The term « Social distancing » appeals to the spatial dimension but also engaged in artistic production. By « distancing », one must understand taking a step back in the literal sense, the spontaneous gesture that protects us from the other. But one can also assume « distancing » as a reflective step back. A distancing which can therefore be in this sense, anopportunity to see things from different angles, to change point of view, to give rise to new questions.

The term « distancing » is also a heritage from the performing arts. It has a spatial and social connotation, since it involves meet- ing the spectator. At the heart of the work, or on the contrary put at a distance, it enters into a form of dialogue with the artist through staging. The distancing allows to shift the power of meaning of the works, by giving back his critical mind to the spec- tator.

The exhibition « Social distancing » navigates between these dimensions while echoing the new vocabulary that currently governs our human relationships. It then poses the question of the limit, and proposes an evolving answers with malleable bor-ders. This exhibition allows the artists to represent the contradictions and social flaws in which the possibilities of transformationand emancipation for their generation reside.

The exhibition Existence # 2 thinks of the presence of the other, artist as well as spectator. It is an excuse to summon the re- sources, to mobilize the collective energies of this young generation of artists, in order to provide answers to the destabilizing experiences that nevertheless unite them.

EXISTENCE # 2 brings together eleven reflective consciousnesses on the production of works of art in a hybridcultural space. The selected works effectively question the creative intention, the purpose, and the completion of formally con- temporary practices. Artists who, in a collective dynamic, try to decipher the limits of the common through the symbolism of their productions.

With this exhibition, the curators duo Arthur Francietta & Jérémie Priam, shows us in what ways the cultural and social achievements of artists, anchored in a contemporary Caribbean, can be in conscious relation with the world of today.

Guest artists:
Alice ARNAUD – Jean-Marc BULLET – Pauline & Mathilde BONNET – Jonathan CLAUDE – Marvin FABIEN – Bahbou FLORO – YannMONTOUT – Jérémie PRIAM – Ludgi SAVON – Stedy THEODORE – Alex KVRY – Kidjahna WACCUS

EXISTENCE #2 – [Social distancing] is an exhibition curated by Arthur Francietta & Jérémie Priam ;
with the support of espace d’art contemporain 14N 61W, and the association art unlimited, in Fort-de-France (Martinique).



EXISTENCE #2 – [Social distancing]
20.06.2020 au 01.08. 2020
espace d’art contemporain 14N 61W
Fort-de-France (Martinique)

+ Find more: www.14n61w.org

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Meleko Mokgosi, who was born in Botswana, employs traditions of Western European painting to deliver sharp political critiques relating to the postcolonial condition. By combining a high degree of painterly skill with a poetic, open-ended semiotic approach and an affinity for archival research, the artist shines light on some of the complex socioeconomic dynamics that animate contemporary southern Africa.

Mokgosi typically employs hyper-realistic figurative imagery on an epic scale, incorporating mysterious, unidentified personages loosely linked to one another in implied storylines, sometimes spanning multiple timeframes within the same composition. His work references murals and cinema as well as the conventional European artistic genre known as history painting. Whereas traditional history paintings feature lofty subjects—military battles or climactic scenes drawn from ancient legends—Mokgosi elevates everyday, anonymous persons and common objects, setting them against mundane domestic contexts while inserting references that establish an array of subtle yet powerful suggestive effects. “This exhibition engages PAMM’s long-abiding interest in the Afro-Atlantic world that interweaves Europe, Africa, the U.S., Latin America and the Caribbean,” said René Morales, PAMM’s Interim Director of Curatorial Affairs. “It draws from Miami’s deep identification as the crossroads of the Americas while signaling the museum’s dedication to addressing issues of racial, ethnic, and national identity with an eye toward diversity and transnational and cross-cultural interconnection.”

Mokgosi’s exhibition at PAMM centers around the 1966 film Unsere Afrikareise (Our Trip to Africa) by the seminal filmmaker Peter Kubelka, who is widely recognized as one of the progenitors of the Structural film movement. The film follows a wealthy Austrian family on their safari trip through Africa, revealing the differences in social and economic status between the two cultures. As the Europeans engage in various leisure activities (swimming, sunbathing, teasing their native attendants, and, of course, hunting), the action is intercut with fleeting glimpses of African passersby engaged in their daily labor (carrying water, pounding a mortar with a pestle).

Kubelka punctuates these sequences with the repetitive, gruesome spectacle of the Austrians killing and skinning an elephant, a zebra, a lion, a giraffe, and other wild animals. The disconcerting dimensions of Unsere Africareise have often been cited, together with Kubelka’s stated disgust with his bourgeois patrons, to support the argument that he meant the work to serve as a critique of European colonialism and tourism in Africa. Mokgosi takes a more critical perspective, however, citing Kubelka’s insistence that his true intention was to “try and tear the emotions loose from the people, so that they would gain distance to their emotions, their feelings.” Taking Kubelka at his word, Mokgosi infuses the film with a new emotional force, reversing the desensitized tone that often accompanies modernist aesthetic treatments of non-Western subjects. As he has often done before, Mokgosi drives this critique through the heart of the Western art historical canon.

Meleko Mokgosi completed the Independent Study Program at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and received a BA from Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, in 2007. He received an MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), in 2011. Solo exhibitions of his work have been presented at the Fowler Museum at UCLA; Williams College Museum of Art, Williamstown; Jack Shainman Gallery, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; and Honor Fraser Gallery, Los Angeles. His work has been included in group exhibitions at the California African American Museum, Los Angeles; The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; New Wight Gallery, UCLA; National Library of Cameroon, Yaounde; Whitney Museum of American Art; National Gallery, Gaborone, Botswana; and the Augusta Savage Gallery, University of Massachusetts, Amherst. His work is included in the collections of The Studio Museum in Harlem; Hammer Museum; Alfond Collection of Contemporary Art, Rollins College, Winter Park, Florida; Colby Museum of Art, Waterville, Maine; and Pérez Art Museum Miami, among other institutions.

Meleko Mokgosi: Your Trip to Africa is organized by PAMM Interim Director of Curatorial Affairs René Morales.

Meleko Mokgosi: Your Trip To Africa

Feb. 28, 2020 – May 30, 2021

Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM)

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Boston has always had a special place in Martin Luther King Jr.’s place. It is the city where he met his wife, Coretta Scott and where they went to graduate school. He declared in 1965 that “Boston must become a testing ground for the ideals of freedom.”

 “In 2017, King Boston, a privately funded effort working closely with the City of Boston, heeded that call when it asked for submissions for a memorial in the Kings’ honor on Boston Common, the site of many historic marches and protests.”

Today, King Boston, which is also supporting a documentary film and additional programming that promotes equity, has announced the winner: conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas and MASS Design Group, perhaps best known for their work on the National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama.

“Called The Embrace, the 22-foot-tall sculpture represents the hands of King and Scott King, evoking images of the couple—and other protesters—arm-in-arm in peaceful marches for civil rights as well as the power of physical togetherness in declaring resistance against injustice. “The Embrace” also embodies Scott King’s emphasis on the transformative power of empathy—and putting it into action. Visitors to the sculpture will be readily reflected in its mirror-finish bronze, making them part of the installation.”

To read the full content –> Architectural Digest 

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