Free exhibitions explore race, class and identity through art and music

This article reviews four free art exhibitions that use painting, photography and music to explore race, class, labour and cultural identity. The shows range from Maxwell Alexandre’s paintings of a wealthy Rio sports club to Susan Meiselas’s photographs of touring striptease performers, with other exhibitions focused on Korean painter Hyun-Sook Song and London’s Notting Hill Carnival.

Alexandre’s work reflects on entering a privileged, largely white space beside the favela where he grew up, and challenges expectations that Black artists should depict only Black subjects. Meiselas spent three years photographing dancers backstage in 1970s America, capturing both their performances and the exhaustion that followed. The article also describes Song’s spare brushwork, rooted in memories of rural South Korea and life in Germany, and a show connected to the cultural history of Notting Hill Carnival.