A slew of exhibitions, including the Whitney Biennial and recent shows at the Guggenheim Museum and the Getty, have put Paul Mpagi Sepuya’s name on everyone’s lips. The Angeleno artist re-examines portrait photography’s formal and conceptual foundations, as well as its traditional tools: mirrors, black velvet, and darkrooms. Questions around the representation of the black and the queer body – be it his own or his friends’ and collaborators’ – also inform Sepuya’s sensitive and intimate body of work. He welcomed Art Basel in his Boyle Heights studio. Paul Mpagi Sepuya is represented by ​by Team (New York, Los Angeles), Document (Chicago) and ​Vielmetter Los Angeles.