Alastair Sooke

Alastair Sooke is a British writer and broadcaster, and chief art critic of The Telegraph.

This is the daunting setting for Black Soil Poems, a new exhibition of work by Wangechi Mutu, the Kenyan-American artist renowned for her representations of fantastical hybrid humanoids often associated with Afrofuturism. Curated by Cloé Perrone, the show is the second installment of an ongoing, and compelling, annual exhibition program presenting work by female artists instigated by the gallery’s director, Francesca Cappelletti. Surprisingly, given the distinctiveness of Mutu’s art, as well as the seemingly out-of-place ephemerality of her materials (feathers, paper pulp, coffee, silk, red soil), her work, while never simpering, fits right in.

Installation view: Wangechi Mutu: Black Soil Poems, Galleria Borghese, Rome, 2025. © Galleria Borghese. Photo: Agostino Osio.

Close

Home