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Wednesday, 4. March 2015 - 19:00
∇ EXHIBITION OPENING
EL HADJI SY: Painting, Performance, PoliticsΔ EXHIBITION OPENINGEL HADJI SY: Painting, Performance, Politics
5th March 2015 – 18th October 2015
Opening: 4th March 2015, 7pmIn the mid-1970s, in a pioneering move, the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt began collecting contemporary artworks from Africa. Today it has over 3000 paintings, prints and sculptures in its collection.
In 1985, the museum commissioned the artist and curator El Hadji Sy (born 1954 in Dakar) with the task of assembling a new group of works of contemporary art from Senegal, thereby initiating a long-term relationship between Frankfurt and Dakar.
Thirty years later, as part of its programmatic investigation into its collection, the Weltkulturen Museum is proud to present a retrospective of El Hadji Sy’s career as a painter and cultural activist whose seminal involvement with the museum preceded the so-called global turn of 1989.
The exhibition, which is co-curated by Philippe Pirotte, director of the Städelschule and Portikus, combines El Hadji Sy’s installations and paintings – sometimes executed with his bare feet or produced on unusual surfaces such as industrial rice sacking or synthetic kite silk – with his selection of ethnographic objects and artworks by colleagues from Senegal. The exhibition includes loans from international private collections in addition to works from the Weltkulturen Museum.
As a founder of the notorious collective Laboratoire AGIT’ART, and a curator of numerous artist-led workshops and studio spaces in Dakar, El Hadji Sy’s interdisciplinary practice represents a ground-breaking position within the context of post-independence Africa.
A comprehensive monograph with unseen archival material, essays and interviews by Hans Belting, Clémentine Deliss, Mamadou Diouf, Julia Grosse, Yvette Mutumba, Philippe Pirotte and Manon Schwich is published by diaphanes in English and German.
5th March – 18th October 2015
Weltkulturen Museum
Schaumainkai 29, 60594 Frankfurt
Tues – Sun, 11am – 6pm, Wed, 11am – 8pm
Entrance: € 7 / reduced € 3.50
schließen -
Friday, 6. March 2015 - 19:00
∇ CONVERSATION
“After Négritude. The politics of art in post-colonial Senegal”
With El Hadji Sy and Mamadou DioufΔ CONVERSATION“After Négritude. The politics of art in post-colonial Senegal”
El Hadji Sy (Dakar) and Mamadou Diouf (Columbia University, New York)The conversation probes the aesthetic, political and philosophical content of the Négritude movement, highlighting its importance in the quest for an alternative language for Senegalese art after Independence. Together with the artist, Mamadou Diouf explores the influence of Senghor’s Négritude on El Hadji Sy’s work.
El Hadji Sy is a painter, curator, and cultural activist. As a founder of the artists’ collectives Laboratoire AGIT’ART and Tenq, and as a curator of numerous artist-led workshops and studio spaces in Dakar, El Hadji Sy’s interdisciplinary practice represents a ground-breaking position within the context of post-independence Africa. Hailed by the late Senegalese poet and President, Léopold Sédar Senghor, he is equally known for his rebellious attitude towards state cultural policy.
Mamadou Diouf is Leitner Family Professor of African Studies and History, and directs the Institute of African Studies at Columbia University, New York. His more recent publications include Les arts de la citoyenneté au Sénégal. Espaces contestés et civilités urbaines(edited with Rosalind Fredericks, 2013).
In English
Weltkulturen Labor
Schaumainkai 37, 60594 Frankfurt
6th March 2015, 7PM
5€ / reduced 2,50€
schließen -
Sunday, 8. March 2015 - 15:00
∇ ARTIST AND CURATOR'S GUIDED TOUR
With El Hadji Sy and Prof. Philippe PirotteΔ ARTIST AND CURATOR'S GUIDED TOUREl Hadji Sy with Philippe Pirotte, director of the Städelschule and Portikus.
El Hadji Sy and Philippe Pirotte guide you through the exhibition and discuss the different aspects of El Hadji Sy's practice as a painter and a cultural activist.
For El Hadji Sy, painting is prompted by a set of performative or choreographic gestures revealing his engagement with society at large. His large-format paintings on industrial jute sacking once used to transport rice or sugar to Dakar, his painted mobile paravents that stand in anticipation like actors on a set, and his semi-functional structures such as kites, floor paintings or double-sided painted mirrors together generate situations that implicate the spectators as actors within the installation. In addition, El Hadji Sy introduces a variety of materials into his work, from oils and acrylic on canvas or rice sacking, to tar and paint on butcher’s wrapping paper, through to experiments with traditional formats such as reverse glass painting.
Philippe Pirotte is a Belgian art historian, critic, and curator of numerous international exhibitions. Since 2014 he has been Dean of the Staatliche Hochschule für Bildende Künste – Städelschule and director of Portikus, Frankfurt am Main. Since 2012 he has been the adjunct senior curator at the UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. In 1999 he co-founded the art centre Objectif_Exhibitions in Antwerp. From 2005 to 2011, he was director of the Kunsthalle Bern. Pirotte has written numerous essays about contemporary art and artists, and contributed to Nka – Journal of Contemporary African Art, Afterall Journal, Kaleidoscope, Mousse Magazine and Parkett.
In English
Weltkulturen Museum
Schaumainkai 29, 60594 Frankfurt
8th March, 3pm
7€ / reduced 3,50€
Cost of tour included in admission fee.
schließen -
Wednesday, 11. March 2015 - 18:00
∇ CURATOR'S GUIDED TOUR
With Dr. Yvette MutumbaΔ CURATOR'S GUIDED TOURGuided tour of the exhibition "EL HADJI SY: Painting, Performance, Politics".
With Dr. Yvette Mutumba, Co-Curator and Research Curator Africa of the Weltkulturen Museum.
Weltkulturen Museum
Schaumainkai 29, 60594 Frankfurt
11th March, 6pm
7€ / reduced 3,50€
Cost of tour included in admission fee.
schließen -
Sunday, 15. March 2015 - 15:00
∇ CURATOR'S GUIDED TOUR
With Dr. Clémentine DelissΔ CURATOR'S GUIDED TOURWith Dr. Clémentine Deliss, Director of the Weltkulturen Museum, and Co-Curator of the exhibition
The exhibition "EL HADJI SY: Painting, Performance, Politics" is dedicated to the work of this outstanding Senegalese artist, activist and curator. Dr. Clémentine Deliss looks at the background to the long relationship between El Hadji Sy and Frankfurt’s Weltkulturen Museum, and takes the selection of works on show as a basis upon which to explore Sy’s exceptional, multifaceted career and to discuss the ideas behind his complex oeuvre.
Weltkulturen Museum
Schaumainkai 29, 60594 Frankfurt
16th March, 3pm
7€ / reduced 3,50€
Cost of tour included in admission fee.
schließen
