkable detail.

 

The spiritual section features Senegalese artist Maïmouna Guerresi’s marvellous five-panel polyptych showing an old man in a high black hat reading Sufi scriptures to four girls dressed in bright red, perched on black blocks round a table. They listen, but only while turning pensively towards the greater realities of existence conveyed through the shell case and the sinister petrol can lying on the table.

 

The exhibition A World in Common: Contemporary African Photography is at Tate Modern, London SE1, until 14 January, 2024.