Exhibition: Don't You Know Who I Am? – Art After Identity Politics
M HKA, Antwerp
13 June 2014 - 14 September 2014
Don’t You Know Who I Am? – Art After Identity Politicsis a major group exhibition at M HKA, the Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp, reflecting how emergent artists relate to issues of ‘identity politics’ today.
‘Don’t You Know Who I Am’ is a phrase we might expect to hear from celebrities being refused entry to a nightclub, or politicians trying to dissuade a policeman from giving them a parking ticket and expecting to get away with it because of who they are. In this case it also refers to the fact that many of the artists in the exhibition will be less well-known to a wider audience. This exhibition, on both main floors of the M HKA and in several off-site locations, is intended as a large-scale survey of the modes and means for considering identity and identification.
Various groups in society have, during recent decades, defined themselves along political, economic or social lines such as race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality in order to enhance their visibility and overcome marginalisation. After this established discourse of identity politics, often associated with the art of the 1980s, artists are once again considering notions of identity and what they mean in the contemporary world.
Having outgrown theoretical and visual codes that were too often focused on representations of the self or the body, and that more than anything expressed a desire for social visibility, artists today seem to be more interested in identities (in the plural) as part of an overall understanding of complexity – which the art system has not always been able or willing to accommodate.
New generations of artists interrogate the formation of identities in the world through strategies such as performativity, abstraction, thingness, the logic and aesthetics of the digital, activism, analysis of selfhood from cultural and scientific perspectives or addressing the role of the viewer. These strategies may not always reinforce each other, but artists have not accepted any ban on self-contradiction.
Visual art is still, but perhaps only notionally, an avant-garde in relation to culture and society as a whole. Yet it remains a place for experimentation, and many artists, followed by curators and theoreticians, are asking themselves how they can achieve an ever more nuanced and relevant understanding of what identity means to individuals and their sense of self and how it can be articulated in creative practice. The exhibition will invite and even provoke different perspectives from the artists invited, as well as the audience and other participants in the project, such as writers for the publication or speakers for discursive events.
Curators: Anders Kreuger and Nav Haq, M HKA
Click here to hear some artists about their work.
WorksShow artists
> HAEGUE YANG , Vip's Union, 2001-2021. Installation, borrowed chairs and tables, variable dimensions.
> ANTHEA HAMILTON, Cut-Outs, 2007-2014. Installation.
> Donna Kukama, NOT YET (and nobody knows why not), 2008. Video, video, 00:04:56.
> NASTIO MOSQUITO, Nastia's Manifesto, 2008. Video, 00:04:10.
> SHILPA GUPTA, Untitled, 2008-2009. Installation, motion flapboard, 190 x 21,8 x 25 cm, 00:20:00.
> SHILPA GUPTA, Singing Cloud, 2008-2009. Object, object built with thousands of microphones with 48 multi-channel audio, 152.4 x 457.2 x 61 cm, audio: 00:09:30.
> WU TSANG, Shape of a Right Statement, 2008. Video, 00:05:15.
> JUHA PEKKA MATIAS LAAKKONEN, Walking from Yakutsk to Helsinki in 5.3 Million Steps, 2009. Object, reindeer hide boots, 35 x 28 x 24 cm.
> IMAN ISSA, Material, 2009-2012. Installation, mixed media, variable dimensions.
> ERMIAS KIFLEYESUS, Endless Cities, 2009-2014. Collage, mixed media on paper.
> Donna Kukama, The Swing (After Fragonard), 2009. Video, 00:15:10.
> NASTIO MOSQUITO, 3 Continents, 2010. Video, 00:07:45.
> ONKAR KULAR & NOAM TORAN, I Cling to Virtue, 2010. Installation, ceramic resin, text, variable dimensions.
> MASSIMO GRIMALDI, Emergency’s Paediatric Centre in Nyala, Photos Shown On Two Apple iMac Quad-Core i5s, 2011. Installation, two apple imac quad-core intel core i5s, double slideshow, variable dimensions.
> MARIA TANIGUCHI, Untitled (Dawn’s Arms), 2011. Video.
> HEDWIG HOUBEN, Personal Matters and Matter of Fact, 2011. Installation, video, self-portrait from plasticine, rietveld chair, 80 x 55 x 65 cm, 30 x 30 x 30 cm, 00:22:00.
> ANTHEA HAMILTON, Manblind #5, 2011. Object, digital print on paper, vertical blind mechanism, 285 x 205 x 5 cm.
> SHILPA GUPTA, Someone Else, 2011-2014. Installation, stainlees steel, 100 etched books, variable dimensions.
> NADEZHDA GRISHINA, No-Go Machine, 2012-2013. Installation, flash with video, electric red bulb, adapter for bulb, 00:08:00, 16/9.
> MARIA TANIGUCHI, Untitled, 2012-2014. Installation, acryl, canvas, wooden support, 6 x (304.8 x 457.2 cm), 2028.6 x 114.3 cm.
> MARIA SAFRONOVA, Daily Shedule, 2012-2013. Installation, oil, canvas.
> IMAN ISSA, Thirty-Three Stories about Reasonable Characters in Familiar Places, 2012. Installation, c-print, video, mixed media, variable dimensions.
> HEDWIG HOUBEN, Retrospective Act , 2012. Sculpture, plasticine, 100 x 100 x 100 cm.
> Guan Xiao, The Documentary: Geocentric Puncture, 2012. Installation, mixed media, 3 x (230 x 280 x 210 cm).
> PATRIZIO DI MASSIMO, The Lustful Turk, 2013. Painting, oil, canvas, 3 x (200 x 270 cm).
> OLEG USTINOV, The Administration, 2013-2014. Installation, mixed media, variable dimensions.
> OLEG USTINOV, IDM, 2013-2014. Installation, mixed media on paper, variable dimensions.
> MARIA SAFRONOVA, The Game of General View, 2013-2014. Installation.
> LIESBETH DOMS, Artist's Aura, 2013. Installation, led spots, dmx trackpad, variable dimensions.
> Imran Qureshi, And They Still Seek The Traces Of Blood..., 2013. Installation, 24.000 printed sheets, crumpled, variable dimensions.
> Imran Qureshi, I Want You To Stay With Me, 2013. Installation, paint onto the floor, paper, variable dimensions.
> HEDWIG HOUBEN, The Hand, the Eye and It, 2013. Installation, video, object, plasticine, table, wood, metal, 25 x 40 x 70 cm, 175 x 105 x 15 cm.
> HAEGUE YANG , Blind Curtain, Flesh Behind Tricolore, 2013. Installation, mixed media; aluminum blinds, aluminum frame with powder coating, 460 x 700 x 150 cm.
> Guan Xiao, Cognitive Shape, 2013. Video, 00:08:12.
> ELOISE HAWSER, Sample and Hold, 2013. Installation, mixed media, variable dimensions.
> Pedro Barateiro, Curfew, 2013-2014. Installation, wood, metal net, plaster, terracotta, paint, glass, metal table, 157 x 170 x 120 cm.
> Don't You Know Who I Am? Kunst na identiteitspolitiek - Art after identity politics - L'art après la politique de l'identité (L'Internationale), 2014. Book, ink, paper, 24.9 x 17.6 cm, 61 p., language : Dutch, publisher : Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerpen, ISBN : 9789072828491.
> KATJA NOVITSKOVA, Approximation XXI (Alpaca), 2014. Print, digital print on aluminium, cut out display, 146 x 180 x 35 cm.
> PENNACCHIO ARGENTATO, 22 Ti 1, 2014. Installation, titanium fibers, resin, variable dimensions.
> ELOISE HAWSER, 100 keV, 2014. Print, digital print, variable dimensions.
> PENNACCHIO ARGENTATO, Eye vs. Eye, 2014. Installation, variable dimensions.
> PATRIZIO DI MASSIMO, ME, MUM, MISTER, MAD, 2014. Installation, mixed media, variable dimensions.
> NADEZHDA GRISHINA, Point, 2014. Installation, mixed media, sculpture: 75 x 45 cm, 2 x 16/9.
> LIESBETH DOMS, Camouflaged as a Conceptual Work of Art, 2014. Installation, fabric, 300 x 20 x 20 cm, 180 x 20 x 20 cm.
> LAWRENCE ABU HAMDAN, Double-Take: Leader of the Syrian Revolution Commanding a Charge, 2014. Installation.
> JUHA PEKKA MATIAS LAAKKONEN, Estrapada, 2014. Object, wood, wool, variable dimensions.
> JUHA PEKKA MATIAS LAAKKONEN, Tsimtsum, 2014. Object, handsewn leather case, maple stick, felt, cotton paper, variable dimensions.
> ERMIAS KIFLEYESUS, There is No Zebra Crossing in Berlin, 2014. Installation, ink, prints, variable dimensions.
> ELOISE HAWSER, Velopex, 2014. Installation, plastic bottles, silkscreen print, 108 x 51 x 150 cm.
> AUGUSTAS SERAPINAS, Georges, 2014. Installation, site - specific installation, construction materials, variable dimensions.
> OSCAR MURILLO, A Bastard Class, 2014. Installation, mixed media, variable dimensions.
> Pedro Barateiro, The Actors, 2014. Installation, 00:11:00.