Dada, a prolific and subversive art movement, first emerged in Zurich during the First World War, and then spread to centres such as Berlin, Paris and New York. Through their new works - sound poems, collage, performance - the Dada artists rejected the traditional values of civilisation, while appropriating the cultural and artistic forms of non-western cultures such as Africa, Oceania and America. The Musée de...
The Dada soirées will feature archive material of films of dance, sound documents, music, revealing the diversity, inventiveness and radical nature of Dada productions - textiles, graphics, posters, assemblages, wooden reliefs, dolls and puppets - in relation to the strange beauty and rarity of the non-western works: a Hemba statue and Makonde mask from Africa, a Hannya mask from Japan, the prow of a Maori pirogue...
As the home of the Jean Walter - Paul Guillaume collection, the Musée de l'Orangerie is the perfect place for this exhibition. Paul Guillaume, an important dealer in African art, played a leading role in this cultural encounter that took place against a background of hybrids, genre and colonial attitudes.
In counterpoint to the exhibition, the works of two contemporary artists will be presented at the museum:
- two photographs by the artist Athi-Patra Ruga from a performance and a reflection on identity... A Vigil for Mayibuye (from the Exile series), 1915 and The Future White Woman of Azania, 2012
- a collection of works (tapestries, photographs and drawings) by Otobong Nkanga, including two tapestries In Pursuit of Bling, 2014.
Athi-Patra Ruga lives and works in Johannesburg. Exploring the border zones between fashion, performance and contemporary art. Athi-Patra Ruga's work exhibits and subverts the body in relation to structure, ideology and politics. Bursting with eclectic multicultural references, carnal sensuality and a dislocated undercurrent of humour, his performances, videos, costumes and photographic images create a world where cultural identity is no longer determined by geographical origin, ancestry or biological disposition, but is increasingly becoming a hybrid construct.
Otobong Nkanga, an artist who trained in Nigeria and Paris, lives and works in Antwerp. Her drawings, installations, photographs, performances and sculptures question in different ways the notion of territory and the value accorded to natural resources. In several of her works, Otobong Nkanga reflects metonymically on the different customs and cultural values connected to natural resources, exploring how meaning and function are relative in cultures, and revealing the various roles and histories of these materials, particularly in the context of her own life and memories.
This display was made possible with the support of Fabienne Leclerc / Galerie In Situ, Paris.
