Milan's Mudima Foundation presents John Madu's Africa

The Mudima Foundation in Milan presents, from June 10 to July 8, the exhibition John Madu. The Year of the Masque, the solo exhibition of John Madu (Lagos, 1983) a Nigerian artist known for the symbolic figurativism of his paintings. And for the first time it brings to Italy the recent production of one of the most significant personalities of that new avant-garde of artists currently giving shape and voice to contemporary art in Nigeria and the wider West African region. A vanguard that collectively, through portraiture and figuration, dismantles negative racial constructs and celebrates black men and women with a confident and assertive gaze, and that, in Madu’s work, finds critical examination of the historically unequal relationship between Africa and the West and the process of decolonization.

The fifteen paintings in the exhibition, all monumental in size, are intended to ironically lead the audience to a greater awareness of issues such as economic and political hardships resulting from decolonization and corrupt and ineffective leadership, police brutality, and tribalism. Issues ostensibly of domestic politics but largely consequences of the hypocrisy and ambiguity with which Western countries have conducted the independence process in this part of the world. It is to such ambiguity that the “mask” mentioned in the title of the exhibition refers, as a symbol of the duplicity and contradictions that characterize situations in human life.

In John Madu’s work, such topics are treated through extensive use of symbols and allegories: to domestic spaces, everyday objects, and subjects caught in moments of everyday life, the author ascribes hidden meanings that in the viewer deflagrate into a sense of estrangement. The same effect is achieved by the great attention paid to details (the works of art meticulously reproduced in the interiors he portrays), the surreal juxtaposition of colors, the quotations drawn from the history of Western art, African mythology and popular culture, which allow the artist to seamlessly navigate between tradition and modernity, between imagination and reality.

The title of the exhibition itself is a result of this approach, which juxtaposes multiple cultural references: in fact, The Year of the Masque alludes to a special year dedicated to celebrating the “mask,” a form of amateur dramatic entertainment popular among the nobility in 16th- and 17th-century England that embraced dancing and acting by masked actors.

Accompanying the exhibition is a catalog published by Mudima, with a critical text by Oliver Enwonwu.

“Overall,” writes Oliver Enwonwu in his text in the catalog, “John Madu’s art tells the story and documents the present, offering a unique glimpse into the opportunities of the future. Indeed, ours is a time of rapid technological progress and innovation, massive urban sprawl fueled by economic growth, materialism, and exploitation, as well as ills including gentrification, modern slavery, and social stratification. As we rest our gaze on Madu’s pictorial stories, we are forced to contemplate our own existence as we negotiate our place in an increasingly globalized world.”

Milan's Mudima Foundation presents John Madu's Africa

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