ArchiveExhibition

Transvangarde: Free Style Cipher

18 Jan-2 Mar 2024
PV 17 Jan 2024, 6-8.30pm

October Gallery

London WC1N 3AL

Overview

October Gallery presents Transvangarde: Free Style Cipher, an exhibition of new works by Sokari Douglas Camp CBE, Alexis Peskine and Govinda Sah ‘Azad’, with selected works by Susanne Kessler, Tian Wei, Golnaz Fathi, Jukhee Kwon, Elisabeth Lalouschek, and Romuald Hazoumè, amongst others. The exhibited works will focus on the visual language particular to each artist, helping to decode the various layers of meaning and shed revealing light on each artist’s individual practice in conversation with and in relation to their peers.

Highlights will include new steel sculptures by Sokari Douglas Camp that continue in the vein of her recent Jonkonnu Masquerade series. These poignant yet playful works focus on the significance of feathers, examining that material’s links to colonial wealth and power, as they combine imaginative elements of carnival masquerades and festival processions. The masked revellers’ striking headdresses and ostentatious fans are seen through the lens of the thrilling Kalabari masquerades of the Nigerian coastal region where Sokari was raised.

New ‘nail portraits’ by Alexis Peskine, will also be shown. These powerful works made by hammering nails of different sizes into wooden boards focus on the Black experience and questions of identity as they map the spread of the African diaspora. Beyond the silver and gold-leaf appliqué on the nails’ heads, Peskine continues to experiment with new colours and materials, using Japanese blue and purple oxidised silver leaf upon boards stained with natural pigments: indigo, curcuma, hibiscus.

Govinda Sah’s work comprises interwoven layers of acrylic traces and marks that build into what Sah describes as a ‘long unfolding conversation between the canvas and myself.’ The emergent painting itself ‘proposes’ unexpected areas for consideration, and the process continues until a successful conclusion is reached.

Nearby

transfeminisms Chapter V: Hidden Labours

Sang Woo Kim: The Seer, The Seen

Herald St | Museum St

Fred Kormis: Sculpting the Twentieth Century

The Wiener Holocaust Library

Antonia Brown: Winged Complexion

Union Pacific, WC1

Picasso: printmaker

The British Museum

Self-Made: Reshaping Identities

The Foundling Museum

Strange Wonders: Jizi and pioneers of contemporary ink from China

Brunei Gallery, SOAS

Celia Hempton: Transplant

Diane Howse: Ornament of Dust

Vivienne Roberts Projects

Paul Housley: Discipline of Ecstasy

Cedric Bardawil

Xue Ruozhe: Chronoscape

Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights

Wellcome Collection

Amanda Wilkinson

Lenore Tawney & Toshiko Takaezu: A Remarkable Friendship

Medieval Women: In Their Own Words

British Library

Video Making a Rukus!

Monet and London. Views of the Thames

Tadesse Mesfin: Where We Coalesce