Secteur IX B
2015 - Film & Video (Film & Video)
41:58 minutes
Mathieu Abonnenc
Secteur IX B is full of ghosts: some that you can see, briefly appearing at the turn of a statue in an under construction museum, some that you only dream of when you switch from day to night, of one space to another. Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc invites us to follow a main character, Betty, an ethnographer currently leading research in the archives of the Theodore Monod Museum for African Arts, in Dakar. Punctuated by an anguished soundtrack and borrowing tropes from thriller genre films to create a sense of oddity, the film comments on the contemporary effects of colonial legacy in cultural institutions. The work also dives into Betty’s psyche, as she finds herself stuck in the nightmares that the artefacts, the images, and the museum seem to produce: It’s like I am wandering around in Leiris’ unconscious , she says. And indeed, Michel Leiris, the 20th century French ethnologist and writer, is the ghost that haunts this story. His words open the film, he is the voice-over that guides us through it, and his description of old medicines’ impacts on colonial explorers inspired this piece. Discussing the condition of the production of images and knowledge by western ethnographers, artists, and scientists, our hero induces the same mental state by taking the drugs these explorers ingested to experience their psychotropic effects. Engaged in a similar process as his character, Abonnenc emphasizes the subjectivity of researchers and reminds us that objects are powerful tools that can convey very different narratives depending on the context in which they are displayed and used.
Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc’s practice engages with the cultural hegemonies that form the basis for the evolution of contemporary society. Abonnenc uses video, photography, installation, drawing, and exhibition projects to raise questions about imperial histories and their effects on the former colonies of developed countries. Examining the role of images and representations in the construction of these histories and the identities that result from it, the artist interprets and translates these sources. Kleyebe Abonnenc’s work grapples with why certain things are lost and how to make them exist again. The artist confronts the persistence of politically and culturally charged images in order to replace them with others, and by refusing to show terror while making it palpable, his work reflects on the means of “decolonizing culture”.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Caring for the Carers: How Malaysian artists working with communities hold space | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia ArtsEquator Viewpoints Courtesy of Syarifah Nadhirah August 12, 2021 By Rahmah Pauzi (1,300 words, 5-minute read) I had forgotten how loaded the words “how are you,” or “apa khabar,” can be...
© » KADIST
Prabhakar Pachpute
2020Calling attention to campaigns for land rights, survival, and sovereignty, Prabhakar Pachpute’s recent works consider how farmers in India use their bodies in performative ways during acts of protest...
© » KADIST
Kelly Sinnapah Mary
2021Notebook 10 , l ‘enfance de sanbras (The Childhood of Sanbras) series by Kelly Sinnapah Mary is a sequel to an earlier series by the artist titled Cahier d’un non retour au pays natal (2015)...
© » KADIST
Yael Bartana
2007Yael Bartana received great international attention for the trilogy series And Europe Will be Stunned (2007 – 2011)...
© » PAINTERS' TABLE
JAKE! @ Betty Cuningham Gallery | Painters' Table Skip to main content JAKE! @ Betty Cuningham Gallery https://johnmitchellworld.wordpress.com/2020/02/19/jake/ Jake Berthot, Chapel Trail Near Alter Road, 2000, oil on panel, 26 3/8 x 26 1/8 inches (courtesy of Betty Cuningham Gallery) John Mitchell visits the exhibition JAKE! at Betty Cuningham Gallery, New York, on view through February 23, 2020...
© » KADIST
L’exigence de la saudade Curated by Zasha Colah and Sumesh Sharma, Clark House Initiative, Bombay With: Padmini Chettur, Prajakta Potnis and Zamthingla Ruivah And the participation of: Nalini Malani, Krishna Reddy, Jean Bhownagary, Maarten Visser Intervention in the public space by: Justin Ponmany, Prabhakar Pachpute The exhibition brings together three artists from distant geographies within India – Padmini Chettur, a contemporary dancer, Prajakta Potnis, a visual artist, and Zamthingla Ruivah, a master weaver, whose works are conceptually engaged with remnant cultural forms, not as endangered traditions, rather to reinvent them in the present...
© » SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
Floral art by Andy Warhol, Pablo Picasso, Claude Monet and other artists on display at private Deji Art Museum in Nanjing, China | South China Morning Post Advertisement Advertisement Art + FOLLOW Get more with my NEWS A personalised news feed of stories that matter to you Learn more The exhibition ‘Nothing Still About Still Lifes: Three Centuries of Floral Compositions’ at Nanjing;s Deji Art Museum features more than 100 modern and contemporary artworks, including (above) “Les Amoureux au Bouquet de Fleurs” (1935-1937), by Marc Chagall...
© » KADIST
Farah Al Qasimi
2022Um Al Dhabaab (Mother of Fog) by Farah Al Qasimi addresses the myth of Al Qasimi tribe-instigated piracy in the Gulf, perpetuated by the British Empire and upheld by contemporary western academia...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
The working processes of artists: .gif | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Articles August 2, 2019 In this video, indie-electronic duo .gif, made up of Nurudin Sadali and Chew Wei Shan or Weish, are interviewed by LASALLE students Narrel Wisaksono and Aqid Aiman...
© » KADIST
L’exigence de la saudade Curated by Zasha Colah and Sumesh Sharma, Clark House Initiative, Bombay With: Padmini Chettur, Prajakta Potnis and Zamthingla Ruivah And the participation of: Nalini Malani, Krishna Reddy, Jean Bhownagary, Maarten Visser Intervention in the public space by: Justin Ponmany, Prabhakar Pachpute The exhibition brings together three artists from distant geographies within India – Padmini Chettur, a contemporary dancer, Prajakta Potnis, a visual artist, and Zamthingla Ruivah, a master weaver, whose works are conceptually engaged with remnant cultural forms, not as endangered traditions, rather to reinvent them in the present...
