Tiwani Contemporary announces its summer project: African Industrial Revolution (A.I.R) by e-studio Luanda. e-studio Luanda is an artist collective and studio complex founded in 2012 in the Angolan capital by Francisco Vidal, Rita GT, António Ole and Nelo Teixeira.

A.I.R. will be the collective’s first exhibition in the UK, taking the form of an open studio within Tiwani Contemporary’s space. Transforming the gallery space into a temporary artist studio, the first week of the project will be punctuated by daily sessions during which collective members Rita GT and Francisco Vidal will produce work in-situ. The overall aim of the project is to release a work of art directly into a system that depends on digital and analogue ideas around free reproduction and distribution, investigating how information is disseminated today.

A.I.R. forms part of e-studio Luanda’s ongoing exploration of the condition of the post-modern, peripatetic and itinerant artist. The project envisions a system of art making and exhibiting that is no longer tied in with a sense of place, and highlights the status of the artist as an international worker.

Follow their blog http://africanindustrialrevolution.com/ for daily updates on their work-in-progress.

Tuesday – Saturday, 11am – 2pm, between 10 and 17 July:
Open studio sessions with Francisco Vidal and Rita GT

This project is made possible thanks to the generous support of the A.G. Leventis Foundation.

Art Connect Artist Talk | Francisco Vidal and Rita GT in conversation with Gabriela Salgado

17 July 2015, 7 – 8pm

Free event
rsvp: info@tiwani.co.uk

e-studio Luanda members Rita GT and Francisco Vidal discuss their work with independent curator and consultant Gabriela Salgado, in conjunction with their exhibition African Industrial Revolution at Tiwani Contemporary.

Gabriela Salgado is an Argentine-born curator based in London. She holds an MA in Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art and has curated a large number of exhibitions including La Otra Bienal in Bogotá, Colombia (2013) and the 2nd Biennale of Thessaloniki, Greece (2009), as well as having lectured in over twenty countries. She was Curator of the Collection of Latin American Art at Essex University, UECLAA from 1999 to 2005 and Curator of Public Programmes at Tate Modern from 2006 to 2011. She has published essays on the work of numerous contemporary artists and wrote the catalogue for Pangaea at the Saatchi Gallery (2014). Gabriela works internationally as a curator and consultant and is currently directing a programme of artistic exchanges for African and Latin American artists.

Rita GT was born in Porto in 1980. She lives and works in Luanda, Angola. Rita GT gained a BA in Communication Design (2004) from the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Porto, and an MA in Fine Arts from Malmö Art Academy, Lund University in Malmö, Sweden. Solo exhibitions include; Instituto Camões, Luanda (2014); UNAP, Luanda (2012); Bienal de Viana do Castelo (2010); Empty Cube, Lisbon (2009); Gallery Reflexus, Porto (2009); and PêSSEGOpráSEMANA, Porto (2007). Group exhibitions include: KunstKraftWerk, Leipzig and Freies Museum/Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2015); SOSO Contemporary African Art Gallery, Luanda (2012); Museum of the City, Lisbon (2011); CCB – Museu Berardo, Lisbon (2009); Arte Contempo, LIsbon (2007); Natural History Museum, Lisbon (2007); and the Rothschild Prize, Lisbon (2007). Rita GT is the commissioner for this year’s Angolan Pavilion at the Venice Biennale.

Francisco Vidal was born in Lisbon in 1978. He is Portuguese, Angolan and Cape Verdean. Vidal lives and works in Luanda, Angola and holds an MFA from Columbia University School of the Arts in New York. Vidal is one of the artists in the official selection for the Angolan Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, and also represented Angola at Expo Milan (2015). His first solo exhibition in the UK is taking place at Tiwani Contemporary in November 2015. Recent exhibitions include: KunstKraftWerk, Leipzig and Freies Museum/Savvy Contemporary, Berlin (2015); National Museum of National History, Luanda (2013), SOSO Contemporary African Art Gallery, Luanda (2012); Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (2011); Fisher Landau Center for the Arts, Long Island, NY (2011); EDP Foundation, Lisbon (2010); and Lux, Lisbon (2010). His work is represented in public collections including the EDP Foundation, PLMJ Foundation and Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, as well as private collections.

Tiwani Contemporary’s public programme, Art Connect, is generously supported by the A.G. Leventis Foundation.

www.tiwani.co.uk