1-54 London | AFIKARIS Gallery Presents the Works of Four Artists as They Ponder the Possibility of a Better World

1-54 London | AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris
14—17 October 2021
Preview: Thursday 14 October, 10AM—8PM
Somerset House | Strand, WC2R 1LA London

Above. Nana Yaw Oduro, If we play like this, we stand a chance, 2021 Photography. 67 x 100 cm, Edition of 4 + 2 AP. 40 x 60 cm, Edition of 8 + 2 AP. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery and the artist. Below, Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Jour de Loumo Baliii, 2021. Acrylic and posca on canvas. 180 x 120 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery and the artist.

October 4, 2021 (Paris, France) – On the occasion of the 1-54 art fair in London, Paris-based AFIKARIS Gallery unveils new works by artists Moustapha Baidi Oumarou (b.1997, Maroua, Cameroon), Salifou Lindou (b.1965, Doula, Cameroon), Omar Mahfoudi (b. 1981, Tangier, Morocco) and Nana Yaw Oduro (b. 1994, Accra, Ghana).

Under the title A Better World?, the dialogue between Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Salifou Lindou, Omar Mahfoudi and Nana Yaw Oduro unfolds as a reflection on recurring sociopolitical trends and thoughts, heightened during the time of the pandemic and resulting lockdown. Presented together, the artists join in a common, aspirational yet realistic call for hope and for a new departure in current times – all-the-while pointing to its limits.

Nana Yaw Oduro’s photographic series If we play like this, we stand a chance, presented alongside Moustapha Baidi Oumarou’s joyful and pure portraits, exude a sense of both yearning and hope – one which Omar Mahfoudi cultivates through his suspended rêverie as he embarks viewers in a spiritual exile. If his landscapes heave a dreamlike breath, the politicians depicted by Salifou Lindou question the possibility of a new world. Is it truly possible for circumstances to change when those who govern us do not change?

The pandemic transformed our vision of the world, pushing us to rethink the way in which we live, to change our habits to build a better future. At once a longing and a questioning, A Better World? calls on these reflections through the vision of four artists.

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NOTES TO EDITORS:
About Moustapha Baidi Oumarou:
Moustapha Baidi Oumarou (b. 1997, Maroua, Cameroon) is a multidisciplinary artist who works and lives in Maroua. A self-taught artist, Baidi Oumarou describes himself as a “conscious and humanist painter.” This humanism shows through his paintings and drawings, in an attempt to relay what the forgotten and most vulnerable cannot express with words.

Most often laying out monochrome backgrounds and human shapes adorned with flowers, his colorful canvases, made in acrylic, translate the good within each of us. Naturally, his delicate and subtle outlines, immersed in a lush nature, evoke a moment of sharing, conviviality, or even introspection. By anonymizing his characters, his nameless yet deeply human shapes suggest a universal message of peace and humanity.

Baidi Oumarou’s work has been featured in notable international fairs such as Art Paris (Paris); 1-54 London (London); Investec Cape Town (Cape Town); and AKAA (Paris).

About Salifou Lindou:
Salifou Lindou (b. 1965, Douala, Cameroon) is a multidisciplinary artist who works and lives in Douala. A self-taught artist, Lindou is part of the former generations of Cameroonian artists now passing the torch to a new, globalized generation.

If Lindou deals with topical issues, his striving to oppose the vulnerability of the body is a recurring theme in his work. Internal as well as external fights, stirring individuals and society, arise under his pastels. On the paper as on the canvas, Lindou explores the complexity of human beings through scenes of daily life, fed with references to legends and classics, all-the-while rooted in modern painting. 

Lindou’s work has been featured in numerous international fairs such as Art Paris (Paris); 1-54 London (London); 1-54 New York (New York); ARCO Madrid (Madrid); Art Paris (Paris); and exhibition in institutions including the National Museum of Yaounde (Yaounde); Institut des Cultures de l’Islam (Paris); Art Hub Copenhagen (Copenhagen).

About Omar Mafoudi:
Omar Mahfoudi (b.1981, Tangier, Morocco) is a multidisciplinary artist who works and lives in Paris. In his art, he reinvents and rewrites the history of human beings through emotions.

Mainly working with ink and acrylic, he plays with the movement of the matter created on the surface of the canvas. His oases, timeless territories bathed in a distant light and conducive to rêverie, are fed and enriched by eclectic influences, from Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado’s Amazonia series to the prints of Katsushika Hokusai, as the ambient gold brings to his imagery a perception of heat and mystery.

Mahfoudi’s work has been featured in a number of international fairs such as AKAA (Paris); 1-54 London (London); and ARCO (Madrid).

About Nana Yaw Oduro:
Nana Yaw Oduro (b.1994, Accra, Ghana) is a self-taught photographer based in Accra. His photographs act as fictional self-portraits in which his models are like actors, playing a biographical role.

The stories presented in Yaw Oduro’s photographs the photographs unfold as a poetic blend of his personal emotions, evident in the colors of his environments. The chromatic treatment structures his images, producing a tangible softness and harmony between shapes and colors, between man and nature, continuously underpinning the narrative.

His work is part of the collection of the Chazen Museum (Madison, USA).

About AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris:
Founded in 2018 by Florian Azzopardi, AFIKARIS Gallery started as an online platform and showroom specialized in the work of both emerging and established artists from African and its diaspora, before opening a dedicated Paris-based gallery space in 2021. Engaged in promoting cross cultural and disciplinary exchange, AFIKARIS acts as a platform for artists to engage with the wider public. A mirror onto and space for reflection on the contemporary African art scene, it provides artists with a space to address the topical local and international issues at the heart of their art.

AFIKARIS’s curated program includes group and solo exhibitions; art fairs; publications; as well as institutional partnerships.

Currently on view:

Un Monde Bleu | October 2—November 2, 2021
AFIKARIS Gallery
38 rue Quincampoix
75004 Paris, France
info@afikaris.com
www.afikaris.com

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AFIKARIS Gallery Goes Blue for Cameroonian Artist Moustapha Baidi Oumarou's First Solo Show in France

Left. Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Le trône invisible, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 180 x 120 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery. Right. Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Cliché idéal, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 300 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

Presented from October 2—November 2, 2021, Un Monde Bleu unveils a series of a dozen new paintings, bearing witness to Moustapha Baidi Oumarou's interpretative use of the color blue as the artist calls out a message of peace and harmony. 

October 2–November 2, 2021

September 20, 2021 (Paris, France) – Having brought to light the works of Cameroonian artists Jean David Nkot (Human@Condition, May 29—July 7, 2021) and Ajarb Bernard Ategwa (Kwata Saloon, August 28—September 28, 2021), AFIKARIS Gallery unveils its third solo exhibition, a showcase of a dozen new works by emerging artist Moustapha Baidi Oumarou (b. 1997, Maroua, Cameroon). On view from October 2—November 2, 2021, Un Monde Bleu puts in perspective and revisits the use of the color blue in art, as the artist subtly addresses ongoing sociological and political issues, all-the-while conveying a sense of peace and harmony.

For “humanist painter” Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, blue evokes a dreamed, ideal world, in which the color, most often associated with peace, grows enshrined with a healing virtue. Eager to confer a defined purpose to his oeuvre – that of bringing people joy, inviting them to focus on the positive aspects of life – blue is the main support in his work. Mirroring the humanist approach that characterizes his overall artistic language, Baidi Oumarou communicates a message of joy, harmony, solidarity – and peace. The scenes of daily life that adorn his canvases, moments of calm in which his characters appear to be at a standstill, draw attention to the essence that brings them together, shining a light on notions of family, friendship, and togetherness. The flat, outlined, and monochrome surfaces turn away from any form of ornamentation, instead pointing to a simple, pure feeling that brings the seemingly distinct shapes harmoniously together.

Cliché idéal (2021) is the embodiment of this harmony. In this quiet family moment, the characters gather at the center of the canvas. Around them, a deep blue inundates the environment seemingly enclaving the group, yet perceptibly enveloping it instead. The characters, all but disturbed by their surroundings, turn peacefully to the viewer, as a feeling of warmth and togetherness slowly emanates from them. Revisiting a long tradition of family portraits, one embellished by representations of wealth, Baidi Oumarou’s stroke is definite, pure, as he turns the focus on the essence of his characters – the bonds that tie them together – rather than on their wealth. Stripped of their superfluous belongings, they exert a holistic sense of plenitude, one that extends beyond materiality.

Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Ma bicyclette blanche 1, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 140 x 130 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

More than an enduring message, Un Monde Bleu is thought as a nod to the health situation the world has experienced and continues to experience since 2020. Wrapping AFIKARIS’s 130-m2 space in this very color blue, the exhibition space becomes a haven of peace, extending a reflection on our way of approaching others, one that has been significantly altered by the pandemic. With social distancing measures and the obligation to wear a mask still enduring, a widespread sense of fear, distrust in some cases, has been generated, thereby redefining social interactions. Particularly sensitive to these collateral effects, the artist subtly points to the inequalities emerging from the wide range of government responses to the pandemic, throughout Africa and on other continents, where restrictions, and the resulting seclusion, have proved tougher.

Circumstantial, common snapshots of life, his canvases do not only look back to a lost distanced past, rather carrying a message of hope that togetherness will follow from this passing moment of isolation. Through his faceless characters, anonymized yet universally recognizable, differences are erased: the markers of physical and social barriers are taken down, leaving space for individuals to emerge. An unsaid homage to the children in his city’s poorest neighborhoods, his art is an ode to people’s deep desire, and ability, to once again live in harmony. Aptly expressing these themes in Ma bicyclette blanche 1 (2021), Baidi Oumarou skillfully translates a sense of movement from a character that appears to stand still. In doing so, he instigates a notion of progress, of improvement, the potential and ability to move towards a better future.

Ultimately, Un Monde Bleu is not only the artist’s, but also his viewer’s, dreamed world – an ideal, shared universe where people forget their differences and live in harmony and peace.

In parallel to the exhibition, the work of Moustapha Baidi Oumarou will be showcased at the 1-54 contemporary African art fair in London, on view from October 12—17, 2021.

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NOTES TO EDITORS: 

About Moustapha Baidi Oumarou:
Moustapha Baidi Oumarou (b. 1997, Maroua, Cameroon) is a multidisciplinary artist who works and lives in Maroua. A self-taught artist, Moustapha Baidi Oumarou describes himself as a “conscious and humanist painter.” This humanism shows through his paintings and drawings, in an attempt to relay what the forgotten and most vulnerable cannot express with words.

Most often laying out monochrome backgrounds and human shapes adorned with flowers, his colorful canvases, made in acrylic, translate the good within each of us. Naturally, his delicate and subtle outlines, immersed in a lush nature, evoke a moment of sharing, conviviality, or even introspection. By anonymizing his characters, his nameless yet deeply human shapes suggest a universal message of peace and humanity.

Moustapha Baidi Oumarou’s work has been featured in numerous international fairs such as Art Paris (Paris); 1-54 London (London); Investec Cape Town (Cape Town); and AKAA (Paris). Un Monde Bleu, presented at AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris, from October 2— November 2, 2021, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in France.

About AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris: 
Founded in 2018 by Florian Azzopardi, AFIKARIS Gallery started as an online platform and showroom specialized in the work of both emerging and established artists from African and its diaspora, before opening a dedicated Paris-based gallery space in 2021. Engaged in promoting cross cultural and disciplinary exchange, AFIKARIS acts as a platform for artists to engage with the wider public. A mirror onto and space for reflection on the contemporary African art scene, it provides artists with a space to address the topical local and international issues at the heart of their art.

AFIKARIS’s curated program includes group and solo exhibitions; art fairs; publications; as well as institutional partnerships.

Un Monde Bleu | October 2—November 2, 2021
AFIKARIS Gallery
38 rue Quincampoix
75004 Paris, France
info@afikaris.com
www.afikaris.com 

Current and upcoming presentations:

Group show: Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Salifou Lindou, Omar Mahfoudi, Nana Yaw Oduro
1-54 London | Somerset House, London
October 14—17, 2021

Group show: Jean David Nkot, Cristiano Mangovo, Ousmane Niang, Marc Posso
AKAA Paris | Carreau du Temple, Paris
November 12—14, 2021

Humano e A Natureza | A solo exhibition of Cristiano Mangovo
AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris
November 6—December 5, 2021

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New York-Based Designer Jonathan Hansen Unveils 'In the Clouds' Crystal Glassware Collection

Image credits: In the Clouds Collection, designed by Jonathan Hansen. Photography by Joseph Kramm. Courtesy of Jonathan Hansen.

The new handcrafted and engraved collection of Bohemian crystal explores the theme of the blue sky, conveying a sense of lightness and liberation within each piece.

September 15, 2021 (New York, United States) – Reputed New-York based designer Jonathan Hansen presents his first signature handcrafted and engraved crystal glassware collection, titled In the Clouds. Made by master craftsmen of the Bohemian crystal tradition in the Czech Republic, the collection features 10 hand-engraved glass pieces, ranging from wine goblets, water glasses, and tumblers to carefully sculpted carafes, available in both clear and tinted grey crystal. The images of the clouds are finely engraved in the material, each uniquely punctuating the skies of mouth blown crystal. Launching in Autumn 2021, the collection underlines the refinement and lightness in the materiality of Bohemian crystal, as Hansen once again brings a modern sensibility to traditional materials and fabrication methods.

Further nurturing his dialogue with master craftsmen from across Europe, having worked with the finest Limoges porcelain craftsmen and Italian marble carvers, Hansen deploys his artistic language in tandem with the master craftsmen that follow the Czech Republic’s centuries-old traditional crystal production. Cut, engraved, blown, and painted by hand, Bohemian crystal, hailing from the regions of Bohemia and Silesia since the late 16th century, has long been distinguished for the quality and beauty that has come to characterize its ateliers and schools, and the techniques passed on by them. In the Clouds is characterized by this finesse and the embodiment of its unique essence, as each piece in the collection, handmade, is slightly different – a tactility that can only be felt in the perfection and imperfection of this craft.

Moving from Limoges porcelain to glass, Hansen immerses himself once more in the atmospheric depth that he endowed upon his 2020 Ciels Bleus collection, conceived in collaboration with esteemed French design brand Marie Daâge. Returning to the theme of the blue sky, he further cultivates the notion of clearness, this time expressing it through both the concept and a material that inherently possesses this attribute. Hansen’s clear skies, pristinely blue on the delicate Limoges porcelain, embrace the full expanse of their meaning as they take on the transparent Bohemian glass. Hansen’s pieces exude a material clarity, evoking a boundless space and a fresh, contemplative lightness.

“Capturing in a transparent material a subject that is itself a mass of water drops, constantly moving and alive, was a big part of my idea behind the In the Clouds collection. The engravers were able to create a beautiful sense of movement through the varying engraving depths, and in combination with the refraction of light and transparency of the crystal, the clouds come to life.” – Jonathan Hansen

Through this collection, Hansen detaches his objects from their material constraints. Extending the perceived limits of crystal, he confers it with a new topography of its own. This Leitmotiv in the designer’s work is also perceptible in his ongoing SERIES. While the first iteration, Captum Biomorfe, set organic forms within the material restraints of a cast, using Calacatta marble and resin mounted on bronze, SERIES II: Eximo Biomorfe further probes the oppositional forces of captivity and freedom in static objects.

Though In the Clouds marks the first crystal glassware collection under his name, Hansen has been working with the material since 2009. He has built an extensive portfolio of glassware collections produced for leading designers and brands, including Thom Browne for Baccarat, Lisa Perry for Coca-Cola, and AERIN.

The In the Clouds collection is available for pre-order on leading design and fashion retailer Moda Operandi. Additional reputed international retailers including FARFECTH and Browns will follow in the Fall 2021.

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NOTES TO EDITORS: 

About Jonathan Hansen:
A contemporary creator with classical foundations, New York-based designer Jonathan Hansen has established his signature through collaborations with some of the leading names of fashion and furniture design. Building on his training in 18th- and 19th-century French, English and American furniture design, Hansen investigates the fragile equilibrium between functionality and abstraction that comes with each interaction between human and object. Placing the human body at the core of his work, he conceives each piece as a biomorphic being endowed with a subtle human essence.

Designing and fabricating objects for the past 20 years, he launched his product design firm Jonathan Hansen + Co. in 2010. Hansen has worked with leading global fashion designers and brands including Thom Browne, Lisa Perry, AERIN, Ralph Rucci, The HAAS BROTHERS, Marie Daâge, and L’OBJET, where he currently acts as Design Director.

In 2018, he debuted his independent design editions, SERIES I: Captum Biomorfe – the first of a continuous series of furniture design collections through which he addresses the ties between design, architecture, sculpture, and the human body. The series’ second iteration, titled SERIES II: Eximo Biomorfe, will be presented in 2022.

Hansen's design work has garnered academic and media attention alike. SERIES I was recently included in Karen Pearse’s Splendor of Marble: Marvelous Spaces by the Worlds Top Architects and Designers (Rizzoli, 2020), and his collections have been featured in The New York Times, Architectural Digest, Vogue, ELLE Decor, and Harper's Bazaar, among others.

jonathan-hansen.com

The In the Clouds collection is available for pre-order on leading design and fashion retailer Moda Operandi. Additional reputed international retailers including FARFECTH and Browns will follow in the Fall 2021.

Facebook | Instagram | @jonathandhansen @hansen.series

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Multimedia Artist Annina Roescheisen Presents New Paintings and Drawings from her Ongoing 'Flying Dragons' Series in a Solo Show at Athenessa Gallery in Los Angeles

Titled The Red Twine of Flying Dragons, the exhibition features 20 new mixed media works, each conceived by the artist over the course of over 20 consecutive hours. The new work expands on the Flying Dragons series and reflect Roescheisen’s ceaseless and expanding exploration of human emotions through the symbolism of color.

November 7 – December 5, 2021

Athenessa Gallery | 616 South La Brea Avenue | Los Angeles, CA 90036

Left. Annina Roescheisen, Lovers Again & Again, 2019. Mixed media on aluminum canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Courtesy of Annina Roescheisen. Right. Annina Roescheisen, Blossom, 2019. Mixed media on aluminum canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Courtesy of Annina Roescheisen.

September 8, 2021 (Los Angeles, California, United States) – New York/Munich-based German multimedia artist Annina Roescheisen (b. 1982, Rosenheim) presents The Red Twine of Flying Dragons, an all-new selection of seven mixed media paintings and 13 mixed media and ink drawings from her ongoing Flying Dragons series. On view at Athenessa Gallery, Los Angeles, from November 7—December 5, 2021, the works build on the artist’s first and only exhibition of the series at Athenessa in 2019, as she pursues her investigation of human emotions, and of the human condition, as they materialize through color.

Cultivating her study of Medieval art, iconography, and fairy tales, Roescheisen draws her attention to the notion of bestiaries: collections of allegorical tales of animals, birds, and fantastic creatures, the first of which appeared in the 2nd century AD, in which each being is bestowed with a moral and symbolic quality. In Flying Dragons, she mirrors the symbolism of dragons onto her inner world. Emotions, like dragons, cannot be scientifically perceived. Yet, emotions are real. And as they are, dragons can be too. Moving beyond the questioning of their existence, and past the at times positive, at others negative nature conferred to dragons, she expresses instead their inherent power, one akin to that of emotions.

Through her creative process, the artist herself becomes subject and object of her myth. Weaving in the notion of alchemy, she meticulously blends pigments in the making of her own tints. She begins each painting with two colors, leaving the rest of her palette to raw intuition. Setting the canvas on the ground, her fingers take on the role of brushes; she delicately pours water onto it, her hands in turn glazing the surface and swiveling the canvas. Roescheisen’s creative sessions for one work can extend between 20 and 26 consecutive hours, as she slowly enters an altered state of physical and spiritual self and gradually composes her artistic language. Layers cumulate with time, in turn drying and imbibing the canvas. In her drawings, echoing the lavish illustrations of bestiary manuscripts, Roescheisen finely traces on the paper with a feather, punctuating it with dripping beads of the alchemically mixed colors.

In a constant emotional and rational interplay, Roescheisen’s dialogue with her own fantastic world, her own dragons, materializes on the canvas and on the paper. Forms appear, mirroring the manifold emotions that stir the artist at each given moment of the process. Lain across the works, these imaginary beings take on their widest sense as she encourages her viewer to delve into his own fantasy, to create and to name his own personal dragons.

In Téméraire (2021), “reckless” or “fearless” in French, the vivid blue and red colors are the first perceived, each attributed to a distinct dragon. The two phantasmagoric figures gradually build up to the viewer as blood vessel-like veins run down to their center. From there, the color tones become softer, diluting into shades of rosé, orange, purple, and yellow. Slowly, a form of kindness, at first concealed by the bright reds and blues, emerges from the canvas, glowing in the face of an apparent fearlessness.
Roescheisen explains:

“The attributes of each dragon’s character unfold through form and color – sometimes appearing as visible shapes, sometimes emanating from the colors that constitute them. Each form, each color evokes an emotion within us, and from it we begin to decipher, to imagine each dragon’s essence, its multiple personas. These dragons evoke an endless, unique range of emotions in each one of us, and with them we realize that we are in fact free to perceive, to see, to feel, and to interpret, ultimately each creating our very own dragons.”

To some of the drawings, she subtly adds a string of red yarn, sewn onto the paper. This red twine, sometimes present, sometimes absent, both visible and invisible, and which lends the exhibition its name, unfolds from one work to the other; it is the red line of her own myth, of her emotional journey within each work, playfully appearing then vanishing between each work. A visual leitmotiv, it ties the body of work together, a border between the real and the fictional, the seen and the unseen, the human and the dragon within each one.

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NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Annina Roescheisen:
Annina Roescheisen (b. 1982, Rosenheim, Germany) is a multimedia fine artist living and working in New York and Munich. In her work, which ranges from video, drawing, and painting to installation and performance art, Roescheisen engages and nurtures investigations on a shared human, and spiritual, condition.

Building on the impact and symbolism of color in its ability to evoke human emotions, she addresses themes ranging from the self & the other, the inner & outer world, the visible & the invisible, dream & reality, while consistently suggesting shifts in perspective. Drawn to how the human body interacts with and reacts to its sensitive environment – colors, textures, and sounds – she places physicality at the root of her creative process. Her body becomes an inherent part of the artwork, both object and subject of it, whether performative or materialized. Exploring the imperceptible, she exposes the invisible, the intangible, and the inaudible’s transient yet boundless influence over our physical and emotional selves.

Roescheisen’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions worldwide. Notable solo exhibitions include Bridging Grey, Ki Smith Gallery, New York (2019); Black & Blue, Speerstra Gallery, Paris (2018); and What are you fishing for? MANA Contemporary Art Museum, New Jersey (2017). She has taken part in numerous group shows among which the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Salon Berlin – Museum Frieder Burda, Berlin (2019).

Since 2012, she has been continuously performing in Systema Occam by reputed French artist Xavier Veilhan, previously shown at the Delacroix Museum and Hermès Foundation, Paris, among others. Her 2015 video work, A Love Story, received wide international acclaim, conferring her multiple awards including the Award of Merit – Best Woman Filmmaker at the Best Short Film Festival (Los Angeles, 2015) and the International Award of Outstanding Excellence at the International Film Festival for Peace, Inspiration & Equality (IFFPIE, Jakarta, 2016).

anninaroescheisen.com

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Photo London 2021 | Multimedia Artist Annina Roescheisen Presents Bridging Grey Photographic Series

Photo London | Boogie-wall Gallery, London 

9—12 September 2021

Preview: Wednesday 8 September, 1—9PM

Somerset House | Strand, WC2R 1LA London

Annina Roescheisen, Bridging Grey - 1, 2019. Chromogenic fine art print mounted on Dibond, 80 x 120. Edition of 7 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist.

Annina Roescheisen, Bridging Grey - 0, 2019. Chromogenic fine art print mounted on Dibond, 40 x 60 cm. Edition of 7 + 2 AP. Courtesy of the artist.

August 31, 2021 (London, United Kingdom) — Munich and New York-based multimedia artist Annina Roescheisen unveils a selection of photographs from her acclaimed Bridging Grey performative video piece (2017—2019), marking the series’ European debut after being shown for the first and only time in New York in September 2019. On view at Photo London 2021 from September 9—12, 2021, the selection will be featured as part of Boogie-wall Gallery, London’s Three Women to Watch presentation.

Bridging Grey centers on Roescheisen’s intuitive exploration of the interconnectedness of color, movement, and emotion, as she takes the aesthetics of color and, quite literally, embodies it. Choreographed and executed by the artist over the course of over two years from 2017 to 2019, the performance is presented as an eight-channel video installation. Seven screens continuously and simultaneously loop a one-minute video, one for each color of the rainbow: red, orange, yellow, green, light blue, indigo, and violet. An eighth screen, dedicated to the color grey, is placed at the center, its duration being the sum of all other videos, hereby playing consecutively in concert with each of the seven colors as the viewer traverses the work. In each video, Roescheisen poetically embraces a room gently washed in the corresponding hue, staging her own perceptions and emotions of each color.

Stills taken from the original video work, three chromogenic prints mounted on Dibond – Bridging Grey 0, 1, and 2 – will be presented by Boogie-wall Gallery, London as part of the gallery’s presentation at Photo London 2021.

For more information, please visit the Photo London website.

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NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Annina Roescheisen:

Annina Roescheisen (b. 1982, Rosenheim, Germany) is a multimedia fine artist living and working in New York and Munich. In her work, which ranges from video, drawing, and painting to installation and performance art, Roescheisen engages and nurtures investigations on a shared human, and spiritual, condition. 

Building on the impact and symbolism of color in its ability to evoke human emotions, she addresses themes ranging from the self & the other, the inner & outer world, the visible & the invisible, dream & reality, while consistently suggesting shifts in perspective. Drawn to how the human body interacts with and reacts to its sensitive environment – colors, textures, and sounds – she places physicality at the root of her creative process. Her body becomes an inherent part of the artwork, both object and subject of it, whether performative or materialized. Exploring the imperceptible, she exposes the invisible, the intangible, and the inaudible’s transient yet boundless influence over our physical and emotional selves. 

Roescheisen’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions worldwide. Notable solo exhibitions include Bridging Grey, Ki Smith Gallery, New York (2019); Black & Blue, Speerstra Gallery, Paris (2018); and What are you fishing for? MANA Contemporary Art Museum, New Jersey (2017). She has taken part in numerous group shows among which the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Salon Berlin – Museum Frieder Burda, Berlin (2019).

Since 2012, she has been continuously performing in Systema Occam by reputed French artist Xavier Veilhan, previously shown at the Delacroix Museum and Hermès Foundation, Paris, among others. Her 2015 video work, A Love Story, received wide international acclaim, conferring her multiple awards including the Award of Merit – Best Woman Filmmaker at the Best Short Film Festival (Los Angeles, 2015) and the International Award of Outstanding Excellence at the International Film Festival for Peace, Inspiration & Equality (IFFPIE, Jakarta, 2016).

anninaroescheisen.com

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Museum Frieder Burda Presents Major Solo Exhibition of German Artist Katharina Sieverding in Baden-Baden and Berlin

Katharina Sieverding, THE GREAT WHITE WAY GOES BLACK, IX, 1977. Color photograph, acrylic, and steel frames, 300 x 500 cm. Installation view of the exhibition: Katharina Sieverding – Close Up, KW Institute for Contemporary Art Berlin, 2005 © Katharina Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021.

Watching the Sun at Midnight at Museum Frieder Burda and Headlines at the museum’s Berlin exhibition space Salon Berlin brings together works spanning all phases of Sieverding’s pioneering and widely appreciated 60-year oeuvre. The exhibition will include videos from the late 1960s as well as her oversized self-portrait series from the 1970s to the 1990s, right up to her contemporary productions.

Watching the Sun at Midnight | August 28, 2021 – January 9, 2022 | Museum Frieder Burda 

Headlines | September 3 – 26, 2021 | Salon Berlin – Museum Frieder Burda 

August 5, 2021 (Baden-Baden, Germany) – The internationally renowned art museum Museum Frieder Burda, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Richard Meier, and widely acclaimed for its significant private collection of Classical Modernism and Contemporary Art of over 1,000 works, unveils a major exhibition of reputed German artist Katharina Sieverding. Curated by Udo Kittelmann in cooperation with Katharina Sieverding, Watching the Sun at Midnight pays homage to Sieverding’s persistent treatment of contemporary German and global matters, one that has ensured the ongoing relevance of her work over the past 60 years. In conjunction with the exhibition in Baden-Baden, Salon Berlin presents Headlines, a thematically focused selection of large-scale photographs referring to the darkest chapter in Germany’s history, the National Socialist era, in the Former Jewish Girls’ School in Auguststrasse in Berlin. 

Organized in collaboration with Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Watching the Sun at Midnight is an extensive solo presentation of Czech-born German artist Katharina Sieverding’s (b. 1944, Prague) work, covering all phases of her oeuvre from her videos of the late 1960s to her oversized self-portrait series of the 1970s and up to her contemporary productions, with new works including Gefechtspause (“Ceasefire”), which addresses the lockdown during the COVID-19 crisis. This exhibition is the latest in a series of monographic exhibitions of photography-based positions at the Museum Frieder Burda, including Gregory Crewdson, Andreas Gursky, Rodney Graham, and JR, all of which investigated the staging opportunities and great breadth of technology as opposed to painting.

A student of German artist Joseph Beuys, Sieverding has continuously focused her artistic energy on political issues. Considered a pioneer of photography internationally, testing the boundaries of the medium’s manifold technical possibilities, she is known for her unconventional visual strategies and media-led creative practice. She has revitalized the artistic potential of photography, introducing the super-sized format as a key element of her exhibitions, at a time when the practice was seldom utilized. In her serial photographic works, she gives expression to reflections about identity, the current social, political, and cultural climate, gender discourses, and the necessary emancipation of the female artist. Mirroring her themes and subjective perception of current events, her works convey an image of the time.

Katharina Sieverding, O.T.I / 2019, (Dachau), Digitaldruckauf Vliesrückenpapier, 252 x 356 cm © Katharina Sieverding, VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2021 © Foto: Klaus Mettig, VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2021.

From the microscopic to the macroscopic, the references in her oeuvre are complex. Her father’s clinically dissecting view sharpened her own focus and opened it to the technical opportunities presented by her chosen medium. From her origins in theater, Sieverding understood how images on a wall can define an entire room, with the same immediate and all-consuming effect of a stage backdrop or a big screen in a cinema – which in turn unlock the imagination for an introspective look at fantasy worlds. Her pictures, often in black-and-white with a bright red signal color and accompanied by striking slogans, reflect media-based and commercial manipulation strategies, questioning them at the same time: it is no coincidence that the artist has repeatedly and consciously escaped the museum setting and sought direct contact with the broader public in common urban spaces. Her earlier, highly self-reflective role in the Düsseldorf art scene, which came across mainly as a men’s club, raised her awareness of the question of one’s own individuality and identity, gender, history and its conditions – and the fluid borders and process-like transformations between these categories. 

“I don’t make propaganda art and I don’t want to be seen as somebody who stands for anything in particular. All these designations merely pin me down. I want to adopt an independent position and express my thoughts through my works.” – Katharina Sieverding

In addition to the presentation at Museum Frieder Burda in Baden-Baden, the concomitant exhibition Headlines will be on view from September 3 – 26, 2021, at the institution’s Berlin-based exhibition space, Salon Berlin, located in the notable Former Jewish Girls’ School on the city’s historical Auguststrasse. The thematic selection brings together large-format photographic works by the artist that turn to the darkest part of German history: that of National Socialism. Through these photographs, which build on documents from the concentration camps at Dachau and Sachsenhausen, as well as records held at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Sieverding points to the widely diverse manifestations and expressions of anti-Semitism and exclusion, racism, and violence, outlining the latter’s timelessness and societies’ inability to surmount them as they recur throughout history. On the occasion of her exhibition in 2019 at the Dachau Palace, the artist herself stated, “[t]his moment in time has vehemently touched me, especially as I observe the current evolution of Germany.” In parallel, moving from the shared history to her personal biography, the artist also presents monumental self-portraits from the late 1960s and the work TESTCUTS, a reflection on Katharina Sieverding’s own life: events in the art world from 1966 to the present are shown together to form a large-scale 20 meter photo collage.

Considered one of the leading art museums in Germany and internationally, Museum Frieder Burda is home to its founder Frieder Burda’s extensive and growing collection of Classical Modernism and Contemporary Art, encompassing over 1,000 paintings, sculptures, objects, photographs, and works on paper. In addition to its collection, the museum has mounted major solo exhibitions, presenting works of Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Katharina Grosse, William N. Copley, Andreas Gursky, and James Turrell. Inaugurated in 2004, the museum’s five-storey building nestled in Baden-Baden’s majestic Lichtentaler Park, designed by iconic New York architect Richard Meier, caught the world’s attention for the luminosity of the design, inducing visitors to experience the art and the space in an equally awe-inspiring manner – and owing it to be referred by many as the “Jewel in the Park” in the newly recognized UNESCO World Heritage site of Baden-Baden. 

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NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Katharina Sieverding:

Born in Prague, Katharina Sieverding studied at the Hamburg Academy of Fine Arts and at the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. She was involved in several theater productions as a stage designer, including the Deutsches Schauspielhaus Hamburg, the Burgtheater Vienna, the Düsseldorf Schauspielhaus and the Deutsche Oper Berlin. In 1967 Sieverding joined the class of Joseph Beuys at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. She traveled to and gave lectures in Canada, the People’s Republic of China and the Soviet Union. From 1990 to 1992, she was a visiting professor at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts and subsequently held a professorship for Visual Culture Studies at the Berlin University of the Arts. Other guest professorships included the Center for Contemporary Art Kitakyushu in Japan, the International Summer Academy in Salzburg and the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.

Her work has been shown in 850 group and 150 solo exhibitions and is represented in numerous renowned collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, the Museum Folkwang, Essen, and the Kunstsammlung NRW. Katharina Sieverding has participated in the documenta in Kassel several times and in the Venice Biennale. She has received numerous prestigious awards and scholarships. Katharina Sieverding lives and works in Düsseldorf.

About Udo Kittelmann:

Udo Kittelmann (Düsseldorf, Germany, 1958) is the artistic director of the Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden. Long-time director of the Nationalgalerie in Berlin (2008-2020), he has also acted as director of the Kölnischer Kunstverein (1994—2001) and of the Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (MMK) (2002—2008). A world-renowned curator known for his investigations of curatorial practices and institutions’ relationships with art, Kittelmann has based his curatorial approach on close collaboration with artists, setting up their works, moving beyond the aesthetic dimension and focusing on the artworks’ specific socio-political context. 

About Museum Frieder Burda:

Museum Frieder Burda is an internationally acclaimed Modern and Contemporary art museum located in Baden-Baden, Germany, home to the prestigious Frieder Burda Collection which concentrates on Classical Modernism and Contemporary Art and encompasses around 1000 paintings, sculptures, objects, photographs, and works on paper. Held under the Frieder Burda Foundation since 1998, which the eponymous collector established to preserve and make it accessible to the public, it is now housed in a building designed by American star architect Richard Meier in 2004. Since opening, the museum has hosted numerous high-caliber solo exhibitions by the likes of Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Katharina Grosse, William N. Copley, Andreas Gursky, Anselm Kiefer, and James Turrell. 

About Salon Berlin – Museum Frieder Burda:

Opened in 2016, Salon Berlin is the Museum Frieder Burda’s Berlin-based exhibition and event space. Closely linked to the museum in Baden-Baden, the Salon accompanies and conveys the museum’s program and collection. Under the artistic direction of its founder Patricia Kamp, it is dedicated to the promotion and mediation of new forms of artistic expression. Past exhibitions included the first institutional solo exhibitions of Sonia Gomes, Bharti Kher and Matthew Lutz-Kinoy in Germany as well as thematic exhibitions that brought into dialogue works by artists, such as Alicja Kwade, Candice Breitz, or Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg with artworks by Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, William Copley, or Willem de Kooning from the Frieder Burda Collection.

Katharina Sieverding, Watching the Sun at Midnight 

August 28, 2021—January 9, 2022

Museum Frieder Burda

Lichtentaler Allee 8b, 76530 Baden-Baden

Opening hours: Tuesday–Sunday, 10am—6pm

Katharina Sieverding, Headlines

September 3–26, 2021

Salon Berlin – Museum Frieder Burda, Berlin

Auguststrasse 11—13, 10117 Berlin

Opening hours: Tuesday–Thursday, 3pm–6pm, Friday–Saturday, 12pm–6pm

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Berlin-Based Heim Balp Architekten Complete Two New Urban Infill Projects in Barcelona

Left. Heim Balp Architekten. Exterior view of Carrer de la Diputació residential building in Barcelona, Spain. Photography with Filippo Poli. Courtesy of Heim Balp Architekten. Right. Heim Balp Architekten. Exterior view of Carrer de Nàpols residential building in Barcelona, Spain. Photography with Filippo Poli. Courtesy of Heim Balp Architekten.

The newly completed Carrer de la Diputació and Carrer de Nàpols residential urban infills engage with the city’s rich architectural and cultural sphere, all-the-while responding to its dense urban environment.

August 3, 2021 (Barcelona, Spain) – HEIM BALP ARCHITEKTEN, the Berlin-based practice founded in 2006 by Michael Heim and Pietro Balp, have completed the Carrer de la Diputació and Carrer de Nàpols residential developments. By conceiving them as urban infills, the architecture and urban design team, whose vision is rooted in a distinct notion of architecture as social incubator, demonstrates its sensitivity to and engagement with the local architectural, cultural, and urban context. These completions, each with its distinct architectural language, will be followed by the Carrer de Gombau and Carrer de l’Aurora projects, also addressing Barcelona’s compact urban sphere through context-specific infills, due to be completed in 2022.

With projects across Europe from Berlin to Barcelona and Milan, Heim Balp’s multifaceted designs include, and often merge, residential and cultural projects with commercial and work environments. Cultivating space’s considerable potential to shape social interaction, influenced by its founders’ experience of 1990s Berlin, they create inherently social, diverse communities that respond to and expand on the existing urban dynamics at play. 

Heim Balp Architekten. Exterior view of Carrer de la Diputació’s façade in Barcelona, Spain. Photography with Filippo Poli. Courtesy of Heim Balp Architekten.

Looking to seize and develop the full potential of the given urban space, Heim Balp’s designs for the Carrer de la Diputació and Carrer de Nàpols build on the applied notion of urban infill. Both located in Barcelona’s dense Eixample quarter, erected in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Carrer de la Diputació is a seven-story building situated on a 7.5-meter-wide and 28-meter-deep site, entirely covered by the building, while Carrer de Nàpols occupies a prominent corner site with a singular 45-degree oblique floor plan. Both conceived as vertical extensions of the city in response to a limited ground area, they reflect the studio’s creative and pragmatic understanding of local planning policies and constraints, all-the-more in a city advocating for reduced density. 

Intent on retaining a contextual essence, the local culture guides the material and aesthetic choices of the Diputació and Nàpols projects, noticeable in particular on the façades. Circulating local restrictions for a classical, hierarchical floor division, the cladding of both multilayered façades – complementing windows with filtering panels – is folded in and out, reflecting Barcelona’s playful architecture, each through its very own, singular architectural language. At Carrer de la Diputació, the hybrid façade is clad with openable red stretch steel panels, boldly calling to the brick colors of the historic Plaza de Toros. Set vertically, they extend upwards, emphasizing the verticality of the slim building while serving protection from sun and glare. Fixed over a first partly concealed window front, the terracotta panels of the Carrer de Nápols play with the color of the city’s traditional plaster façades, replacing them with beautifully crafted ceramics tiles instead. Continuously referencing the surrounding culture, Heim Balp expose a porous building, where visible French windows and hidden loggias coexist: a filter through which residents communicate with the rest of the city.

Heim Balp Architekten. Exterior view of Carrer de Nàpols’s façade in Barcelona, Spain. Photography with Filippo Poli. Courtesy of Heim Balp Architekten.

Their designs are conceived as an inherently mixed-use space, allowing for a plurality of functions to cohabit. Building on their experience of Berlin’s urban revival in the 1990s, during which they founded and managed DELI – a 1,000-square-meter warehouse-turned-alternative event space for creative interventions and social exchange – Heim and Balp consider these two buildings as rife with spatial possibilities. In both cases, fostering the notion of community while responding to the limited size of the individual units, they turn shared spaces into a common resource, distributing communal spaces throughout the building. At la Diputació, the main common area is the basement, equipped with a kitchen and a shared laundry room, as well as leisure and work areas. The other two, a mezzanine and large rooftop space, open onto the luminous atrium, the facing street, and over the rest of the city. Based on mobility and connectivity, the resulting designs act as intelligible contemporary urban living spaces.

Co-founding partners Michael Heim and Pietro Balp expand:

“Our shared time in Berlin in the 1990s has led us to conceive of space as inherently raw and full of opportunities. As a core part of a space, architecture has a considerable potential to shape the experiences within it. By fusing various functions – the public and the private, the social, the commercial, and the cultural – these two Barcelonian designs cultivate endless interactions with and between the individuals that inhabit them, ultimately generating a new, essential social energy.”

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NOTES TO EDITORS: 

About Heim Balp Architekten:

Heim Balp Architekten is a Berlin-based architecture and urban design practice founded in 2006 by Michael Heim and Pietro Balp. Influenced by its founders’ individual experiences of 1990s Berlin, the practice’s vision is rooted in the notion of architecture as social incubator. With projects across Europe from Berlin to Barcelona and Milan, their designs range from residential and cultural projects to commercial and work environments. 

With teams in Madrid and Milan, the studio has engaged in over 150 European and global projects. Recently completed projects include Carrer de la Diputació and Carrer de Nàpols, Barcelona, Spain (residential/hospitality); Lindower Straße, Berlin, Germany (mixed-use); Casa d’Poço, Mindelo, Cabo Verde (hospitality); the MCE Production Facility, Timisoara, Romania (commercial/industrial); and Gutshof Güldenhof, Stechlin, Germany (cultural).

heimbalp.com

Project Information:

Project Name (1): Carrer de la Diputació (453)

Location: Barcelona, Spain (Eixample)

Completion Date: 2021

Type: Mixed-use (residential; hospitality; commercial)

Area: 1,050 m2

Project Team: Pietro Balp; Michael Heim; Ben Goldstein; Sara Brysch; Andreia Martins; Tommaso Petrucci; Giordana Ghinzani; in collaboration with Derryk Dettinger Arquitecte.

Project Name (2): Carrer de Nàpols (236)

Location: Barcelona, Spain (Eixample)

Completion Date: 2021

Type: Residential

Area: 600 m2

Project Team: Pietro Balp; Michael Heim; Ben Goldstein; Andreia Martins; Cecilia Samà; Lia Janela; Federica Carletto; in collaboration with Derryk Dettinger Arquitecte.

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AFIKARIS Gallery Presents ‘Kwata Saloon’, Immersing Visitors Into The Work And World Of Cameroonian Artist Ajarb Bernard Ategwa

Left. Ajarb Bernard Atwega, A family something 2021. Acrylic on canvas. 200 x 199 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery. Right. Ajarb Bernard Ategwa, Early Morning Selfies, 2021. 80 x 80 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

On the occasion of Ajarb Bernard Atwega’s first solo exhibition in France, AFIKARIS Gallery’s 130 m2 Paris space turns into a beauty salon. Kwata Saloon, presented from August 28—September 28, 2021, pays tribute to the ephemeral hair salons popping up each year in Cameroon between November and December, and from which Atwega's new body of work draws its inspiration.

August 28–September 28, 2021

August 2, 2021 (Paris, France) – After having brought visitors to the mines of the Democratic Republic of the Congo with Cameroonian painter Jean David Nkot’s Human@Condition (May 29—July 7, 2021) and reflected on power by confronting the gazes of John Madu and Ousmane Niang (Figures of Power, July 10—August 24, 2021), AFIKARIS Gallery turns to the site of a cultural and social practice that binds generations and genders alike: hair salons. Kwata Saloon unveils a new body of work by Ajarb Bernard Atwega (b. 1988, Kumba, Cameroon), focusing on hairstyling as a source of social connection. On view from August 28—September 28, 2021, the gallery transforms into an immersive beauty parlor as the large, acidic canvases and smaller portraits that populate its walls – echoing the posters traditionally displayed in salons and the headshots shared on social networks – project scenes of togetherness, conviviality, and cultural bonding.

This new series bears witness to a thematic evolution in the art of Atwega, who continuously feeds his iconography with scenes from his daily life in Douala, Cameroon. While his latest series had drawn him to the lush local markets, where the women selling fruits and vegetables were dressed in simple and sober clothes, Kwata Saloon presents them adorned with lavish outfits, sporting flawless hairstyles. Extending beyond individuals to signified places, he turns this time to the beauty salons, as sites and the people that inhabit them once gain fuse across his canvases. Ategwa points to the allure and radiating beauty of his characters, whom he confers with a new, effusive presence.

Looking to the cultural rituals ahead of the festive December season, Kwata Saloon delves specifically into the ephemeral salons that pop up at the end of the year in Cameroon, temporarily opening their doors to a seasonal clientèle before once again closing at the beginning of the following year. While he draws his eye to the pampered women, he also depicts the men involved in this beautifying process, underlining the generational and intergender ties cultivated by this local practice. Setting his easel in the beauty parlors, Ategwa bears witness to a temporary period, during which wellbeing and sharing are a central part of social life. 

The vivid colors spurting under Atwega's brushes pay tribute to the pop aesthetic, mirroring the heat and bustle of Douala, where the artist lives. He homes in on a distinct social phenomenon, anchoring it in the socioeconomic and political context of Cameroon through the very aesthetics of his personal artistic style. In A family something (2021), he draws attention to the familial nature of the process, literally and broadly, highlighting the many generations, genders and strands of society involved. In a moment of togetherness and intimate yet culturally shared family time, two brothers braid their sister’s hair while the other sibling observes the scene. Calling to the contemporary specificity of this custom, the vibrant colors conceal a recognizable urbanism and the markers of a both local and global consumption society.

Ajarb Bernard Ategwa, Douala 24 December, 2021. 200 x 239 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

Douala 24 December (2021) is a glimpse into a beauty salon in Douala on Christmas Eve. The viewer is directly plunged in the intimacy of the hair salon. Barely perceptible from a distance, a fine white line delicately strings from a lock of hair into the skilled fingers of the weaver. The finesse of the thread – one that will carry the complex and weighty structure of the headdress – draws the attention of the viewer to the technicality of the action. Their bodies adorned with swathes of colored dots, the voluptuous figures contrast with the flat areas that compose the surrounding environment. Testifying to the artist’s concern with detail and compositional skill, the canvas ultimately captures the bustle of a celebratory moment, a distinct snippet of family life tainted with anticipation and tenderness. 

"I confer my colors with a very personal, yet perhaps shared symbolic layer. Blue evokes the sea and calls to Douala, Kribi, and Kimbe. Yellow invokes the sun and points to the north of Cameroon. On the other hand, in using red and brown, I hint at the conflicts that have been plaguing the western regions for the past five years. Bathed in these colors, my characters inhabit the reality of their lived environment. Yet, by depicting them as such, I seek to liberate them from the duress of their everyday lives, instead paying homage to small moments of raw joy and broad solidarity." – Ajarb Bernard Ategwa

Mirroring these ephemeral salons, the exhibition space is revisited as a beauty parlor where vibrant shampoo bottles, plastic combs and magazines cohabit with the glow of Ategwa’s paintings. Organized as part of Kwata Saloon, a parallel program involving hair weaving and manicures will be unveiled ahead of the exhibition.

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NOTES TO EDITORS: 

About Ajarb Bernard Ategwa:

Ajarb Bernard Atwega (b. 1988, Kumba, Cameroon) is a multidisciplinary artist who works and lives in Douala, Cameroon. Fascinated with drawing and painting since his youth, he is a self-taught artist.

Mainly made in acrylic, his graphic paintings play with simplified forms and the intensity of colors as he offers a local perspective on modes of self-representation in Cameroon today. The style and composition of his images are reminiscent of post-independence African black-and-white studio photography. While the latter call to the work of Malick Sidibé and Seydou Keita, his use of framing and well-defined identities references the more contemporary influences of image-fused social networks. 

Ajarb Bernard Atwega's work has been presented widely in Cameroon, including at the National Museum of Yaounde (World Bank Exhibition 2019, curated by Simon Njami), and was recently acquired by the Pérez Art Museum Miami. It has also been featured in numerous major international fairs such as FIAC (Paris); Art Basel (Miami, Hong Kong); and Frieze (London). Kwata Saloon, presented at AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris, from August 28—September 28, 2021, is the artist’s first solo exhibition in France.

About AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris: 

Founded in 2018 by Florian Azzopardi, AFIKARIS Gallery started as an online platform and showroom specialized in the work of both emerging and established artists from African and its diaspora, before opening a dedicated Paris-based gallery space in 2021. Engaged in promoting cross cultural and disciplinary exchange, AFIKARIS acts as a platform for artists to engage with the wider public. A mirror onto and space for reflection on the contemporary African art scene, it provides artists with a space to address the topical local and international issues at the heart of their art.

AFIKARIS’s curated program includes group and solo exhibitions; art fairs; publications; as well as institutional partnerships. 

Kwata Saloon | August 28—September 28, 2021

AFIKARIS Gallery

38 rue Quincampoix

75004 Paris, France

info@afikaris.com

www.afikaris.com

Current and upcoming presentations:

Group show: Saïdou Dicko, Salifou Lindou, Cristiano Mangovo

Art Paris Art Fair | Grand Palais Éphémère, Champ de Mars, Paris

September 7—12, 2021

Group show: Moustapha Baidi Oumarou, Salifou Lindou, Omar Mahfoudi, Nana Yaw Oduro

1-54 London | Somerset House, London

October 14—17, 2021

Un Monde Bleu | A solo exhibition of Moustapha Baidi Oumarou

AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris

October 2—November 2, 2021

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Multimedia Artist Annina Roescheisen Unveils All New Paintings in a Solo Show at Boogie-wall Gallery, London

Part of her ongoing Vibrational Strings series, this vibrant selection of new works will mark Roescheisen’s first solo exhibition at Boogie-wall Gallery in London, pursing the artist’s investigations on a shared human and spiritual condition through color.

October 12 – December 20, 2021

Boogie-wall Gallery | 193 Piccadilly, St. James’s, London W1J 9EU

Annina Roescheisen, The Spider, 2021. Mixed media, white ink and oil on aluminum canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

July 27, 2021 (London, United Kingdom) – Contemporary German multimedia artist Annina Roescheisen (b. 1982, Rosenheim) unveils all new paintings as part of her ongoing Vibrational Strings series. The nine new mixed media and ink paintings will be presented for the first time in an eponymous solo show on view from October 12—December 20, 2021.

These new works, produced over the past two years, pursue the artist’s ongoing exploration of the imperceptible’s influence over the physical and emotional self, as she materializes the countless vibrations that constitute the invisible world and that come to define our perception of ourselves and of others. 

Once again, physicality expands as a central part of Roescheisen’s creative process. The artist’s body becomes an inherent part of the artwork, both object and subject of it, as its interactions with and reactions to its environment materialize in it. Her hand becomes the tool for her emotions, as they transpire through it and into the work. Seemingly leading her, yet subconsciously led by her, it unintentionally traverses, grazes, scrapes, caresses, scratches the canvas in a process that, like that of Flying Dragons, unfolds over dozens of consecutive hours, often entire days – only this time, each canvas is the accumulation of several such sessions, undergone over the course of over two months. 

With time, layers add onto the aluminum canvas, often up to 8 or 9. Roescheisen alternates paint, minerals, dripping ink, and with this added texture, the physical layering comes to mirror the emotional layers, the cumulated waves, that it expresses. Each color, meticulously and circumstantially mixed by the artist herself, inherits an emotional meaning, or, as the artist explored in her Bridging Grey performative video work (2017—2019), a duality of meanings that add onto the textural tension of the work.

Annina Roescheisen, Blue Velvet (detail), 2021. Mixed media and ink on aluminum canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Courtesy of the artist.

Across each layer, using a feather and ink, she draws thousands of fine, floating lines, each uniquely positioned, emitting and oscillating with every flicker of her emotions. Roescheisen’s philosophical approach, already tinged with a thirst for experimentation, extends to the fields of music and quantum physics. Just as sound and magnetic waves have been conceptualized, infinitesimally yet unmeasurably impactful throughout our existence, the artist shares her theory of emotional waves, akin to the latter, whereby individuals act as emitting and receiving poles, sensitive to various, unique frequencies and fields that ultimately connect us to one another. Or as she interprets, “I make the invisible world emotionally visible.” 

These vibrations, the visual translation of the latter, constitute Roescheinsen’s visual language. On the canvas, they form a visual symphony – akin to notes on a musical score, and where the artist is at once the composer and the conductor. Performed in front of the viewer, each painting acquires its own resonance, a varying vibration as he draws his eye and his body farther, then closer, to the painting. A quantum field filled with magnetic waves, each canvas achieves its own, inherent frequency, emitted onto the viewer and perceived in its own unique way, if at all, by him.

The first work in the series, Opening (2020)’s earthy tones softly guide the viewer into the artist’s vibrational field. In Shape Shifter (2021), 11 layers culminate into an eye opening, a red circle and beating core at the heart of the canvas. As the viewer bears nearer, faces appear in the background: hundreds, thousands of conversing vibrations that confer the work an intense frequency. The Spider (2021) plunges into the aquatic world. Red coral-like shapes and fine white feather strides populated the dominant blue, an overarching soul which for Roescheisen evokes skies and waters, and profound introspection. Delicately woven together, the forms take on their full sacred power and come to symbolize modesty, wisdom, and immortality. Calling to the reputed 1986 David Lynch neo-noir thriller, “a dream of strange desires wrapped inside a mystery story” as he himself describes, Blue Velvet (2021) is a call to nostalgia, to an imagined reality fed by desire and longing for the past. Connecting old and new frequencies, the work spins and fuses past, present and future. Contemplating her work, Roescheisen explains:

“I seek to erect a bridge that ignites our communication with the imperceptible, evoking new senses, new perceptions. The layers cannot be seen; the sounds cannot be heard; the magnetic waves cannot be touched; yet, like emotions, they can be sensed, and they can be felt.”

Building on her ongoing Flying Dragons (2019—2021) mixed media and ink painting series, presented for the first and only time at Athenessa Gallery, Los Angeles, in 2020, The Red Twine of Flying Dragons will be shown at the gallery, in its matured form, in a dedicated solo show from November 7—December 5, 2021.

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NOTES TO EDITORS:
About Annina Roescheisen:
Annina Roescheisen (b. 1982, Rosenheim, Germany) is a multimedia fine artist living and working in New York and Munich. In her work, which ranges from video, drawing, and painting to installation and performance art, Roescheisen engages and nurtures investigations on a shared human, and spiritual, condition. 

Building on the impact and symbolism of color in its ability to evoke human emotions, she addresses themes ranging from the self & the other, the inner & outer world, the visible & the invisible, dream & reality, while consistently suggesting shifts in perspective. Drawn to how the human body interacts with and reacts to its sensitive environment – colors, textures, and sounds – she places physicality at the root of her creative process. Her body becomes an inherent part of the artwork, both object and subject of it, whether performative or materialized. Exploring the imperceptible, she exposes the invisible, the intangible, and the inaudible’s transient yet boundless influence over our physical and emotional selves. 

Roescheisen’s work has been exhibited in galleries and institutions worldwide. Notable solo exhibitions include Bridging Grey, Ki Smith Gallery, New York (2019); Black & Blue, Speerstra Gallery, Paris (2018); and What are you fishing for? MANA Contemporary Art Museum, New Jersey (2017). She has taken part in numerous group shows among which the 56th Venice Biennale (2015) and Salon Berlin – Museum Frieder Burda, Berlin (2019).

Since 2012, she has been continuously performing in Systema Occam by reputed French artist Xavier Veilhan, previously shown at the Delacroix Museum and Hermès Foundation, Paris, among others. Her 2015 video work, A Love Story, received wide international acclaim, conferring her multiple awards including the Award of Merit – Best Woman Filmmaker at the Best Short Film Festival (Los Angeles, 2015) and the International Award of Outstanding Excellence at the International Film Festival for Peace, Inspiration & Equality (IFFPIE, Jakarta, 2016).

anninaroescheisen.com

Upcoming Annina Roescheisen Exhibitions:
Bridging Grey (photography installation from performative video piece, 2017—2019)
PHOTO LONDON art fair, Boogie-wall Gallery, London
September 9—12, 2021

The Red Twine of Flying Dragons
Athenessa Gallery, Los Angeles
November 7—December 5, 2021

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CHYBIK + KRISTOF ARCHITECTS and DÍLNA Revisit Historical Mendel Square in Brno, Cz, and Transform it Into a Vibrant Public Cultural and Transportation Hub

CHYBIK + KRISTOF. Visualization of the new Mendel Square design, Brno, Czech Republic. Courtesy of CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers.

Part of a large revival plan for the city, the new design pays homage to Brno’s rich cultural past – once again demonstrating CHYBIK + KRISTOF’s abiding engagement in preserving architectural heritage. Partnering with local practice dílna, they expose the square’s core functional and historical role, hereby affirming their commitment to fostering positive social change.

July 19, 2021 (Brno, Czech Republic) – Following on their completed restoration and redesign earlier this year of the Brutalist heritage Zvonarka Central Bus Terminal in Brno, CZ, CHYBIK + KRISTOF ARCHITECTS & URBAN DESIGNERS and DÍLNA unveil their new design for the city’s historical Mendel Square. Conducted in collaboration with local landscape architect Zdenek Sendler and transportation engineering firm PK Ossendorf as the first phase of a larger revival plan for this focal part of the city, they transform the existing, decaying transportation hub into a vibrant public space, celebrating Brno’s cultural patrimony while rethinking the site as a functional entity adapted to contemporary social needs.

Mirroring much of Brno’s millennial architectural patrimony, Mendel Square has long foregone its historical significance to become one of the city’s primary transportation hubs, increasingly sidelined by its inhabitants as it fell to gradual deterioration. Active advocates for the preservation of architectural heritage, CHYBIK + KRISTOF reaffirm their longstanding engagement, as their new design for the site joins the restored Brutalist heritage landmark, Zvonarka Bus Terminal, on the studio’s list of architectural protection initiatives. A homage to the area’s multilayered history, their proposal engages with distinct periods of its past, reflected in the surrounding monuments, all-the-while placing the square as the marker of a new chapter in Brno’s historical and sociocultural narrative.

Reflecting the studio’s analysis of the area’s social dynamics, Mendel Square is conceived as a user-centered public space: accessible and functional. The transformation of the square was first initiated by Brno’s chief architect Michal Sedlacek in 2018. After an in-depth study of the area, Sedlacek and his team proposed a series of adjustments for a comprehensive reconstruction, which, following a local public competition, was awarded to dílna. Working with local authorities and practitioners, including landscape specialist Zdenek Sendler and transportation engineering firm PK Ossendorf, CHYBIK + KRISTOF and dílna propose a multifaceted platform responsive to public needs, supplementing the transportation hub with a sociocultural dimension that has come to characterize many of the studio’s innovative and versatile designs. Adopting a holistic social and technical approach, they reconnect it with the city and its inhabitants, affirming its ties with the past while ensuring its relevance for contemporary, and future, living.

CHYBIK + KRISTOF. Drawings for the new Mendel Square design, Brno, Czech Republic. Courtesy of CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers.

Located in the heart of Stare Brno, the oldest part of the town, Mendel Square finds itself at a cultural crossroads for the area. Looking out onto the 14th-century Basilica of Assumption of Our Lady, considered one of the Moravian region’s jewels of Gothic architecture, the square is bordered by the centennial Starobrno brewery and adjoining city walls, leading to the city’s towering Spilberk Castle. With deep ties to the adjacent Abbey of Saint Augustin, the square owes its name to Gregor Mendel, an Augustinian friar who used the affixed monastery’s greenhouse from 1856 to 1863 for the experiments at the roots of modern genetics. Drawing on the history and scientific legacy of the site, CHYBIK + KRISTOF and dílna extend their revival of the original greenhouse to that of the eponymous neighboring square. Originally used as a public park, the square was damaged by air raids during the Second World War. Rebuilt in the 1960s, shunned by the decades-long Communist regime, it became used for multimodal transport, adding onto its atypical typology composed of a 1930s Modernist solitaire building, Post-Modern structures from the 1970s, neoclassical city blocks, and forgotten landmarks. Soon losing its historical value, it was left subject to gradual and irrecoverable decay.

Responding to the square’s primary use as one of Brno’s primary public hubs, they rekindle the site with its past function as an integrated public space. Reorganizing the areas allotted to public transport and the residual green space from the previous layout, CHYBIK + KRISTOF and dílna revive and foster thriving social capital. Centered around a vast circular area, the square is entirely barrier-free, accessible from all sides and visible from all angles. Using exclusively sustainable, reusable materials, they position new stops that ensure the fluid transition from tram and trolleybuses to municipal and regional bus lines. By creating a walkable, inclusive space, the dynamic of the square moves from a place dominated by public transport and cars to a safe center for pedestrians, in turn redefining the flow for the rest of the square.

Engaging in a vibrant dialogue with the historic surroundings, they foster recreational use and cultural observation of the city’s assets as the focal point for their design. The urban furniture installed is modular in layout, with movable benches that allows for various arrangements of the space. Calling back to Brno’s signature aesthetics, the paved circle’s red tints reflect that of the bricks that adorn the neighboring Basilica and monastery, surrounded by grey tiles that evoke the dominant granite color in the rest of the city. And, honoring this pillar in the city’s cultural history, they elevate a new statue of Gregor Mendel at the very heart of the square.

Their nature-friendly design, like that of the revived Mendel Greenhouse, references the scientist’s contributions. Erecting specifically bred tree species that retain more water while providing shade, they envision the square as the new lungs of the city, revisiting the greenhouse’s regulative properties and sustainable scheme. A water reservoir below the pavement ensures the flow between the roots, hereby supporting this new green community.

CHYBIK + KRISTOF. Drawings for the new Mendel Square design, Brno, Czech Republic. Courtesy of CHYBIK + KRISTOF Architects & Urban Designers.

Fusing transportation and cultural functions, CHYBIK + KRISTOF and dílna’s multifaceted design gives prominence to the notion of fluidity: within the square, and as it relates to the rest of the city. Cofounding architects Ondrej Chybik and Michal Kristof explain: 

“Our new design brings a contemporary relevance to Mendel Square, moving from a lacking transportation terminal to a functional public space. This site plays a central role for the area and for the interactions within it. Rather than opting for a typical four-sided structure, we unify all functions in a core, inclusive paved circle that redefines the space. Not only is it more intelligible, but it also considers the needs of all possible users – locals and foreigners, passengers and visitors, young and old generations alike.” 

Led in conjunction with the revival of the neighboring Mendel Greenhouse, Mendel Square is due for completion in July 2022 to coincide with the 200th anniversary of Gregor Mendel’s birth. 

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NOTES TO EDITORS:
About CHYBIK + KRISTOF
CHYBIK + KRISTOF is an architecture and urban design practice founded in 2010 by Ondřej Chybík and Michal Krištof. Operating with 50+ international team members and offices in Prague, Brno and Bratislava, the practice aims at creating bridges between private and public space, transcending generations and societal spheres. Taking into account local histories and environmental specificities, the studio works on a wide array of projects, ranging from urban developments to public and residential buildings. Recent projects include: Gallery of Furniture (Czech Republic), the Czech Pavilion at Expo 2015 (Milan, Italy) and Lahofer Winery (Czech Republic). The studio has been awarded a number of prizes including the 2019 Design Vanguard Award from Architectural Record, and was recently amongst the European Centre for Architecture Art Design and Urban Studies’ 2019 40 Under 40 Award winners.
https://chybik-kristof.com/

About dílna

dílna is an architectural practice founded by Michal Palascak in 2014. Located in Brno, the small team led by Michal Palascak is best known for its reconstruction of the Brno City Market, as well as several public and residential buildings (apartments; family houses) throughout the Czech Republic. dílna is the laureate of the 2018 competition for the reconstruction of Brno’s Mendel Square, the first phase of which was conducted in collaboration with CHYBIK + KRISTOF.

palascak.com

Mendlovo náměstí

603 00 Brno

Czech Republic

Project Team: Ondrej Chybik, Michal Kristof, Sarka Kubinova (Project Leader), Krystof Foltyn, Martin Holy, Laura Druktenyte, Fleta Jakupi, Tomas Wojtek, Ingrid Spacilova.

In collaboration with Michal Palascak Studio; Zdenek Sendler (Landscape Architect); PK Ossendorf (Vlastislav Novak; Stepanka Stepankova) (Transportation).

Due Completion Date: July 2022

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Artist Kerim Seiler Presents a Large-Scale Site-Specific Installation for the 74th Locarno Film Festival

Titled Come Together, the playful, multicolored installation takes over the festival’s 100-meter-wide rotunda, bringing together site-specific works by Kerim Seiler spanning various mediums and dimensions. In partnership with la Mobiliare and the Locarno Film Festival, Seiler creates a deeply experiential setting and invites visitors to engage and become part of the artwork, fostering social interaction and cultural exchange.

On view from July 30 – August 14, 2021 | Locarno, Switzerland

Kerim Seiler, Tender is the Night, 2020. Installation for the Locarno Film Festival 2021, in Switzerland. Photograph by Ariel Huber.

July 30, 2021 (Locarno, Switzerland) – Pursuing his longstanding collaboration with the Locarno Film Festival and its main partner la Mobiliare, a Swiss insurance firm, contemporary artist Kerim Seiler (b. 1974, Bern, Switzerland) unveils Come Together, a large-scale site-specific installation at the Locarno Rotonda by la Mobiliare, the sociocultural space of the Locarno74 film festival. A colorful spatial composition, the installation brings together a sampling of new works by Seiler, all part of the la Mobiliare collection, as he revisits the notion of space as a boundless canvas – as well as works by contemporary artists Maya Rochat, Julian Charrière and Ekrem Yalcindag. Prompting countless experiences of the space, the 3,000-square-meter rotunda – a large roundabout well known to Locarno’s inhabitants and visitors – acts as the new social hub of the festival, inviting visitors to engage with a playful composition of art, cinema, music, and hospitality spaces reaffirming the importance of social interaction and cultural exchange that lie at the core of the Locarno Film Festival. 

As part of the fifth iteration of the Locarno Film Festival’s partnership with la Mobiliare, Come Together is in the immediate vicinity of the festival’s main venue, the PalaCinema and the notorious Piazza Grande – one of the world's largest open-air screening venuesseating 8,000 spectators. The multifarious installation of site-specific artistic spaces and artworks is part of Seiler’s Situationist Space Program, an ongoing body of work rooted in the artist’s practice of reappropriation, reiteration, and expansion of past and existing work.

As visitors enter the main circular area, three spaces stand out at its core. The first is an ensemble towered by a vast rectangular tent. Asymmetrically positioned over the space, it converses with a new vibrant 250-square-meter floor painting – a striking assemblage of multicolored wooden boards. Next to it are a wooden bar and circular stage surrounded by Seiler’s 2016 work, Tschutschu, a modular spiral of interlinked tables and benches. Made of wooden boards set on a welded metal structure, it can be assembled and dismantled at will, evoking a whimsical succession of train tracks, hence the name of the piece. 

Analogous to the first, the second area exposes yet another new floor painting, though this time in black and white, playfully mirroring the monumental tent covering it. Adjacent to it, a disjointed structure, at once circular and rectangular, constitutes one of the Rotonda by la Mobiliare’s three bar areas. As for the other two, the structure consists of three basic elements to be arranged, and rearranged, freely. Revisiting his Spazio Cinema installation designed for the festival’s 2017 edition, Seiler repurposes the steamed painted wooden panels that constitute it, once again allowing his art to adapt, expand, and relive in various places.

Kerim Seiler, Aerial view of Come Together, installation for the Locarno Film Festival 2021, in Switzerland. Courtesy of Kerim Seiler.

Opposite the entrance as visitors traverse the space is an anarchic arrangement of artistic and social settings. An expansion of Seiler’s 118 minus 11 (2012) installation at the Zurich Hauptbahnhof, Tender is the Night (2020) consists of four wooden 3 x 2-meter split-screen crosses, each containing a unique-size colored neon tube, creating a profoundly contemplative transitional “non-space.” Taking its name from American author F. Scott Fitzgerald’s 1934 novel, it recalls a nightly, near subversive experience of space – and of the mind. A spirited nod to the latter, the NEW/NOW (2017) neon installation is the mantelpiece atop the Rotonda’s bar Bosco. Set on a random timer, the blue and red neon letters flicker from one word to the other, conjuring visitors’ attention to the tension between the now and the new. Calling to the neighboring bosco (forest), they enter in a final visual ricochet with over 100 colorful fluorescent lights dispersed in the trees. Acting as the festival’s annual Kids Town, dedicated to children, this glistening ensemble imagined by Seiler is a versatile platform where young and old, art and film, social and cultural converge. 

Complementing Seiler’s spatial palimpsest, situated at the entrance of the space, Swiss visual artist Maya Rochat (b. 1985, Morges)’s psychedelic video installation is projected on a 100-square-meter screen (20 x 5 meter), set on a scaffolding composition created by Seiler. Activated each night, this magical color bath invites visitors to enter an alternative, seemingly dysfunctional mind space mirrored throughout the rest of the Rotonda. Loans from the la Mobiliare collection, as are several of Seiler’s pieces, Swiss conceptual artist Julian Charrière (b. 1987, Morges)’s sculptures ponder the border between environmental science and cultural history. In a final addition, Turkish artist Ekrem Yalcindag (b. 1964, Gölbasi)’s over 100 specially designed ornamented pillows lie in joyful dialogue with Seiler’s Tschutschu.

An inherently versatile space, the Rotonda by la Mobiliare emerges as a bustling composition, where the plurality of spaces mirrors that of the experiences within it. After a year of isolation, it fittingly brings back and reinforces the essential social dimension of the event – and the social interactions that define it. Seiler explains:

“The composition is rooted in the idea of space as a canvas. I move beyond the canvas, from two to three dimensions, as various planes, proportions, senses, and intensities intersect and interact. The sampling of colors echoes the sampling of spaces, in turn prompting a range of sensorial, conscious and subconscious experiences within the same space – and only with visitors’ engagement does it fully come alive.”

The key marker of Locarno74’s parallel program, the Rotonda exposes once more the festival’s lasting commitment to engaging with its visitors and the social, cultural and political dimension of film. Reflecting Seiler’s emotional bond with the region, growing up not far from Locarno, it is his fourth collaboration for the festival with la Mobiliare’s Social and Cultural Engagement branch, with previous installations at Locarno’s Parco Balli (2017/18) and Castello Visconteo (2019). It also marks the latest of countless partnerships between Seiler and la Mobiliare over the years, among which the notable Pavilion Pollegio at the Gotthard tunnel (2016, Switzerland) and the Llloblyekk && Bboolyekk office furniture installation for the firm’s headquarters (2015, Bern). 

Dorothea Strauss, Head of la Mobiliare’s Social Engagement branch, expands:

“Culture, and in particular film, exerts a deep visionary power. The Rotonda is an ideal meeting place, a space where ideas stimulated by the vitality of the festival converge and develop. Social encounters are essential to the development of not only the individual, but to that of our societies – and in that, Come Together is truly a call-to-action.”

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NOTES TO EDITORS:

About Kerim Seiler:

Kerim Seiler (born in 1974, Bern, Switzerland) has developed a complex, philosophic sculptural approach to working with space. From colourful and inflatable molecule sculptures to permanent neon light installations and architectural performative artworks, Seiler’s visual language merges complex theories of positivism and metaphysics. Through his innovative sculptural concepts for social and urban spaces, Seiler explores and extends the sensible interaction and ambivalent relation between materiality and spirituality.

Seiler completed the Vorkurs at Kunstgewerbeschule, Zurich (1991/92), studied Média Mixtes at the École Supérieure d’Art Visuel, Geneva (1993–1995), and Freie Kunst at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste, Hamburg (1997–2002). He received his Diploma with Professor Bernhard Johannes Blume, and a Master of Advanced Studies in Architecture from the ETH Zurich with Professor Ludger Hovestadt (2011). Seiler has shown his work in various international exhibitions in New York, Los Angeles, Paris, Marseille, Berlin, Zurich, Moscow, Cracow, Cairo, and Johannesburg. He is represented by Grieder Contemporary in Zurich.

kerimseiler.com/

About Locarno Film Festival: 

The Locarno Festival is an annual film festival held every August in the Swiss-Italian town of Locarno. Founded in 1946, it is one of the longest-running film festivals, and is also known for being a platform for art house films. The festival screens films in various competitive and non-competitive sections, including feature-length narrative and documentary, short, avant-garde, and retrospective programs. The festival’s main and widely reputed Piazza Grande section is held in one of the world's largest open-air screening venues, seating 8,000 spectators. Working with numerous public and private partners, the festival has demonstrated an ongoing sense of duty to culture and to the region. The 74th Festival, titled Locarno74, will run from August 4—14, 2021.

locarnofestival.ch

About La Mobiliare:

Founded in 1826 and headquartered in Bern, Zurich and Nyon, Switzerland, La Mobiliare (also known as La Mobilière and Die Mobiliar) is Switzerland’s oldest insurance group. Actively engaged in affirming its cultural and social responsibility, La Mobiliare has acted as the main partner of the Locarno Film Festival for the past four years. As part of the Locarno74 festival, the firm is launching a special cultural project, Come Together, at La Rotonda by la Mobiliare. The venue will bring together art through Kerim Seiler’s large-scale installation with the participation of artists Maya Rochat, Julian Charrière and Ekrem Yalcindag; short films with the Space Explorers: The ISS Experience virtual reality project in partnership with the GIFF and BONALUMI Engineering; music in collaboration with Turba and RSI Radiotelevisione svizzera; a podcast; and panel discussions as part of the Forum and Locarno Talks la Mobiliare projects. La Mobiliare is also a partner of Locarno Kids la Mobiliare.

About Maya Rochat:

Maya Rochat (b. 1985, Morges) is a visual artist based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She works in the fields of photography, painting, video, performance, and installation. Her work has been presented in major international institutions including Tate Modern (Turbine Hall), London; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Centre d’art contemporain, Geneva; Les Abattoirs, Toulouse; Kunsthaus Langenthal; and FOTOMUSEUM Winterthur. Maya Rochat is a laureate of the 2019 Prix Mobilière (by La Mobiliare), the 2018 Fondation Leenaards Grant; and the 2017 Abraham Hermanjat Grant.

About Julian Charrière:

Julian Charrière is a French-Swiss artist living and working in Berlin. Addressing matters of ecological concern, his work invitescritical reflection upon cultural traditions of engaging with the natural world, frequently stemming from fieldwork in remote locations with acute geophysical. Working across media and paradigms, Charrière collaborates with composers, scientists, engineers, art historians, and philosophers. His work has been the subject of solo exhibitions at the Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas (2021); MAMbo, Bologna (2019); Berlinische Galerie, Berlin (2018); among many others. It has been featured in the 57th Biennale di Venezia (2017)and Taipei Biennial (2018), and in group exhibitions including at the Centre Pompidou, Paris (2019); Hayward Gallery, London (2018); and Palais du Tokyo, Paris (2017). Charrière is one of the four nominees for the 2021 Prix Marcel Duchamp, and a laureate of the 2018 Prix Mobilière.

About Ekrem Yalcindag:

Living in Istanbul, Vienna, and Frankfurt am Main, Ekrem Yalcindag (b. 1964, Gölbasi) developed his visual language as a student of Hermann Nitsch and Thomas Bayrle in Frankfurt am Main. His meticulous impasto technique executed with an extremely fine paint brush, demanding vast amounts of time, results in relief-like paintings made ofhundreds of layers, recalling the American Color Field painters. A major figure of the non-European ornamental tradition through contemporary art, his work has been featured across numerous international institutions, including the Saatchi Gallery, London (2011) and the Museum of Modern Art, Istanbul (2010). It is part of major international collections among which the Goetz Collection, Munich, and the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart.

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AFIKARIS Gallery Unveils 'Figures Of Power', a Joint Exhibition of Artists John Madu and Ousmane Niang

Left. Ousmane Niang, Baignoire, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 140 x 140 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery. Right. John Madu, Sunflowers and man, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 121 x 121 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

Each suggesting his own reading of power, John Madu and Ousmane Niang convey and confront relations of dominant to dominated. By distorting and blurring set roles, they invite viewers to consider new dynamics, and in turn affirm their own, empowered identities. 

July 10 – August 14, 2021

July 6, 2021 (Paris, France) – Following on its very first solo exhibition, the first in France of emerging Cameroonian artist Jean David Nkot (Human@Condition, May 29—July 7, 2021), AFIKARIS Gallery, dedicated to promoting emerging and established artists from Africa and its diaspora, presents Figures of Power, a joint exhibition of rising Nigerian artist John Madu (b. 1983, Lagos, Nigeria) and Senegalese artist Ousmane Niang (b. 1989, Tamba, Senegal). On view from July 10—August 14, 2021, this new exhibition, the first in France for both artists, brings together over 20 all-new works, addressing notions of power and domination as they unfold through gender and political dynamics. Boldly exposing and bridging each artist’s distinct approach to these topics, AFIKARIS once again demonstrates its commitment to propelling the voices of its artists. 

Using their art as a weapon, both artists look back and reappropriate histories governed by the duality between dominant and dominated. Turning to gender dynamics, John Madu overturns traditional clichés on identity in the context of globalization, while Ousmane Niang revisits predetermined social hierarchies. Cuttingly pointing to rampant societal issues, they move beyond raw observation, instead coloring their work with a call for action. 

In his paintings, Nigerian artist John Madu frees his characters from preconstructed social norms as he rewrites a world where individuals are empowered, and free to hail their identities. Whether painting acquaintances or reinventing classics, Madu records his own history – the story of a young Nigerian generation, lulled by a globalized, universal culture, and in which individuality and uniformity attract and repulse each other. His visual universe is marked by endless references – countless nods to the history of art as to Nigerian youth and pop culture.

In these everyday scenes, Vincent Van Gogh, Gustav Klimt and Keith Haring permeate the artwork with their characteristic features, hiding behind a door, or on a pair of shorts, mirroring the plurality of identities that constitute the artist’s world. Exalting his own reality, he blurs the borders of feminine and masculine. Playing with the curves and hair of his models, female and male, woman and man, dominant and dominated intersect. The roles are reversed, exposing instead fluid identities that beg to be released. Calling out a traditionally patriarchal Nigerian society and appealing to women’s empowerment, he diverts Klimt’s The Kiss (1908-1909): under his brush, it is the woman who kisses the man. Ultimately, in bringing to bear the limits of gender, Madu bestows his characters with a new form of power. He explains:

“My art is infused by strong figures that have marked my personal life, and vision of it. Being faced with the many realities and endless conceptions of identity, I seek to blur the set distinctions, in particular as they apply to gender. By switching or reframing gender roles, I play with their symbolic power, and the symbolism of the power they exert.”

John Madu, The Kiss, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 121 x 121 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

As he revisits historical bestiaries, Senegalese artist Ousmane Niang plays with the embodiment of power.  Marking the distinction between anthropomorphic, domesticated, and wild animals, his canvases become the stage for a role-playing game of strong and weak: the human dominates as the animal obeys. The paintings turn to fables – exposing and distorting these shared illustrations of agreed hierarchies. Reflecting his ongoing interest in the pictorial treatment of games in art, Niang’s Jeu de Cartes series (2019-2021) trade the traditional royal figures with these fabled animals. Purposefully engaging with their symbolism, he projects onto them a new, personal meaning: free to fly, swim, and walk, Niang’s bird becomes a symbol of freedom, and a figure of power.

Distinctly adorning these figures, Niang’s stylized dots, characteristic of his art, seize their full meaning. Consistently doubled, they materialize a duality: just as dominant and dominated cohabit in the paintings, problems and solutions emerge. More than a pictorial choice, his dots express the social conflict at the root of his work. Through this technique, the artist offers avenues for reflection – calling his viewers to move beyond contemplation into action, a subtle and empowering echo to the Senegalese youth uprisings of March 2021. Weighing the symbolism in his work, he states:

“Power is a game, and in a game, there is always a dimension of power. In my paintings, I embody the game of power in symbolically charged animal figures, and by doing so, shine a light onto it. Behind each dot, there lies a second dot. In the same way, behind each scene, there lies an alternative scene – and behind each problem, a solution.”

 Ultimately, by bestowing them with a fierce educational virtue, Madu and Niang’s works grow from affronts to alternatives to the status quo – in turn affirming art as its very own form of power.

—

NOTES TO EDITORS: 

About John Madu:

John Madu (b. 1983, Lagos, Nigeria) is a multidisciplinary artist living and working in Lagos. With a degree in Policy and Strategic Studies, John Madu is a self-taught artist. 

Conceived mainly with acrylic, his figurative and symbolic paintings deal with questions of identity, social behaviors, and the effects of cultural globalization on individualism. Highly versatile, Madu’s work is nurtured by endless influences, ranging from popular culture and art to African histories and personal experiences. Symbolism is a distinct marker of his work, as a recurring iconography of books, apples, and other recognizable items come to fill his canvases and convey their own meaning. 

 John Madu’s work has been presented in numerous international exhibitions, including in Lagos, London, New York, and Shanghai. Figures of Power is his first major exhibition in France.

About Ousmane Niang:

Emerging Senegalese visual artist Ousmane Niang (b. 1989, Tamba, Senegal) works and lives in Dakar. A graduate of the National School of Arts in Dakar, he works primarily with acrylic. Calling to his personal bestiaries, his paintings, deeply influenced by pointillism, depict scenes of daily life. Addressing notions of power, the human-animal figures that populate his canvases convey the endurance and fragility of social beings in the face of domination – as it governs freedom, tyranny, sharing, traditions, technologies, and family life.  

Ousmane Niang’s works have been showcased across numerous Senegalese institutions (Institut Français de Dakar; Galerie Nationale de Dakar; Biennale de Dakar) and at international art fairs including AKAA (Paris) and 1-54 (London; New York). Figures of Power is his first major exhibition in France. 

About AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris: 

Founded in 2018 by Florian Azzopardi, AFIKARIS Gallery started as an online platform and showroom specialized in the work of both emerging and established artists from African and its diaspora, before opening a dedicated Paris-based gallery space in 2021. Engaged in promoting cross cultural and disciplinary exchange, AFIKARIS acts as a platform for artists to engage with the wider public. A mirror onto and space for reflection on the contemporary African art scene, it provides artists with a space to address the topical local and international issues at the heart of their art.

AFIKARIS’s curated program includes group and solo exhibitions; art fairs; publications; as well as institutional partnerships. 

Figures of Power | July 10—August 14, 2021

AFIKARIS Gallery

38 rue Quincampoix

75004 Paris, France

info@afikaris.com

www.afikaris.com

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ADA \ contemporary art gallery Presents its Inaugural Group Exhibition 'I No Be Gentleman (at all o)' of Three Emerging Nigerian Artists

Left. Chukwudubem Busayo Ukaigwe, Portrait of Sahar, 2020. Oil on canvas, 152.4 x 92.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist and of ADA \ contemporary art gallery. Right. Matthew Eguavoen Imuetiyan, Cynthia, 2021. Acrylic and oil on canvas, 130 x 100 cm. Courtesy of the artist and of ADA \ contemporary art gallery.

On view from June 30 – August 15, 2021, the exhibition introduces rising Nigerian artists Chukwudubem Busayo Ukaigwe, Matthew Eguavoen Imuetiyan and Emmanuel Amoo’s intriguing new bodies of work in a collective act to ignore and challenge prevalent societal motifs around the African identity, all-the-while interrogating and exposing new conceptions and ideals. 

June 30 – August 15, 2021

June 28, 2021 (Accra, Ghana) – Accra-based ADA \ contemporary art gallery, specialized in the work of emerging artists across Africa and its diaspora, presents its very first group exhibition, following on four consecutive debut solo exhibitions since opening in October 2020. I No Be Gentleman (at all o), on view from June 30 – August 15, 2021, brings together the works of three emerging Nigerian artists Chukwudubem Busayo Ukaigwe, Matthew Eguavoen Imuetiyan and Emmanuel Amoo, introducing a new wave of interest in going against the prescribed status quo and forging a new, broader constellation of African identities and representations.

The title of the exhibition, I No Be Gentleman (at all o) finds its roots in the 1973 Afrobeat album Gentleman, and soundtrack of the same title, by Nigerian bandleader, controversial and disruptive activist, Fela Kuti. The lyrics cheerfully mock the pretensions of a “gentleman” who wears stifling Western clothing under the scorching African sun: “He go sweat all over,” Kuti predicts. Gentleman denounces the legacy of colonialism, European ideals and Westernized constructs and cultures. Kuti’s commentary calls for the African – man and woman – to take possession of his or her own identity and authenticity, and break away from predominantly Westernized indoctrinations.

In their eponymous group exhibition, Ukaigwe, Imuetiyan and Amoo perpetuate artistic practices that attempt to frame their own notion of African aesthetics. Exposing sociocultural identities and economic discrepancies, they point to the effects of neocolonialism and to the resulting politics of material and conceptual decolonization.

Emmanuel Amoo, Waiting to No Awail, 2021. Charcoal, pastels and acrylic on canvas, 152.4 x 121.9 cm. Courtesy of the artist and of ADA \ contemporary art gallery.

Ukaigwe consciously uses a variety of mediums to relay a plurality of ideas at any given time. He views his art practice as a conversation, or a portal into one, and in some instances, as an interpretation of an ongoing exchange in researching semiotic possibilities and diverse mechanisms of meaning. Ukaigwe’s work semantically interrogates contemporary themes and their association to the canon, premising and borrowing his concepts from experimental music, chiefly jazz music. The matrix of his practice is to provide a platform for individual analysis of work or of an idea and for revealing a transcendent relational meaning between multiple works or ideas positioned together in space.

Imuetiyan’s focal concern hangs in the impact of his work on his immediate environment, and on the world at large. Fascinated by individuals’ reactions to their surroundings and how it affects their response to life, his art centers around societal, political and economic imbalances. Imuetiyan’s large-scale portraits hold a strong, striking gaze, as each of his models embody bold, unwavering stares. Through these eyes, the artist projects identity formation, mental health, gender constructs, the societal and governmental impact on both the “common man” and the “affluent.”

Amoo is a contemporary surrealist who specializes in the use of pastels, graphite, charcoal and acrylics. His art is primarily inspired by human emotions and tenderness in an environment that is at once sociocultural and sociopolitical. In his work, Amoo strives to define a new space where self-expression at any given time is acceptable. This new body of work centers around major sociocultural current issues and the pervasive influence of digital, mainly social, media. Ultimately, Amoo’s creative process calls to an attempt to unveil, in his viewers and more broadly, authentic emotions concealed in a society governed by the art of hiding one’s true nature under pressured smiles and forced toxicity.

I No Be Gentleman (at all o) is the first group show in ADA \ contemporary art gallery’s ongoing program of dedicated solo and group exhibitions, off-site projects, talks, creative partnerships and more, launched in October 2020. Previous exhibitions include the sold-out solo shows of emerging Nigerian artists Collins Obijiaku (Gindin Mangoro: Under the Mango Tree, October 15 – November 19, 2020) and Eniwaye Oluwaseyi (The Politics of Shared Spaces, November 27, 2020 – January 10, 2021); of rising South African star Zandile Tshabalala (Enter Paradise, March 4 – April 30, 2021); and of Ghanaian contemporary artist Hamid Nii Nortey (Cross Hatching Affluence, May 6 – June 16, 2021).

This August, ADA will launch its one-month residency program, in partnership with the Noldor Artist Residency, bringing together a local Ghanaian artist and an international artist whose practice is rooted in Africa and its legacy. Cultivating a dialogue between local and international artists, the residency is a manifest to ADA’s engagement in nurturing Ghana and Africa’s emerging art community, while strengthening its ties and influence across global audiences.

—

NOTES TO EDITORS:

**Biographies of the artists are available upon request.

About ADA \ contemporary art gallery: 

Based in Accra, Ghana, ADA \ contemporary art gallery specializes in the work of emerging artists across Africa and its diaspora. Established in 2020 by contemporary African art advisor Adora Mba, ADA is committed to nurturing Ghana and the continent’s contemporary art community and to fostering its ties and influence amongst global audiences.

Highlighting individual early career artistic practices, the gallery’s program includes dedicated solo exhibitions; off-site projects and exhibitions; site-specific commissions; talks; creative partnerships and philanthropic activities with local actors; and international art fairs.

In parallel, ADA will inaugurate a one-month residency program, in partnership with the Noldor Artist Residency, in August 2021, bringing together a local Ghanaian artist and an international artist whose practice is rooted in Africa and its legacy. Cultivating a dialogue between the local and the international artists, the residency is a manifest to ADA’s engagement in strengthening these ties and to establishing Ghana’s emerging artistic scene and market internationally. 

ADA \ contemporary art gallery

Villaggio Vista

North Airport Road

Airport Residential Area 

Accra, Ghana

info@ada-accra.com

www.ada-accra.com

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ADA \ contemporary art gallery & House Of Fine Art (HOFA) Present Mother of Mankind, an All-Female Group Exhibition

Left. Marcellina Akpojotor, Set to Flourish II, 2021. Fabric and acrylic on canvas, 121.9 x 152.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Rele Art Gallery, Lagos, Nigeria. Right. Sophia Oshodin, While We Wait, 2021. Acrylic on canvas, 91.4 x 91.4 cm. Courtesy of the artist and of ADA \ contemporary art gallery.

On view from July 22 – August 31, this first collaboration between the Accra- and London-based galleries, curated by Adora Mba, founder of ADA, brings together the works of 18 all-female emerging artists. Through their personal experiences and artistic approaches, they jointly deconstruct recurring tropes in the representation of the Black female figure, thereby forging the way for new narratives and identities to emerge.

July 22 – August 31, 2021

HOFA Gallery | 11 Bruton Street, Mayfair, London

Curated by Adora Mba

June 22, 2021 (London, United Kingdom) – ADA \ contemporary art gallery (Accra, Ghana) and HOFA Gallery (London, United Kingdom) have joined forces to premiere an all-female group exhibition, Mother of Mankind, showcasing an international selection of 18 emerging artists. On view from July 22 – August 31 at HOFA’s London space, the exhibition is the first of its kind to be presented by both galleries. Curated by Adora Mba, founder and director of ADA \ contemporary art gallery, Mother of Mankind sheds light on a new generation of rising artists whose work challenges and deconstructs art historical canons of representation – recurring motives which often marginalize and obliterate Black figures, and in particular, the Black female figure. Each artist investigates, in her own unique way, current perceptions of identity, gender, sexuality, family and society, all-the-while bringing forth her personal experience and a distinct visual narrative across a range of media.

Jamilla Okubo, I do not come to you as a reality. I come to you as The Myth (Pentecost), 2021. Mixed media, acrylic on canvas, 183 cm x 244 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Mehari Sequar Gallery.

More than a collection of global female artists, Mother of Mankind is envisioned as a statement, a sisterhood, and an artistic call to arms. Advancing the connection to Mother Earth, Mother Nature, and Mother Africa, the artists portray varied self-definitions of the Black woman, in light of a new approach and artistic contribution to contemporary art. 

Placing her as the central figure, an active participant in their art, they draw upon visual cues from diverse galvanic portraitures to achieve a balance between realism and abstraction, forms and textures, power and vulnerabilities. In the spirit of social change and reform, each brings forth a new position, in lieu of a new definition, of the Black woman. Rather than attributing new roles to this marginalized figure, they establish a new space for existing roles to be unveiled and shared. Director of ADA \ contemporary art gallery and curator Adora Mba explains:

“At a time when singular voices demonstrate their strength when united, I feel privileged to showcase the works of these remarkably talented artists in one of the cities I call home. The women presented in this show are in the early days of their artistic careers, yet already making waves and drawing attention amidst an industry which tends to be more supportive of their male counterparts. In working with ADA, HOFA is lending us a space for their, for our, voices to be heard; our stories to be told; our creative spirits to conceive, unbound, forging our own narratives. Beyond being artists that I personally admire, these women are my sisters, my kin from across the globe.”

Elio D’Anna, co-founder and director of HOFA, pursues:

“This exhibition is the first of its kind at HOFA Gallery, and we are honored to showcase powerful and norm-defying visual narratives of Black femininity as told by Black female artists. Brought together through the lens of a Black female curator, Mother of Mankind engages boldly and critically with international events and discussions over the past few months, making it a particularly relevant, momentous exhibition in London this year.” 

Moving the dialogue away from a normative femininity, Mother of Mankind places the frame on the specific Black experience, by showcasing artists whose construct of femininity is conceptualized in its application to women from Africa and its diaspora. Hailing from a range of countries, from Nigeria, Ghana and South Africa to Canada, the US, the UK and France, the participating artists consciously reject and redefine traditional standards of beauty, perception and representation – thereby reclaiming ownership over their narrative and elevating a Black female consciousness and identity.

Participating artists:

Jamilla Okubo

Adebunmi Gbadebo

Emma Prempeh

Ekene Maduka

Ayobola Kekere-Ekun

Muofhe Manavhela

Mookho Ntho

Cece Phillips

Alexandria Couch

Sola Olulode

Marcellina Akpojotor

Cinthia Sifa Mulanga 

Chinaza Agbor

Damilola Onosowbo Marcus

Tobi Alexandra Falade 

Dimakatso Mathopa

Sophia Oshodin

Bria Fernandes

 —

NOTES TO EDITORS: 

About Adora Mba:

Adora Mba (b. 1986, London) is the founder and director of ADA \ contemporary art gallery, a commercial art space based in Accra, Ghana, committed to representing emerging artists across Africa and its diaspora. Raised in London, Accra and Lagos, Mba spent her formative years cultivating a dialogue between her African roots and European education. Her extensive travels led her to develop a keen interest in contemporary art, and in particular the African art scene. An art advisor, collector and writer, Mba’s experience working in the contemporary African art industry nurtured her expertise on the continent’s artistic scene. 

Starting her career in cultural journalism and public relations, she soon relocated to Ghana where she acted as art consultant for various actors of the cultural sector (Ghana Ministry of Culture; Adjaye Associates). In 2017, she launched The Afropolitan Collector, an art advisory platform specialized in the acquisition and promotion of contemporary art and design from Africa. Throughout her career, Mba witnessed a bounded African artistic scene, lacking the infrastructure necessary to achieve its full potential. Responding to this need and to her desire to support emerging artists, she founded the ADA \ contemporary art gallery in 2020 in Accra.

About ADA \ contemporary art gallery: 

Based in Accra, Ghana, ADA \ contemporary art gallery specializes in the work of emerging artists across Africa and its diaspora. Established in 2020 by contemporary African art advisor Adora Mba, ADA is committed to nurturing Ghana and the continent’s contemporary art community and to fostering its ties and influence amongst global audiences.

Highlighting individual early career artistic practices, the gallery’s program includes dedicated solo exhibitions; off-site projects and exhibitions; site-specific commissions; talks; creative partnerships and philanthropic activities with local actors; and international art fairs.

In parallel, ADA will develop a residency program starting in the Summer 2021, bringing together a local Ghanaian artist and an international artist whose practice is rooted in Africa and its legacy. Cultivating a dialogue between the local and the international artists, the residency is a manifest to ADA’s engagement in strengthening these ties and to establishing Ghana’s emerging artistic scene and market internationally. 

ADA \ contemporary art gallery

Villaggio Vista

North Airport Road

Airport Residential Area 

Accra, Ghana

info@ada-accra.com

www.ada-accra.com

About House of Fine Art (HOFA):

HOFA Gallery (House of Fine Art) specializes in contemporary art by established and emerging international artists. HOFA is determined to feature a multitude of artistic disciplines with an intent focus on exceptional talent, diversity and cultural relevance. Dedicated to supporting rare talent and making their work globally accessible, the gallery works closely with all of its artists to ensure the highest level of excellence and integrity across its locations in London, Los Angeles and Mykonos.

With a unique selection of highly collectable artworks of appreciative value and an uncompromising dedication to art world innovation, the gallery is committed to its mission in cultural leadership. Using new technologies and digital innovations, HOFA pledges an accessible entry point to the market and inclusivity to art collectors on all levels.

House of Fine Art (HOFA)

11 Bruton Street, Mayfair

London W1J 6PY

United Kingdom

www.thehouseoffineart.com

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AFIKARIS Gallery Opens a New Paris Space and Presents First Major Solo Show in France of Cameroonian Artist Jean David Nkot

Jean David Nkot, ##@tiredbody##, 2021. Acrylic, posca, collage and silkscreen printing on canvas, 200 x 300 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

Inaugurating its very first gallery space, Paris-based AFIKARIS Gallery presents rising Cameroonian artist Jean David Nkot’s first extensive solo exhibition in France. On view from May 29—July 7, 2021, Human@Condition portrays the individuals behind Africa’s pervasive mining industry, pursuing the artist’s ongoing exploration of the human condition and notions of resilience.

May 29 – July 7, 2021

May 25, 2021 (Paris, France) – Marking its move from an online platform and showroom to its very first physical gallery space in Paris, AFIKARIS Gallery, dedicated to promoting emerging and established artists from Africa and its diaspora, presents Human@Condition, the first major solo exhibition in France of rising Cameroonian artist Jean David Nkot (b. 1989, Douala, Cameroon). Mirroring the artist’s longstanding ties with the gallery since its creation in 2018, the exhibition is also the gallery’s very first solo show, featuring a newly edited monograph of Nkot’s work, following on a continuous program of curated group exhibitions and off-site projects presented in its previous Paris showroom, online and at international art fairs. 

On view from May 29—July 7, 2021, the all-new series – a continuation of Nkot’s signature hyperrealist portraits over mapped backgrounds – will take over AFIKARIS’s vast 130-square-meter space in the heart of Paris’s Marais district, with works ranging from large-scale 2 x 3-meter canvases to smaller, intimate formats. Addressing Africa’s pervasive mining industry, Nkot superimposes his portraits onto a complex layering of maps, economic data and geopolitical norms, thereby focusing on the individuals at its roots. Freeing them from the weight of a mapped human condition often defined by hardship, he instead brings to bear an affirmed sense of resilience, and of hope.

Previously focused on the topic of migration, Nkot expands on his exploration of the human condition, examining its ties to the physical landscape through the lens of mining in Africa. Shedding light on ubiquitous systemic issues – African states’ subversive dependence and control over their wealth, and the consequences on their populations – the artist brings a localized focus onto them. He traces how they materialize in the exploitation of raw materials: in particular, through the extraction of minerals in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda. Continuously searching for the human dimension, he mirrors the exploitation of the soil to that of the individuals involved, bringing to the forefront their shared resilience in the face of adversity. All-the-while deploring the destruction of the natural environment, he gives way to the “workers in the shadows,” contrasting them with those who benefit from a pernicious industry, and ultimately honoring their strength and sense of ownership over their existence.

“I looked to the young people in my neighborhood as models for both my art and broader existence. As a witness each day of their vitality and joy, I wanted to push away common depictions of sorrow and suffering, instead shedding light on their strength and sense of hope, showing smiles and firm postures to expose a resilient body, undeterred by difficulty.” – Jean David Nkot

Left. Jean David Nkot, www.look of hopes@.com #4, 2021. Acrylic, posca and silkscreen printing on canvas, 65 x 50 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery. Right. Jean David Nkot, P.O.Box.Tarification #Cobalt #Cuivre.org, 2020. Acrylic and posca on canvas, 206 x 174 cm. Courtesy of AFIKARIS Gallery.

Attesting to Nkot’s evolving technique, Human@Condition builds on the artist’s signature play with transparency. At once pure and complex, the aesthetics and composition of his works reflect the extensive research that feeds into them, bringing to light Nkot’s highly analytical practice. Creating what he calls “maps molécules,” or “molecule maps,“ he superimposes three informational planes – a broad cartography; a network of data; and, in sharp contrast with their surroundings, his human subjects.

“The concept of maps molécules is inspired by the maps created by Thomas Hirschhorn. Like him, I circle keywords and link them together. I call them maps molécules because their structure reminds me of molecules and atoms. By creating a network of data, with information gravitating around a central word, I want to show that they are all connected, that no simple notion stands alone, and that one seemingly straightforward issue can pave the way for a broader debate. At first sight, this mass of information can seem incoherent, senseless – only to reveal the hidden complexity that lies behind it.” – Jean David Nkot

Faces, routes, dates, quantities, prices, ores, countries and economic plans coexist, as Jean David Nkot notes, annotates, links and questions. Putting aside any geographical realism, the data adorning the cartography gains precedence over the mapped territories. As do the notions they depict, the three planes that constitute his works engage in a continuous power struggle. A provocative and striking rendering of pervasive economic and political stakes, Human@Condition sheds light on the systemic control over both natural and human resources. Yet, outlining the complexity of these stakes as embodied in the endless data, he mocks their very transparency: does the prevalence of this data in the works truly make it clearer – and stronger? Or does its meaning remain obscure, only to fall short of a resilient, fierce humanity?  

Confronting personal stories, economic data and geopolitical norms, the paintings emerge as deeply and proudly human works. Ultimately, Nkot’s subjects arise from the paintings, affirming their resilience and ownership over an existence from which they are seemingly dispossessed.

Presented in tandem with the exhibition, AFIKARIS Gallery unveils its first artist monograph, Human@Condition, retracing Jean David Nkot’s career and work as “painter of the human condition.” The eponymous show will be on view at AFIKARIS’s Paris space from May 29—July 7, 2021.

—

NOTES TO EDITORS: 

Published on the occasion of the exhibition, Human@Condition, the first monograph of Jean David Nkot’s work, will be available for purchase at AFIKARIS Gallery and online at www.afikaris.com. 

About Jean David Nkot:

Jean David Nkot (b. 1989, Douala, Cameroon) is a visual artist who works and lives in Douala. A graduate from the Institute of Artistic Training (IFA), Mbalmayo, Cameroon (2010), he subsequently joined the Institute of Fine Arts, Foumban, where he obtained a degree in Drawing and Painting. In 2017, he took part in the Moving Frontiers post-Master’s Degree, focused on the topic of borders, organized by the National School of Arts, Paris-Cergy, France.

Working primarily with acrylic and posca, he continuously seeks to revisit his pictorial language and often experiments with other techniques, including silkscreen printing. His highly characteristic signature style places hyperrealist portraits over complex cartographies. A “painter of the human condition,” his artworks expose faces submerged by inscriptions, depicting characters both reflective of and reflected upon their physical and geopolitical context. Moving away from the personal identities of his subjects, Nkot draws attention to the embodied turmoil inhabiting them – in a manner reminiscent of Zhang Dali, Francis Bacon, and Jenny Saville.

Jean David Nkot’s work has been presented in key international institutions including: Institut des Cultures d’Islam, Paris, France; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin, Germany; Doual’art, Douala, Cameroon; National Museum of Cameroon, Yaounde. Human@Condition presented at AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris, from May 29—July 7, 2021, is the artist’s first major solo exhibition in France.

About AFIKARIS Gallery, Paris: 

Founded in 2018 by Florian Azzopardi, AFIKARIS Gallery started as an online platform and showroom specialized in the work of both emerging and established artists from African and its diaspora, before opening a dedicated Paris-based gallery space in 2021. Engaged in promoting cross cultural and disciplinary exchange, AFIKARIS acts as a platform for artists to engage with the wider public. A mirror onto and space for reflection on the contemporary African art scene, it provides artists with a space to address the topical local and international issues at the heart of their art.

AFIKARIS’s curated program includes group and solo exhibitions; art fairs; publications; as well as institutional partnerships. 

Human@Condition | May 29—July 7, 2021

AFIKARIS Gallery

38 rue Quincampoix

75004 Paris, France

info@afikaris.com

www.afikaris.com

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