The Royal Academy of Arts in London has unveiled a monumental bronze sculpture that reimagines Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper.
Created by Bahamian artist Tavares Strachan, the piece—titled The First Supper—is part of a new exhibition on art and colonialism. The work replaces the 15th-century painting’s subjects with Black activists, artists, scientists and other prominent figures. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie I takes Jesus’ place, while Strachan himself replaces Judas.
“All of us make mistakes,” Strachan tells the Guardian’s Skye Sherwin. “Who is not Judas?”
But art historian Alayo Akinkugbe has another take: “Rather than betraying the messiah, Strachan betrays history’s status quo by bringing to light these marginalized figures in a composition that is typically associated with Christ and his disciples,” she writes in the exhibition catalog, per the Art Newspaper’s Gareth Harris.
