The works of Anglo-Kenyan artist Michael Armitage for the first time in Italy. In Turin

Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo(Turin) presents The Promised Land, the first solo exhibition in Italy by Anglo-Kenyan artist Michael Armitage (Nairobi, 1984). The exhibition, from Feb. 21 to Oct. 26, 2019, includes existing works along with new paintings, produced specifically for the occasion.

Armitage reworks contradictory dynamics of contemporary Kenya in his paintings. The artist filters through his pictorial language the varied spheres that mark the collective and individual lives of his home country, from local events to small episodes of everyday life, from the declinations of popular culture to the implications of social policies. The myths surrounding the African narrative are deconstructed through processes of abstraction that challenge the unique point of view by bringing out limitations and taboos. Personal memory, direct experience in Kenya are combined with the stringent current events narrated by the media, constituting an imagery of violence and social hardship, but also of hope.

Armitage’s painting is developed through a system of references to art history, from rock manifestations and Egyptian hieroglyphics to Titian, Goya, Velazquez, and Manet, coming to form a close relationship with Peter Doig and, especially in the works shown in The Promised Land, with Jacob Lawrence and Jack Katarikawe. Departing from Paul Gaugin, the artist appropriates the ’exotic by subverting its Western vision, inviting the viewer attracted by the seductive style of his paintings to problematize the colonial attitude. Looking to the canvas as a possible site of emancipation from European tradition, the artist paints on the irregular bark fabric of the Lubugo tree, a material belonging to the culture of Uganda once used for burial shrouds and now sold in tourist markets as souvenirs.

The Promised Land brings together a series of works made between 2014 and 2019 in which real and fictional events related to Kenya are overlaid and layered in surreal atmospheres. The new productions follow the composition of The Fourth Estate (2017), in which opposition political rallies prior to elections in Kenya in August 2017 are portrayed. Inspired by these large demonstrations, the works reveal the outcomes of ongoing consensus-building strategies through installations of exhibited propaganda that result in episodes of collective violence. Previous works recount episodes of East African life, in some cases elevating the subjects to grotesque paradigms of dynamics not metabolized by civilized society, as with the intimate homoeroticism of Kampala Suburb (2014) or the sex tourism scene encapsulated in Mangroves Dip (2015).

Upon its completion, the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia in Sydney.

Michael Armitage studied at the Slade School of Fine Art and the Royal Academy of Arts in London. He lives and works between Nairobi and London.

For all information you can call +39 011 3797632 or visit www.fsrr.org

Pictured: Michael Armitage, Hope (2017)

Source: release

The works of Anglo-Kenyan artist Michael Armitage for the first time in Italy. In Turin

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