English
Deutsch
until 11.06. | #1166ARTatBerlin | ifa-Galerie Berlin shows from 31th March 2017 with the artist Pascale Marthine Tayou the first chapter of the exhibition of the research project „UNTIE TO TIE – On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies“.
Introduction
With its one-year research and exhibition program ”UNTIE TO TIE – On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies”, the ifa-Galerie Berlin explores the intersections between artistic and social discourses related to the colonial structures in contemporary realities. The gallery becomes a meeting place, to encourage encounters between stories, whether told, written, designed or performed. From March 2017 to March 2018, the colonial legacies in contemporary societies will be addressed in four chapters: global relatedness, urban cultures, forms of feminism and riots as resistance.
To create more space for this exchange between subjective positions, the ifa-Galerie Berlin is developing a new structure based on three pillars: “Art in Conversation”, a public program in response to the exhibition; a “Meeting Point” with a reading and a hearing station; and a “Digital Platform”: untietotie.org
Exhibition
The opening exhibition is dedicated to Pascale Marthine Tayou. With his solo exhibition „Kolmanskop Dream“, Tayou creates a mental sculpture of the city of Kolmanskop, a former colonial German settlement and today’s ghost town in the Namib Desert. With his exhibition, Tayou asks: “la raison du plus fort est-elle toujours la meilleure?” (is the reason of the strongest always the best?)
Today the houses in Kolmanskop are indeed swallowed by the sand of the desert, but underneath the visible and obvious, the hidden colonial structures keep existing through memories, forms of knowledge, social and cultural relations, mindsets and practices.
Tayou interweaves forgotten stories, hidden memories and contemporary imaginaries. He investigates the colonial wounds and their present-day topographies as well as their places in our individual and collective memories.
He also plays with exoticizing stereotypes, mirroring back the gaze on Africa. He installs crystal masks, hanging from the installation “Branches of Life”, referring to the African masks widely spread over the West, which are being used as speculative commodities, as a “Voodooization of the everyday life”(1).
With his installations, Tayou’s loud laughing shakes the crazed manicured colonial walls. He proves that the argument of the strongest cannot always be the best. Indeed, beyond the colonial separation, each one of us holds the wholeness of the world within himself. It means there just cannot be an everlasting strongest.
Vernissage: Thursday, 30th March 2017, 7 p.m.
Exhibition period: Friday, 31th March to Sunday, 11th June 2017
[maxbutton id=”169″]
Image caption: Pascale Marthine Tayou, Mask, 2014. Crystal, mixed media. © the artist and Galleria Continua
Exhibitions Berlin Galleries: UNTIE TO TIE – On Colonial Legacies and Contemporary Societies – ifa-Galerie Berlin | ART at Berlin
