Roméo Mivekannin (b. 1986, Bouaké)

Tres de Mayo, after Goya

2020, elixir bath and acrylic on free canvas, 243 x 252 cm.

Photo by Jean François Rogeboz, courtesy galerie Eric Dupont, Paris.

Inspired by the acknowledgement finally given to black models by the Musée D’Orsay’s 2019 exhibition, Black Models: From Géricault to Matisse, Mivekannin substitutes his own image for that of the central figure in Goya’s The Third of May in Madrid. But whereas Goya’s model looks at the firing squad , Mivekannin looks at us, reminding us of the violence in our own world and the way we watch it from the sidelines without being able to bring it to an end.

Mivekannin’s reversioning of Goya’s painting recalls the influential French painter Édouard Manet’s use of it as the model for five works on The Execution of Emperor Maximilian which he produced between 1867 and 1869.