Devan Shimoyama’s current exhibition makes the top of the list for Artnet’s unmissable shows this month.  

Devan Shimoyama’s self-portraiture is a joyous representation of the black queer male body. In his first show at De Buck, he’s debuting seven paintings of other gay black men in barber shops, a space where he often felt the need to hide his sexuality. “After discussing with other men who share my identity as a gay black man, I realized many of us find ways to mask our queerness in this setting regardless to how out and proud we are in our personal lives,” he says in his artist statement. “In these paintings, these boys and men are reimagined in a much more celebratory, femme, colorfully queer setting.”

Sarah Cascone, October 26, 2017