Hubert Maga (perruque MAVA-musée d'art de la vie active)
2010 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
60 x 50 x 23 cm
Meschac Gaba
The headdresses, woven from artificial hair braids, symbolize historical icons including Martin Luther King, Kwame Nkrumah, Fela Kuti and King Guézo of Dahomey. The wigs portraying these grand figures also unambiguously recall Africa to mind. By declaring Cotonou, one of Benin’s cities, the Art Museum of Real Life, and by having thirty white-clad figures wearing Gaba’s latest series of tresses cross through it, he draws attention to the urban space and its inhabitants’ strategies of survival and improvisation. In doing this, he enquires into alternative models, and into the tasks and local interpretations of the museum: “The micro-macro economy represents the survival of the inhabitants of this city day after day (…) In the city of Cotonou, you can see installations everywhere – it is like an open-air museum.” In this series Meschac Gaba weaves symbolic crowns that suggest a historical character, suggested through one of her or his realizations. Here in the case of former Beninese president Hubert Maga, the hairstyle headdress is woven in the form of a hospital that was built during his reign and was named after him. The forms and styles of braided hairstyles range from purely functional to complex and symbolic: hair can be an indicator of age, authority, social status, religion or even supernatural powers. In cities across Europe and the Americas, African hair braiders produce extravagant creations based on their traditional braiding skills and styles, uniting capitalist commerce with traditional culture. In Gaba´s work, two seemingly divergent products of humankind, hair and architecture, meet as equally significant symbols of modern culture. In making this work, Gaba assumes the role of the nouveau tresseur or tresseuse (the new braider), a traditional Beninese hair braider, reassigning meaning to architectural forms and cultural experiences.
born in 1961 in Cotonou, Benin. He lives and works between Cotonou and Rotterdam Over the past 20 years, through various bodies of works, Beninese artist Meshac Gaba has attempted to reframe contemporary African artistic identity, asking us to shed our preconceived ideas and re-imagine the African continent with a more valid contemporary image. Meschac Gaba emerged onto the international contemporary art scene in 1999 when he presented the Museum of Contemporary African Art in the exhibition “Mirror’s Edge” at Bilmuseet in Umea, Sweden. It marked the beginning of an expansive conceptual and virtual project based on the subjectivity of museum spaces. Twelve installations constitute his imagined Museum of Contemporary African Art (MCAA), originally created in 1997 and shown individually at other international institutions or events since then. Confronted with one’s cultural centrality, the spectator is asked to reconsider his viewpoint of memory and history. Gaba’s complex and varied artistic practice provides an in-depth examination of cultural appropriation, public space, the role of the western museum, and the changing global economy. His appropriation of tourist imagery –from cinema and souvenirs to magazines and museums– allows the viewer to deconstruct the western iconography and disturb modes of representation in contemporary art.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » KADIST
Yosuke Takeda
2014Yosuke Takeda gives the viewer brightly colored views, each of which he has searched out and patiently waited for...
© » KADIST
Sara Eliassen
2014Sara Eliassen’s video work A Blank Slate (2014) employs cinematic effect to investigate the relationships between subjectivity, gaze, and memory...
© » KADIST
Abraham Oghobase
2018This series of photographs is inspired by the artist’s travels to Jos, Nigeria...
© » KADIST
Corey McCorkle
2016Corey McCorkle’s 2016 installation Pendulum is developed around the Cavendish family and their role in importing bananas to Europe...
© » SLASH PARIS
Guillaume Chamahian — Détritique 2 — Galerie Analix Forever — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook Guillaume Chamahian — Détritique 2 — Galerie Analix Forever — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour Guillaume Chamahian — Détritique 2 Exposition Photographie, techniques mixtes, vidéo À venir Guillaume Chamahian, Le baiser, 2023 Impression sur plaque de grès Guillaume Chamahian Détritique 2 Dans 2 jours : Mercredi 20 décembre 2023 15:00 → 21:00 Artiste du réel, de ses représentations, traitements et retraitements, Guillaume Chamahian travaille à la croisée de la photographie documentaire, de l’art conceptuel, de la dénonciation politique et l’art d’investigation...
© » DAZED DIGITAL
The best East Asian films of 2023 | Dazed â¬…ï¸ Left Arrow *ï¸âƒ£ Asterisk â Star Option Sliders âœ‰ï¸ Mail Exit Film & TV Dazed Review 2023 From Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s long-awaited Evil Does Not Exist, to Hirokazu Kore-eda’s ‘absolute masterpiece’ Monster 12 December 2023 Text James Balmont The year 2023, now coming to a bitter end, was jam-packed with all kinds of zeitgeist-piercing movies...
© » KADIST
Nicoline van Harskamp
2008The work is a speech composed of excerpts from autobiographies of well-known political characters...
© » KADIST
Mika Tajima
2017Mika Tajima’s Pranayama sculptures are built from carved wood and chromed Jacuzzi jets and are presented as artefacts...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Migrant Ecologies Project: A Grain of Wheat Inside a Salt Water Crocodile | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Grain of Wheat July 8, 2019 A biscuit tin formerly containing Mermaid Brand Cream Crackers with wheat designs on the outside was chosen as the box to house the wheat as well as test tubes of salt, needles and Singapore’s very own NEWater – all for the wheat’s ritual protection...
© » KADIST
Halil Altindere
2013Wonderland is a music video for the Turkish hip-hop group Tahribad-I Isyan (Rebellion of Destruction)...
© » KADIST
Yto Barrada
2007This photograph is part of the series titled “Iris Tingitana project” (2007) focusing on the disappearance of the iris...
© » SLASH PARIS
Guillaume Chamahian — Détritique 2 — Analix Forever Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Guillaume Chamahian — Détritique 2 — Analix Forever Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Guillaume Chamahian — Détritique 2 Exhibition Photography, mixed media, video Upcoming Guillaume Chamahian, Le baiser, 2023 Impression sur plaque de grès Guillaume Chamahian Détritique 2 In 2 days: Wednesday, December 20, 2023 3 PM → 9 PM Artiste du réel, de ses représentations, traitements et retraitements, Guillaume Chamahian travaille à la croisée de la photographie documentaire, de l’art conceptuel, de la dénonciation politique et l’art d’investigation...