Maxwell Alexandre’s “Pardo é Papel: Close a door to open a window”

“Pardo é Papel: Close a door to open a window” at David Zwirner is Maxwell Alexandre’s debut solo exhibition in the Untied Kingdom. Conceived and organized like a musical album, the exhibition features a series of large-scale paintings on paper bearing influences of global hip-hop on Black contemporary storytelling. Through works like the title painting Close a door to open a window (which features an illustration often found on LSD blotter sheets) and Dalila retocando meus dreads, depicting a scene at a barbershop, the Brazilian artist creates a narrative on the coexisting Latin American colonial and Afrodiasporic legacies that affect the country’s Black society.