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Ausstellung

30.3. – 21.6.2025
»Beat the Silence: Sonic Chronicles«  with with Arthur Jafa, Christelle Oyiri, Theaster Gates, JulianKnxx & Elom 20ce

Arthur Jafa, »Love Is The Message, The Message Is Death«, 2016, video, film still © courtesy of the artist & Gladstone Gallery

M.Bassy e.V. is curating the exhibition project »Beat The Silence – Sonic Chronicles« in 2025, which will present partly large-scale video and sound installations by visual artists Arthur Jafa (USA), Theaster Gates (USA), Julianknxx (Sierra Leone/UK), Christelle Oyitri (Frankreich) & Elom 20ce (Togo) in whose artistic oeuvres music plays a central role being understood as a tool creating resonance between the individual self and its social and spatial environment and thereby having the power to change the world and unite people. The 3-month group exhibition aims to explore the deep connection between Black visual art and music on an aesthetic, sensual and socio-political level to explore the following questions: What is the historical and contemporary role of music as an artistic medium in challenging a hegemonic and Western worldview and in promoting inclusive and socially engaged critical thinking? What is the significance of music for Black communities as an instrument of connection and resistance? What transformative power does music hold as a means of imagining alternative visions of the future?
 

Theaster Gates, »Dance of Malaga, 2019, video, film still © courtesy: Theaster Gates Studio & GRAY Chicago, New York

»Throughout recent history, music has been one of the first sources for Black people to learn how to think critically. Through music, we learn that the education system does not provide us with the knowledge of resistance that we need to survive.« (Minna Salami »Sensuous Knowledge: A Black Feminist Approach for Everyone«, 2021)

The exhibition will be accompanied by an artist residency by Elom 20ce from Togo and a workshop series #1 -4, which will give the young audience a multi-perspective approach to music as an artistic practice and as a tool for self-empowerment and collective experience. These participatory event formats will be led by renowned Hamburg and Berlin cultural actors. (Dates and registration channels will be announced soon!)
 

Elom 20ce, Elom Kossi Winceslas, »Umoja Ni Nguvu«, 2020, video, film still © courtesy of the artist

 

OPENING:
29.3.2024, 7 PM, with a live performance by Elom 20ce
Please reserve via: reservation@m-bassy.org

M.Bassy e.V., Schlüterstraße 80, 20146 Hamburg
Opening hours during the run time of the exhibition: Thu – Sun, 2 – 6 PM

 
We would like to thank Stiftung Kunstfonds for its generous support of the exhibition project as well as the Rudolf Augstein Foundation and the Hamburg Ministry of Culture and Media for their funding.