Tracing Black cultural memory through Bearers of Fire at Southern Guild New York

Southern Guild presents Porteurs de feu (Bearers of Fire), Roméo Mivekannin’s first solo exhibition at its Tribeca, New York space, slated to be on view from September 9 – October 24, 2026. “The exhibition traces two interconnected narratives through a new body of paintings on black velvet and an extensive portrait installation, examining how cultural memory is shaped through migration, representation and acts of historical repair,” Southern Guild notes in the show’s official release.

Taking its title from writer Saint-John Perse’s poem Exile (1942), Porteurs de feu draws on the lines: "We, bearers of fire, we, sowers of cities." For Mivekannin, the phrase evokes the generations of artists, writers, musicians and thinkers who have crossed borders and transformed New York through their presence. His new paintings turn toward artists whose journeys, identities and encounters with displacement have shaped American cultural life. Figures such as David Hammons, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Nicole Eisenman, Nona Faustine, James McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent are among those whom the contemporary artist pays tribute to. “Each portrait tells the story of the journey: exile, loss, the human condition, but also the human genius to transcend reality through creation,” Mivekannin notes in the official release.

Another highlight of the showcase is the immersive installation of portraits, The Souls of Black Folk, inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois's 1903 publication of the same name. “The installation is dedicated to the political leaders, intellectuals and artists whose lives and legacies continue to inform Black history,” the art gallery notes. Josephine Baker, Malcolm X, Wole Soyinka, Édouard Glissant, Alicia Keys, Kamala Harris and others appear on pages drawn from Du Bois’s publication. “Suspended in a dense installation and occupying an entire room of the Tribeca gallery, the portraits form a constellation of voices whose lives span continents, generations and political movements, charting more than a century of Black thought, creativity and resistance,” the contemporary art gallery explains.

At the heart of both series is Mivekannin’s investigation of portraiture as a means to investigate power. “Drawing on photographic archives and canonical works of European painting, he interrogates the ways Black figures have been anonymised, eroticised, marginalised or excluded within the Western artistic tradition,” the gallery notes.

Together, the series Porteurs de feu (Bearers of Fire) and The Souls of Black Folk position portraiture as more than just a means of representation. “For Mivekannin, it becomes an act of remembrance, resistance and historical repair—one that reclaims overlooked lives while asking how cultural memory is continually shaped, revised and carried forward,” Southern Guild concludes.