LUMIAR CITÉ
Dozie Kanu
PREENCHENDO VAZIOS
20.01. – 14.04.2024
20.01 | 16h00 Opening of the exhibition
16.03 | 17h00 Talk between Dozie Kanu and Simon Thompson
© Dozie Kanu
Dozie Kanu’s artistic practice is based on an intensive examination of material culture. His cultural-anthropological observations of positions in the Western (art) world serve as source material for his sculptures and spatial installations, which has led to great international recognition in recent years.
Kanu’s first major institutional exhibition in Portugal presents itself with an ambiguous title. ‘Preenchendo vazios’ (Filling Voids) may at first glance imply filling an empty exhibition space, but in Kanu’s project for Lumiar Cité it has a deeper meaning. The artist’s oeuvre refers to blind spots in Western institutions dedicated to art-historical discourses and exhibition of art, which he in turn occupies through subtle appropriations of such practices.
His assemblages of various ‘found’ materials appear aesthetically sophisticated but do not disguise their original use. Formally they reference cultural phenomena typical of the southern states in the US, including the aesthetics of ‘slab culture’, an offshoot vehicle modification, or the material practice of Black southern artists. But Kanu’s practice is also reminiscent of the way in which materials are assembled in art practices of Western modernity that have drawn on non-Western cultures while ignoring characteristics such as questions of animism or original animations of objects such as African masks.
Usual forms of contemplation of his appealing artworks is challenged by the artist; by suggesting other (applied) uses, the artist effective throws sand in the gears of fine art appreciation. With its eloquent material vocabulary, Kanu’s work seems at first glance an art for art’s sake, apparently insisting on the idea of the autonomous work inherited from modernism. However, the artist subtly undermines this in the context of the exhibition space by suggesting these possible ‘other’ uses. A monumental sculpture through which the artist dramatically reformulates the conditions of access to the gallery in the architecture of Lumiar Cité serves at the same time as a plinth for other new sculptures created for the exhibition. Flagpole sculptures appear without flags, and some visitors may be torn between looking at a sculpture and the implicit possibility of taking a seat on it. The artist evokes but deliberately does not lay down any rules.
It is this subtle play in the artist’s body of work that unhinges the idea of the pure, original and authentic in modernity – a modernity that excluded other modernities articulated by women and/or non-white artists. With their forms being multi-interpretable and -usable, Kanu's sculptures are ambivalent, neatly emulating precisely the disorder that modernism sought and continues to seek to eradicate.
Dozie Kanu (Houston, 1993) lives and works in Santarém, Portugal. Most recently, he exhibited at Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin (2023); Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne (2023); Quinn Harrelson Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); C-Mine, Genk (2023); Oregon Center for Contemporary Art, Portland (2023); Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich (2022); for Public Art Fund in Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York (2022); SFMOMA, San Francisco (2022); Project Native Informant, London (2022); Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen (2022); Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon (2021); Performance Space New York (2021); The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York (2019).
Maumaus
Avenida António Augusto de Aguiar, 148 - 3º C
1050-021 Lisboa, Portugal
Monday to Friday, 10h00 to 13h00,
14h30 to 19h00
Tel: + 351 21 352 11 55
maumaus@maumaus.org
Current:
Upcoming:
Talk:
Dimitris Athiridis and Adam Szymczyk, moderated by Luísa Santos
CAM – Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian, Estúdio, 23.10.2024 | 19h00
Film:
exergue – on documenta 14 (2024) by Dimitris Athiridis
Culturgest, Auditório Emílio Rui Vilar
21.10. | 14h15 - 18h45 | Chapters 1 - 4
22.10. | 14h00 - 20h00 | Chapters 5 - 10
23.10. | 10h30 - 15h30 | Chapters 11 - 14
Upcoming:
Problematising Reality
Programme 6
Beyond the White Screen
Film:
Les mains libres (1964) by Ennio Lorenzini
Discussion:
Émilie Goudal, Zineb Sedira
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, Auditório 3, 31.10.2024 | 18h30
Current:
Seminar
Amanda Boetzkes
Realism Without Authority
01.04, 04.04.2022
10h–13h, 14h–17h
Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian
Registration is free but limited to the number of seats available. Please send an email with a short CV to admin@maumaus.org by 24.03.2022. Confirmation of registration will be sent by email. The seminar will be in English.
Lumiar Cité
Rua Tomás del Negro, 8A
1750-105 Lisboa, Portugal
Wednesday to Sunday, 15h00 to 19h00
or by appointment.
Tel: + 351 21 755 15 70
lumiar.cite@maumaus.org
Loretta Fahrenholz
Circle Navel Nil
24.04. – 27.06.2021
24.06 | 18h00 Online conversation with Sabeth
Buchmann, Loretta Fahrenholz and Jürgen Bock
Current:
Luisa Cunha
ODD
28.09. – 22.12.2024
20.01 | 16h00 Opening of the exhibition
16.03 | 17h00 Talk between Dozie Kanu
and Simon Thompson
Current:
ONCE IN A HUNDRED YEARS
Sid Iandovka & Anya Tsyrlina with Leslie Thornton & Thomas Zummer
A combined exhibition between
Lumiar Cité and Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg.
Lumiar Cité
27.04. – 28.07.2024
Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg
18.05. – 28.07.2024
27.04. – 28.07.2024 | Lumiar Cité
18.05. – 28.07.2024 | Kunsthalle Friart Fribourg
A co-production by Lumiar Cité
and Artium Museum
14.10 | 17h00 Book launch with talk between
Alejandro Cesarco and
Miguel Wandschneider
| 18h00 Opening of the exhibition
Current:
Artium Museum, Vitoria-Gasteiz
24.03. – 24.09.2023
Upcoming:
Lumiar Cité
14.10.2023 – 14.01.2024
Collaboration:
The Educational Web
Kunstverein in Hamburg
01.04. – 06.08.2023
Closed 24, 25, 31 December and 1 January
Arne Kaiser and Jürgen Bock
In cooperation with Lumiar Cité:
Tiffany Chung
Thu Thiêm: an archaeological
project for future remembrance
08.06. - 08.09.2019
Johann Jacobs Museum
In co-production with Lumiar Cité:
Alejandro Cesarco
Other Recent Examples
24.03. - 24.09.2023
Artium Museum
The Educational Web
31.03. - 06.08.2023
Kunstverein in Hamburg
Maumaus/Lumiar Cité is funded by República Portuguesa – Cultura/Direção-Geral das Artes. With the support of Câmara Municipal de Lisboa and Junta de Freguesia do Lumiar.