18 Dec 2020
The Centre of Fine Arts in Brussels announced the celebration of the 250th birthday of German composer Ludwig van Beethoven by posting a portrait of the composer as a black African man.
The centre, also known as BOZAR, published a post on Wednesday of a still from a video entitled “Black Beethoven” by American artist Terry Adkins, which features a portrait of the late 18th and early 19th-century composer depicted a young black man with dreadlocks.
“In the work, Adkins presents a portrait of the iconic composer that slowly morphs into that of a young black man with short dreadlocks and back again. The repeated transformation of the image conveys Adkins’s unwillingness to settle the debate on Beethoven’s race,” the post explained.