All information about the renovation project and our alternative program can be found here.
June 7, to September 22, 2024
Avant-Garde and Liberation
Contemporary Art and Decolonial Modernism
The exhibition Avant-Garde and Liberation highlights the significance of global modernism for contemporary art. It raises questions of the political circumstances that move contemporary artists to resort to those non-European avant-gardes that formed as a counterpart of the dominant Western modernism from the 1920s to the 1970s. What are the potentials artists see in the ties to decolonial avant-gardes in Africa, Asia, and the “Black Atlantic” region, to take a stand against current forms of racism, fundamentalism, or neocolonialism? Which artistic methods are employed when addressing subjects such as the encroachment on personal liberties and social cohesion by drawing on seminal anticolonial and antiracist positions of the early to mid-twentieth century?
Showcasing several works by twenty-four artists from South Asia, Africa, Europe, and America, Avant-Garde and Liberation offers a glimpse of global modernism through the prism of their pertinence for contemporary art. In the complex tangle of past and present, the exhibition reflects on questions of temporality as well as the possibility of engaging with old and new liberation movements.
Artists:
Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc, Omar Ba, Radcliffe Bailey, Yto Barrada, Mohamed Bourouissa, Diedrick Brackens, Serge Attukwei Clottey, william cordova, Atul Dodiya, Robert Gabris, Jojo Gronostay, Leslie Hewitt, Iman Issa, Janine Jembere, patricia kaersenhout, Belinda Kazeem-Kamiński, Zoe Leonard, Vincent Meessen, The Otolith Group, Fahamu Pecou, Cauleen Smith, Maud Sulter, Vivan Sundaram, Moffat Takadiwa
Curated by Christian Kravagna, co-curated by Matthias Michalka
Download area
patricia kaersenhout
Le retour des femmes colibris, 2022
Film, 17 minutes
© the artist
patricia kaersenhout
Le retour des femmes colibris, 2022
Film, 17 minutes
© the artist
Omar Ba
Clin d‘oeil à Cheikh Anta Diop – Un continent à la recherche de son histoire, 2017
Oil, pencil, acrylic, ink, gouache on corrugated cardboard
Approx. 330 x 718 x 40 cm
Courtesy of Galerie Templon, New York / Paris / Brussels
© Adagp, Paris, 2024 / Photo: Galerie Templon, New York / Paris / Brussels
Omar Ba
Clin d‘oeil à Cheikh Anta Diop – Un continent à la recherche de son histoire, 2017
Oil, pencil, acrylic, ink, gouache on corrugated cardboard
Approx. 330 x 718 x 40 cm
Courtesy of Galerie Templon, New York / Paris / Brussels
© Adagp, Paris, 2024 / Photo: Galerie Templon, New York / Paris / Brussels
Zoe Leonard, Tipping Point, 2016
tack of 53 books of the first edition of James Baldwin's 'The Fire Next Time'
Approx. 96.5 x 20.3 x 14 cm
Photo: Simon Vogel
Courtesy the artist, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne and Hauser & Wirth, New York
Zoe Leonard, Tipping Point, 2016
tack of 53 books of the first edition of James Baldwin's 'The Fire Next Time'
Approx. 96.5 x 20.3 x 14 cm
Photo: Simon Vogel
Courtesy the artist, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne and Hauser & Wirth, New York
Fahamu Pecou, A.W.N. (Artist with Negritude), 2012
Acryl auf Leinwand
178 × 147 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Backslash, Paris
© Backslash, Paris
Fahamu Pecou, A.W.N. (Artist with Negritude), 2012
Acryl auf Leinwand
178 × 147 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Backslash, Paris
© Backslash, Paris
Atul Dodiya, Volunteers at the Congress House—August 1931, 2014
Oil, acrylic with marble dust and oil-stick on canvas
183 × 183 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Chemould Prescott Road
© Anil Rane
Atul Dodiya, Volunteers at the Congress House—August 1931, 2014
Oil, acrylic with marble dust and oil-stick on canvas
183 × 183 cm
Courtesy of the artist and Chemould Prescott Road
© Anil Rane
Katharina Murschetz
T:+43-1-525 00-1400
F:+43 1 52500-1300
katharina.murschetz@mumok.at
Katharina Kober
T:+43-1-525 00-1309
F:+43 1 52500-1300
katharina.kober@mumok.at