The Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh is showing Sharif Bey: Homecoming, a solo exhibition of the artist's monumental ceramic and mixed-media sculptures, on view through October 12. The title nods to Bey's own background growing up in Pittsburgh, and the show pairs his work with pieces by Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel Basquiat from the museum's permanent collection. Bey's Guardian Series and Crown Series centre on calm, imposing figures whose closed eyes radiate serene power. Works such as Crown Series: Iris (2024) and Guardian Series: Blink (2023) draw on African and Oceanic visual culture — the Benin Bronzes, ceremonial masking traditions and the Moai stone heads of Easter Island — while ceramic beads, rusty nails, spikes and chains are worked into hair and garments. The artist has long been preoccupied with the commanding nature of objects and with the ways colonial forces have mined cultural heritage: thousands of Benin plaques looted by British troops in 1897 remain in Western institutions including the British Museum, the Met and the Smithsonian. In Bey's hands, nails and chains nod to a history of brutality, above all the transatlantic slave trade, while the figures' dignity asserts a counter-presence. The three-artist dialogue draws out shared concerns with identity and society across generations, setting Bey's sculpture alongside two of the twentieth century's most famous probers of image, fame and representation.