The artist Georges Adéagbo, who lives in Hamburg, Germany, and Cotonou, Benin, is presenting installations at various sites in Hamburg that refer to stories in Hamburg and Cotonou. These interventions are explorations of Hamburg as a cosmopolitan space and will become part of the public installation ‘Inverted Space’ in the summer of 2015.

Georges Adéagbo works with assemblages and installations by arranging found objects of diverse origin, such as books, photographs, craft objects, utilitarian objects, and newspaper clippings, along with handwritten texts to create three-dimensional narrative spaces. The initial elements are transformed by the new contexts and develop into alternative narrations and historical constructions. Adéagbo’s artistic praxis crosses boundaries between historical periods, geographical distances, and national cultures and addresses religious and personal conflicts, colonialism, cultural history, and the mystification of historical figures. Adéagbo’s approach is always site-specific. Objects he collects or has specially made in Benin are combined with materials he finds in the location of the exhibition. In Inverted Space, books and objects acquired from second-hand stores or flea markets in Hamburg and Cotonou are employed as found objects.

From September 11 to 15, 2014, Adéagbo will arrange his assemblages nomadically at various sites in Hamburg for one day each. These sites mark various political and cultural stories whose historical legacy Adéagbo studies and links to personal stories. This results in new transversal perspectives on, among other things, the customs and unique qualities of the Hanseatic city and present it as a cosmopolitan space.

The art of Georges Adéagbo (b. 1942 in Cotonou, Benin) has been receiving international attention since the 1990s. For more than fifteen years, the artist has been living and working in Hamburg for several months a year. The actions of Inverted Space represent the first time Adéagbo’s works have been presented to a broad audience in Hamburg.

The project is curated by Sophie Goltz (artistic director of Stadtkuratorin Hamburg, curating public art of the City of Hamburg) and Stephan Köhler (Kulturforum Süd-Nord e.V.).

On Monday, September 15 at 6 p.m., the project will be presented in a conversation with the artist and film screening with Georges Adéagbo and Stephan Köhler. The event will take place in French and German and has been organized with the cooperation of the Kunsthaus Hamburg.

From September 2014 to May 2015 international artists from the Stadtkuratorin Hamburg project will present their works at the Kunsthaus Hamburg in the series Stadtgespräch. Metropolitan perspektives.

The project Inverted Space is a cooperation between Stadtkuratorin Hamburg and the Kulturforum Süd-Nord e.V. and is supported by the Elbkulturfonds of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and the Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen.

Georges Adéagbo, ‘Inverted Space’ at Alsterwiese Schwanenwik, © Georges Adéagbo

DATES & EVENTS:

Thu, September 11, noon – 4 pm
Tansania Park, Wilsonstr. 64-68,
Hamburg-Jenfeld

Fri, September 12, noon – 4 pm
Universität Hamburg, main building,
Edmund-Siemers-Allee 1, Hamburg-Rotherbaum

Sat, September 13, noon – 6 pm
P/ART producers artfair, former Phoenix factory, Wilstorfer Strasse 71 / Gate 2, Hamburg-Harburg

Sun, September 13, noon – 4 pm
Alsterwiese Schwanenwik, at the mouth of Hohenfelder Bucht,
Außenalster, Hamburg-Hohenfelde

Mon, September 15, noon – 4 pm
Rathaus, courtyard, Hamburg-Altstadt

Mon, September 15, 6 pm
Artist talk and film screening
with Georges Adéagbo und Stephan Köhler
at Kunsthaus Hamburg, Klosterwall 15, 20095 Hamburg

http://stadtkuratorin-hamburg.de