Though a performance art piece titled ‘Exhibit B’ had opened to widespread acclaim in Avignon in 2013—a reception characteristic of its multi–year run in many European cities—its arrival in Paris was quite different. Not only did a group calling itself ‘Contre Exhibit B’ (‘Against Exhibit B’), led by French popular musician Bams, actively call for the show's closure, but it also boycotted the event and led a public protest that shut down its opening night. Over 250 French riot police guarded the show on subsequent evenings, aided by temporary metal fencing. The controversy playing out in the news and in social media only continued to increase, even after ‘Exhibit B’ left Paris.

Created and directed by South African artist Brett Bailey, ‘Exhibit B’ comprises a series of twelve scenes, each of which takes up an entire room. Spectators enter each room alone and there they encounter African or black ‘specimens’. The scenes call to mind historical moments when African bodies were put on display for the gaze of a European population—such as museum or ethnographic exhibitions (also known as ‘human zoos’) at world's fairs. Other tableaus draw connections between historical moments and the present day. For instance, in one room the spectator encounters a black laborer sitting on a chair behind a chain–link fence. The sign on the fence reassures the visitor that ‘the blacks have been fed’. In another, a black body is staged on a row of airplane seats, his feet bound, arms zip–tied to the armrests, and mouth taped shut. These two scenes clearly suggest that, though the historical contexts are quite different, there are nevertheless connections between how colonial powers staged colonized bodies and how a variety of structures—such as the news media or cultural marketplaces—present racial and ethnic minority bodies today.

The scenes’ composition imitate museum–style dioramas so well that many spectators do not initially realize that the ‘specimens’ they gaze upon might be anything other than wax figures or mannequins—that is, until the ‘specimens’ on display lock gazes with them and hold it the entire time they are in the room.