El Hadji Sy – Painting, Performance, Politics

“EL HADJI SY – Painting, Performance, Politics” is the first retrospective exhibition in Europe of the Senegalese artist and curator El Hadji Sy. It brings together and contextualises his complex and multifaceted production with artworks from the collection of the Weltkulturen Museum, and major private loans from Senegal, South Africa, and Europe.
Together with unique archival material, documentary film and photography, this exhibition throws new light on the intercultural and artistic connections between Europe and Africa, for which the Weltkulturen Museum has played a significant role since the 1970s.
As a painter, curator, and cultural activist, El Hadji Sy’s interdisciplinary practice represents a pioneering model within the context of post-Independence Africa. Exhibited internationally as a painter since the late-1970s and hailed by the late Senegalese poet and President, Léopold Sédar Senghor, he is equally known for his rebellious attitude towards state cultural policy. In his capacity as artist and activist, El Hadji Sy co-founded the avant-garde performance group Laboratoire AGIT’art, was the lead instigator of the international artist-led Tenq workshops and Villages des Arts in Dakar, and a key collaborator of the interventionist group Huit Facettes. In the mid-1990s, his work as artist-curator was presented at the Whitechapel Gallery London and Konsthalle Malmö in “Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa”, and he took part in seminal exhi-bitions including “Otro Pais” (Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderna, Gran Canaria, 1994) and “Meditations” (Medersa Ibn Youssef, Marrakesh, 1996, together with Anish Kapoor, Ilya Kabakov, and Chen Zhen). More recently, for the 31st Bienal of São Paulo, Sy developed a 16-metre-long painting-installation activated by dancers on the theme of marine archaeology.
Curators:
Clémentine Deliss, Director Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Yvette Mutumba, Research Curator Africa, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Philippe Pirotte, Director of the Städelschule and Portikus, Frankfurt am Main
Nina Huber, Assistant Curator, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Participating artists:
Djibril Sy, Dakar
Mamdou Touré Béhan, Dakar
Plus works from the Weltkulturen Museum collection of Senegalese contemporary art.
Opening: 4th March 2015, 7pm
www.weltkulturenmuseum.de