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Enjoy our special episode from the exhibition When We See Us: A Century of Black Figuration in Painting at Kunstmuseum in Basel recorded by Anne Kimunguyi. Many of you know Anne from her Shade Art Review. features.Our guest is Head of Contemporary Art at Kunstmuseum Basel, Maja Wismer. As part of her role, she specialises in art of the late 20th and early 21st century, having previously held the role of Curatorial Fellow at the Busch Reisinger Museum of the Harvard Art Museums. Based at the Kunstmuseum, her previous work has seen the realisation of the exhibition ‘Kara Walker. A Black Hole is Everything a Star Longs to be’, as well as projects involving the move of the works of Joseph Beuys from the newly created space – Museum fur Gegenwarsknust, a museum dedicated exclusively to contemporary art in 1980. Please help save our independent podcast by donating £5 hereRead Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 11 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast WebsiteShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEdit & Mix by Mae-Li EvansEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Matthew Krishanu (b.1980, Bradford, UK) paints atmospheric, pared-back compositions including scenes from the artist’s life, particularly his childhood years in Bangladesh growing up with his brother, and their parents—a British Christian missionary and an Indian theologian. In the paintings, seemingly familiar narratives are alluded to but destabilised. The viewer’s own projections are called upon to fulfil the interpretive loop, raising questions about childhood, religion, race, power, and the legacies of empire.The Bough Breaks is showing at Camden Art Centre until June 23. Krishanu's forthcoming solo exhibition will show at Tanya Leighton L.A., in the autumn.Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 11 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast WebsiteShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEdit & Mix by Mae-Li EvansEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Welcome to the second of our episodes from the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia. I am delighted to welcome back Aindrea Emelife as my guest. Aindrea is a curator and art historian of modern and contemporary art, whose practise specializes in colonial and decolonial African histories and the politics of representation. Aindrea is the curator of Nigeria Imaginary at the Nigeria Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale, which sees the country participating in the festival for the second time. The pavilion will show projects made in collaboration with the Museum of West African Art, where Aindrea is also a curator. Today, we will be getting an exciting introduction into this year’s Nigeria Pavilion andhearing a bit more about the participating artists, their works and the curatorial thinking behind this year’s exhibition.Enjoy a review, including images of Nigeria Imaginary written by Anne Kimunguyi in today's special edition of Shade Art Review.Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonEditorial support by Anne KimunguyiNigeria ImaginaryAindrea Emelife

Welcome to the first of our episodes from the 60th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia.Today, I am delighted to hand the mic to my dear friend the arts writer Dale Berning Sawa, who met with John Akomfrah at the preview of The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain. You'll also hear from me in this episode and Dale shares a reflection on her first Venice experience and conversation with the artist on this special occasion. You can also enjoy Dale's review of Listening All Night To The Rain and images from the exhibition, in Shade Art Review. today.Listening All Night To The Rain continues artist and filmmaker John Akomfrah’s investigation into themes of memory, migration, racial injustice and climate change with a renewed focus on the act of listening and the sonic. The exhibition, conceived as a single installation with eight interlocking and overlapping multi-screen sound and time-based works, is seen as a manifesto that encourages the idea of listening as activism and positions various progressive theories of acoustemology: how new ways of becoming are rooted in different forms of listening. Encouraging visitors to experience the British Pavilion’s 19th century neoclassical building in a different way, Akomfrah’s commission interprets and transforms the fabric of the space in order to interrogate relics and monuments of colonial histories.John Akomfrah initially came to prominence in the early 1980s as part of the Black Audio Film Collective (BAFC), a collective founded in 1982. An early film by BAFC, titled Handsworth Songs (1986), explored the events around the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London. In recent years, Akomfrah’s work has evolved into ambitious, multi-channel installations presented in galleries and museums worldwide. In 2017, he won the Artes Mundi prize, the UK’s biggest award for international art. He has previously participated in the 58th Venice Viennale with Four Nocturnes, commissioned for the inaugural Ghana Pavilion in 2019, and Vertigo Sea (2015) as part of the 56th International Art Exhibition. The British Council commission Listening All Night To The Rain at the Venice Biennale 2024 runs from Saturday 20 April to Sunday 24 November 2024. Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonDale Berning SawaBritish PavilionVenice Biennale

Legacy Russell is Executive Director & Chief Curator of the experimental arts institution The Kitchen, one of New York's oldest non-profit spaces. She is writer, curator and author of the critically acclaimed Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto. I am delighted to have Legacy join me to talk about Black Meme, which is due to be published on May 7th. Black Meme focuses on the history and production of the ‘Meme’ – tracing through Black visual culture from its first appearance in the early 20th century all the way through to present times. It is a critical dissection of race, class, and gender as performed online and offline and emphasizes the central role that Black contributions have played in the development of digital culture.  On the ‘Meme’, Legacy says:’ I want to talk about the economy and engine of this and perhaps push further a discussion about how we can hold ourselves accountable to how this material is produced and circulated.” Black Meme is available to purchase online and in stores from May 7th. Here is a link to Legacy's talk on The New Bend exhibition, as mentioned in Lou's intro. Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi

Ibrahim Mahama is an installation artist who works with textiles, material production and found objects to create large-scale public interventions. He initially garnered widespread attention for his open-air installations made of stitched-together jute sacks that were draped on or over architectural structures, such as libraries, an airport, and a museum, in the cities of Accra and Kumasi, where he is based. His practise involves a collaborative process of sourcing, collecting, reproducing and installing the often-textile based materials he works with. His pieces speak to ideas around historical memories, traditional belief systems, local economies and the democratisation of art. Ibrahim’s works have been shown in various group and solo shows, including The Norval Foundation in Cape Town, The White Cube in London and Hong Kong and has been a part of the Ghana Pavilion for 2019 Venice Biennale, among many others. In this episode, Ibrahim and I discuss his new large-scale public commission at the Barbican, the process behind creating this work and his hopes for its reception.Ibrahim Mahama Purple Hibiscus runs at the Lakeside Terrace at the Barbican from April 10 - 18 August 2024 and is free to the public.Read Shade Art Review Shade Art Review Series 10 | 20% discount codeShade Podcast InstagramShade Podcast is Executive produced and hosted by Lou MensahMusic King Henry IV for Shade Podcast by Brian JacksonEditing and mixing by Tess DavidsonEditorial support from Anne Kimunguyi