Chromatics is an exhibition by Emo de Medeiros grounded in the necessity of a radical fight against racism, « radical » meaning that the fight must also be symbolic and conceptual, aiming at destroying racialization mechanisms that create automatic thinking and a mainly subconscious linguistic « apartheid ».

The basis of the piece is a program randomly combining 200 three-to-five-letters most common nouns in the English language, thus generating 10 000 possible word couples. The program then randomly adds the words « black » and « white » thus generating 80 000 possible four words paragraphs or « stanzas ».

The viewers can observe the drastic change when « black » and « white » are randomly added.

The exhibition is manifested in a series of mirrors, paper works, textile works and a video.

Emo de Medeiros is a French-Beninese visual artist whose work encompasses a wide variety of media and interrogates the validity of given systems to inform and influence the ultra-contemporary world. So far this year he exhibited in Video Brazil  and the Dakar Biennale where his work « )U(« , “‘A monumental arrangement of neons, surveillance cameras, screens and mirrors… » was noted by Philippe Dagen, veteran art critic for the French newspaper Le Monde as: « one of the most striking realisations at the Biennale”. In September, de Medeiros executed a new performance: « Ubi(s) », at the Pompidou Centre, Paris. Later this Autumn he will participate to the Casablanca Biennale (Morocco) curated by Christine Eyene; Lagos Photo (Nigeria) and Cosmopolis Pompidou/MJAC in Chengdu (China).

As part of the VIP programme for 1:54, Emo de Medeiros and Christine Eyene will be in conversation this Saturday 6th October at 50 Golborne at the opening of de Medeiros’ new solo exhibition, ‘Chromatics’. RSVP

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