This exhibition of newly commissioned artwork by eleven African artists born between 1956 and 1976 and working in Europe or the United States inaugurates this institution’s new building and, presumably, higher profile. The curators—Shannon Fitzgerald of the Contemporary and Tumelo Mosaka of New York’s Brooklyn Museum—“seek to analyze constructions of perceptions (fictions) about what constitutes an authentic Africa . . . and to what extent one’s Africanness is expressed, understood, exploited, and relevant in contemporary global culture.”

Siemon Allen (born in South Africa, lives in Washington,