March '24 Exhibitions
Curated list for March
I know it’s already more than halfway through March and I am putting this out much later than I would’ve liked to. Mehn… life has been lifeing but there are some beautiful exhibitions showing until the end of the month & beginning of April.
Here is my list:
UMAN ~ DARLING SWEETIE, SWEETIE DARLING
Uman’s first exhibition with Hauser & Wirth takes place in London, in equal partnership with Nicola Vassell Gallery, New York NY. An intuitive artist and voracious autodidact, Uman draws upon her memories of her East African childhood, rigorous education in traditional Arabic calligraphy, deep engagement with dreams and fascination with kaleidoscopic color and design.
30th January - 30th March 2024
23 Savile Row, London W1S 2ET
PEJU ALATISE ~ WE CAME WITH THE LAST RAIN
"We Came With The Last Rain" is a profound artistic endeavor, providing a glimpse into a larger collection centered around the empowering narrative of the girl-child, a theme I've nurtured over the years. At its core lies the story of "Flying Girls," a fictional exploration featuring Sim, a 9-year-old girl navigating the challenges of modern-day Lagos as a rented-out servant. This narrative extends to the unfortunate existence of children roaming the streets for survival, commonly known as ‘Almajiri’—children sent to Islamic boarding schools but ending up begging for alms.
This exhibition acts as a prelude to a broader collection, inviting viewers to immerse themselves in the whimsical escapism of Yoruba folklore and mythology.
Reflecting on my grandmother's words in my youth, “Adetoun, this is not the type of rain you play in!”—it's this ‘type of rain’ we observed indoors, watching rain splash against windows, discerning faces in each droplet trickling down the glass. This sentiment is embodied in the installation ‘The Other Side.' Singing my name and oriki, my grandmother's special song, "Adetoun Omoba, ma ma yun oko nigba ojo, ma ma fese kan roro" (Adetoun child of the king, don't play in the farm when it rains, don't step in mud.) Emiogo, a character in 'Flying Girls,' mirrors Adetoun Omoba in the artwork 'I Will Send for You When the Rain Stops.' The entire exhibition revolves around Emiogo, Sim’s dream world best friend.
The borrowed credence from Yoruba folklore revolves around the stories of ‘rain’ and ‘fertility.’ A specific type of rain makes everything grow, with Oya, the rain-associated deity, ensuring fertility. The narratives woven into the artworks resonate with broader themes of resilience, identity, and the rich cultural heritage of the Yoruba experience. As I refine this captivating narrative, "We Came With The Last Rain" invites audiences to explore the layered storytelling, culture, and creativity defining my artistic practice.
21st February - 23rd March 2024
5 - 7 Dover Street, London W1S 4LD
AS FEELING BIRTHS IDEA ~ VIRGINIA CHIHOTA, RITA ALAOUI, RANTI BAM, EURIDICE KALA, PAULA DO PRADO AND WURA-NATASHA OGUNJI
Tiwani Contemporary proudly presents, As Feeling Births Idea a group show featuring: Virginia Chihota, Rita Alaoui, Ranti Bam, Euridice Zaituna Kala, Paula Do Prado, and Wura-Natasha Ogunji. The exhibition gathers together a reflection on each artist's poetics of interiority and engagement: the phenomena, live, or recollected encounters that inform and shape the featured works in the show. The title borrows a sentence extracted from African American poet and activist, Audre Lorde's short essay, Poetry Is Not A Luxury (1977) which draws together a constellation of thoughts, about the illuminatory power of introspection; the 'poetry' of experiences that can instigate action, inspire changes, enlighten our own and other's perspectives. How do each of the artists interpret and make legible the poetics of their experiences through their materials and methodologies?
22nd February - 06th April 2024
24 Cork Street, London W1S 3NG
TOMASHI JACKSON ~ SILENT ALARM
Pilar Corrias is delighted to present Silent Alarm, a solo exhibition of new mixed media paintings by American artist Tomashi Jackson.
On the occasion of her first exhibition with the gallery, the artist debuts a body of work that traces a constellation of historic events that took place in Los Angeles and London over nearly a century, examining the underlying connections between riots, patterns of systemic oppression, and community sound systems.
08th March - 06th April 2024
51 Conduit Street, London W1S 2YT
BUNMI AGUSTO ~ LANDS OF THE LIVING
DADA Gallery is pleased to announce Bunmi Agusto’s second solo exhibition with the gallery, ‘Lands of the Living’. The exhibition features mixed-media works on paper continuing the artist’s world-building practice that follows life in her fantastical paracosm known as ‘Within’.
Using a combination of painting, drawing and printmaking, Agusto juxtaposes opaque drawn figures with translucent printed images in order to explore the relationship between the physical and unseen metaphysical forces. With art historical references to ancient mythologies, Surrealism, the Zaria Art School and the semiotics of comic books, her works come together to narrate a magical tale that depicts death as transition and afterlife as simply another form of life. She draws from overlapping elements across Christian, Islamic, Buddhist and Yoruba religious ideologies —such as the concept of axis mundi and the positions of the heavens and earth— to introduce a geometric logic to the nature of existence.
26th March - 07th April 2024
4 Cromwell Place, London SW7 2JE
MARC PADEU ~ LE BAPTÊME DE ROXANE
I want to paint the everyday life of the people around me, my family and friends. Since we all live together, I share their moments of joy, but also their sadness. Not everything is perfect, there are many difficulties. However, I don't feel obsessed with simply showing this state of affairs. When I manage to capture a moment of joy, a slice of happiness, it is just as perfect. In a way, painting their lives allows me to talk about my own life. I can't work without historical and religious references in my painting. History is my passion and religious belief has always been very present around me.
The baptism of Roxane highlights a baptism ceremony as it appears in my own mind. The different scenes of the paintings are made up of my childhood memories in church and the holy images that decorated the family home, but also of a few lines of holy writing that I was able to read at the time when I was learning about christianity. However, it may happen that in a project like this, the theoretical basis only serves as a pretext for greater exploration of the practical notions of painting. With a completely different perspective, we would then see more of the efforts made to represent in the most faithful way possible the draping of the clothing, the gestures as well as the expressions on the faces through the work of the portrait. The treatment of shadows and lights, the search for depth in the works through landscape work which simultaneously includes a quest for transparency and mirror effect through the work of the river water.
- Marc Padeu
14th March - 05th April 2024
13 Mason's Yard, London SW1Y 6BU
TIONA NEKKIA MCCLODDEN ~ A MERCY | DUMMY
Marking the artist’s inaugural solo show with the gallery, White Cube is pleased to present ‘A MERCY | DUMMY,’ an exhibition of sculpture, installation and painting by Tiona Nekkia McClodden. Spanning two discrete bodies of work, McClodden takes two pivotal works of literature as her starting point to explore notions of interiority, performativity and violence.
Borrowing its title from a 2008 novel by Toni Morrison, A MERCY is comprised of a series of hand-painted steel head gates – utilitarian devices used to restrain and direct livestock in preparation for inoculation or slaughter. Contemplating their dual capacity to soothe and facilitate brutality, McClodden draws parallels with Morrison’s novel, set in late 17th-century colonial America. In the narrative, a mother employs a brutal act of mercy, seeking to protect her daughter from the same violence that she herself endured. The head gates metaphorically embody the paradoxical nature of finding mercy within finite frameworks of violence.
14th February - 24th March 2024
144 – 152 Bermondsey Street, London SE1 3TQ
WOODY DE OTHELLO ~ FAITH LIKE A ROCK
Othello (b.1991, Miami, USA) is best known for a multidisciplinary practice that encompasses sculpture, painting and drawing. Working across a range of mediums—including glazed ceramic, carved wood, bronze, ink and oil paint— Othello transforms everyday objects into anthropomorphic, animistic vessels. His colourful, assembled sculptures appear as animated, sentient objects, while his lush painted landscapes teem with life.
In his debut exhibition at Stephen Friedman Gallery, Othello creates an immersive installation that expands upon earlier motifs and represents a bold evolution in his artistic cosmology. Inspired by the domestic objects, flora and fauna of his immediate surroundings, he recasts them as humanoid characters whose features are as recognisable as they are uncanny. Vessels sprout appendages such as ears and mouths, while exaggerated hands shield invisible eyes. They stand alone or huddled in groups, precariously stacked atop an array of entangled legs that bend, kneel, twist and fold. Occasionally a household curio appears: a hollowed-out mirror revealing the silhouette of a face, a hammer melting over a platinum-glazed steam iron, or a pair of chess pieces inflated to the size of a cat.
08th March - 13th April 2024
5–6 Cork Street, London W1S 3LQ
I hope you get a chance to check them out.
Peace and love 🙏🏾🖤
FJ