Pharrell’s Latest Auction Centres the Creatives Shaping the Future of Black Art
A new auction from Joopiter features works from Slawn, Motherlan and Abdoulaye Konaté among the lots. Save to My OculaThe digital-first art platform Joopiter, founded by musician and designer Pharell Williams, is presenting its latest auction from its Contemporary Take series: Black Vanguard. The auction will showcase artists from Africa and the African diaspora and include painting, photography and textile art.
Developed in collaboration with Ghanaian art historian and writer Elikem Logan, who previously worked as a specialist in African Modern and Contemporary Art at Sotheby’s, the auction draws together several generations of artists working from the mid-20th century until the present day. Working across Africa, Europe and the Americas, the artists included in Black Vanguard all draw upon the experience of Blackness.
“That foundational work has been done,” Logan wrote in a statement. “An earlier cohort of African and diasporic artists earned institutional recognition, rewrote the critical frameworks, and proved the argument.” The auction features a selection of works by this generation of foundational artists, including a textile piece called Coccinelle No. 1 (2022) by Abdoulaye Konaté (b 1953, Mali) and a painting by Che Lovelace (b 1969), Shanna and Sita (2021).
Logan goes on to outline that Black Vanguard aims also to celebrate a current generation of artists intent on making work on their own terms. Slawn (b 2000) and Leonard Iheagwam (b 2000) (aka Soldier), co-founders of the collective Motherlan have contributed two large painted works: The Ol’ Ball and Chain (2025) and Dube With His Passport (2026). The auction also features an emphasis on Black abstraction, including an abstract canvas, 7 Hours (2022), by British artist Dr. Samuel Ross MBE (b 1991), citing this decision as a deliberate move to shift market focus on Black figuration toward other modes of Black artistic expression. As Logan says: “I think collectors who engage seriously with it now will look back on this as a defining moment.”
The Contemporary Take: Black Vanguard is open for bidding between 9–18 June: JOOPITER.com
Main image: Leonard Iheagwam (Soldier) (b.2000), Dube With His Passport, (2026).
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