NEWS
2022
ACAYE KERUNEN & COLLIN SEKAJUGO
Uganda National Pavilion at The 59th International Art Exhibition La Biennale di Venezia 2022
The Ministry of Gender, Labour and Social Development announces the Uganda National Pavilion in the forthcoming 59th Art Exhibition at La Biennale di Venezia 2022. The Commissioner of the Uganda National Pavilion is Mme Juliana Naumo. This opportunity was made possible through a partnership between Stjarna.art and the Uganda National Cultural Centre (UNCC). The Tanzanian born, British curator, Mr. Shaheen Merali, will present the works of the Kampala-based artists Ms. Acaye Kerunen and Mr. Collin Sekajugo in Uganda’s first appearance as a national pavilion at the Venice Biennale.
Says curator Shaheen Merali: “We are looking forward to presenting the works of Ms. Kerunen and Mr. Sekajugo, whose dual approaches to art making, while diverse in their respective aesthetic approach, finds a common ground in their respective imaginations on materiality and form. ‘Radiance - They Dream in Time’ refers to the essential knowledge and lived experiences of Kerunen and Sekajugo in speaking to the many different territories of Uganda, as well as to urban trade and living conditions in its urban centres. Both artists have been actively working with formal and informal archives of Uganda’s dynamic visual culture.”
Acaye Kerunen’s process as a socially engaged artist foregrounds the work of local and regional Ugandan craftswomen, celebrating them as integral collaborators and elevating the artistic practices of local artisans who are the gatekeepers of their local wetlands, drawing upon a sacred and unspoken knowledge of ecological stewardship. By deconstructing utilitarian materials and artisan crafts, Kerunen repositions the work in order to tell new stories and posit new meaning. The act of re-installing these deconstructed materials is a response to the agency of women’s work in Africa and an acknowledgment of the role that this artistic labor plays in the climate ecosystem.
JOHN ROBINSON
"THUG" - Woolbridge Art Gallery, Biella
John Robinson 'THUG', a solo exhibition at Woolbridge Art Gallery, Biella, Italy, March 26 - May 29, 2022. John Robinson's paintings have been called fantastical, kitchen sink aesthetics, cathartical, absurd, and revelatory. He prefers to call them "(self) portrait; as other". He makes pictures that are recorded from reality by way of performance which is then rendered in paint. ‘The work is equal parts art history, part performance and part humiliation culture' (In English & in Italiano, 58 pages.
REZA ARAMESH
14 Bienal de Havana
British-Iranian artist Reza Aramesh will present, as part of the program of the 14th
Havana Biennial, the solo show entitled “Ruptura; Una y Mil Veces” (Rupture; Once and a Thousand Times).
The opening will take place on January 21 at 4:00 p.m. at
the National Museum of Decorative Arts, the exhibition continues until the end June. 2022.
Working across a wide range of materials and processes, Aramesh examines simultaneously the history of Western art and a contemporary commentary on the politics and history of the Middle East, conjuring a unique visual language in addressing the contemporary conditions of violence and geo-politics, to that of the classic standards of beauty. He successfully delivers the unwanted transgressions of society by employing beauty as the delivery agent. Aramesh often expresses, “my role as an artist is to contribute to the ongoing conversation towards art history and to challenge the boundaries of European Art history in relation to the absence of the other.