Since the early 1980s, the Ghanaian-born, British artist John Akomfrah has been making films and video collages that examine the violent legacy of colonialism. His work came to prominence in the early 1980s when he was a part of the Black Audio Film Collective, a group of seven artists founded in 1982 in response to the 1981 Brixton riots.
Another breakthrough for John Akomfrah was “Vertigo Sea,” an unsettling three-channel video that portrayed the oceans as sites of true savagery. In the video, Akomfrah projects the ocean as an environmental, cultural, and historical force; a force that connects “literature and poetry, history of slavery, and contemporary issues of migration and climate change,” the New Museum says. The work, which was showcased first at the Venice Biennale, 2015, and with “Signs of Empire,” will make its debut in America.
Along with “Vertigo Sea,” the exhibition will offer to its viewers, three additional, phenomenal works from Akomfrah’s oeuvre — “The Unfinished Conversation” (2012), “Expeditions — Signs of Empire” (1983), and a new version of Akomfrah’s “Transfigured Night” (2013/2018), a two-channel work looking at the relationship between the US and post-colonial African history.
The exhibition is curated by Gary Carrion-Murayari, Kraus Family Curator, and Massimiliano Gioni, Edlis Neeson Artistic Director. It will be accompanied by a fully illustrated catalog featuring essays by Tina Campt, T.J. Demos, Okwui Enwezor, Aram Moshayedi, Diana Nawi, and Zoe Whitley.
The exhibition will be on view from June 20 to September 2, 2018, at New Museum, 235 Bowery, New York, NY 10002, USA
For details, visit http://www.blouinartinfo.com/galleryguide/new-museum/overview
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Credit: blouinartinfo.com
