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until 01.06. |#3851ARTatBerlin | ChertLüdde presents on 28. April 2023 the exhibition About Telepathy and other Violences of the artist Monia Ben Hamouda.
MONIA BEN HAMOUDA About Telepathy and other Violences April 28 – June 1, 2023 As part of the Berlin Gallery Weekend, Galerie Chert Lüdde presents About Telepathy and other Violences, the first solo exhibition of Italian-Tunisian artist Monia Ben Hamouda (1991, Milan) at the gallery.
Ben Hamouda had exhibited in ChertLüdde’s project space Bungalow in 2021and has been represented by the gallery since 2022. The artist, who lives between al-Qayrawan and Milan, addresses her Islamic and Christian origins in her works and creates calligraphic references.
Monia Ben Hamouda, Aniconism as Figurative Urgency (the eye), 2022, Laser cut steel, spice powders, circa: 200 × 160 × 0.3 cm, 20 kg
In the exhibition, fabric-wrapped wooden sculptures stand between twelve hanging steel sculptures that emphasize the contrast between the dynamic gestures and static pauses in their form.
As part of a personal, shamanic process involving healing and resilience, the laser-cut steel sheets were sprinkled with various spices and powders (chili, cumin, curry, henna, coconut charcoal, dried beet, salt). Each of the works is cut into shapes that abstract traditional Islamic calligraphy, and consists of repeating layers installed one after the other to create the illusion of movement.
The artist’s visual focus on the representation of movement is a reference to migration and manifests allusions to the pilgrimage to Mecca and the stone throwing ritual of Hajj. Walking through the exhibition, one can see a hand in motion, in various stages of becoming, in the layers of hanging sculptures.
Portrait of Monia Ben Hamouda in her studio, Milan, 2022, Foto: Michele Gabriele, Courtesy of Monia Ben Hamouda, Milan und ChertLüdde, Berlin.
Monia Ben Hamouda (1991, Milan) graduated in Fine Arts from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. She then held a visiting professorship at the Hochschule für Bildende Künste in Dresden and sat on the jury of the Filmmaker Festival in Milan.Ben Hamouda follows the philosophy that every individual is inseparable from his family tree and the psychological universe of his ancestors and tries to bring these influences together in a changing environment.
The daughter of an Islamic calligrapher, Ben Hamouda navigates and confronts her cultural heritage through what she calls a shamanic process – creating works that seem like exorcist gestures and evoking an expectation fed by tradition and the politicized present. Her visual language, reflected in a broad spectrum of formal approaches, is imbued with cultural-religious symbolism and ritual.
Monia Ben Hamouda, „Aniconism as Figurative Urgency (Hamra)“, 2022; Installation view of „Hamra“, Ariel Feminisms in the Aesthetics, Copenhagen, 2022; Laser cut steel, spice powders 200 × 150 × 25 cm
Often her works are covered with fragrant spices and powders that have a medicinal, ceremonial, culinary and ritual connection and have been used for millennia.The exhibitionAbout Telepathy and other Violencestakes place concurrently with her solo exhibitionThe Destruction of the Idols of Ka’ba, curated by PakuiHardware (Neringa Černiauskaitė & Ugnius Gelguda) at Casa Encendida,Madrid. At the same time her work is exhibited in Rome at MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome.
She is a recipient of the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant (2022), theTorino Social Impact Art Award x Artissima (2021), the Art Business AcceleratorGrant – Artwork, Archive + Redline Contemporary Art Center (2021) and theDUCATO Contemporary Art Prize Special Award (2020).
Opening: Friday, 28. April 2023, from 6 pm – 9 pm
Exhibition dates: Friday, 28. April 2023 until Thursday, 01. June 2023
To the Gallery
Image Caption: Monia Ben Hamouda, “Night of Hinnā”, Installation View at Bungalow/ChertLüdde, Berlin, 2021, Photo: Andrea Rossetti,Courtesy of Monia Ben Hamouda, Milan and BUNGALOW/ChertLüdde, Berlin
Exhibition Monia Ben Hamouda – ChertLüdde | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
