Roméo Mivekannin
Human in Motion
Opening – 7 JUN 2024, 6-9 pm
Roméo Mivekannin, born in 1986 in Bouaké, Côte d‘Ivoire, is a multidisciplinary artist blurring the boundaries between painting, sculpture, and installation. His diverse background includes training as a cabinetmaker, studying Art History and Architecture, and writing a novel. Informed by his academic knowledge and his family‘s experience with colonization (he is a descendant of Behanzin, the last King of Dahomey, present-day Benin), he (re)creates compositions that challenge European iconography, taking classical paintings and photographs and substituting the subjects’ faces with self-portraits. Oceane Kinhouande refers to his practice using the concepts “visual quotes” or “plastic quotation process” to indicate the artist’s choice to reappropriate and reinterpret previous artistic productions. Mivekannin incorporates archival material to expose the colonial gaze in those underrepresented or unspoken (non-dits), basing his work on the “memory of history,” literally and figuratively. His canvases, like palimpsests, bear various layers of content beyond the visual, as he uses old bedsheets, kitchen rags, and tea towels and soaks them in elixir baths following voodoo practices, a spiritual belief rooted in the Kingdom of Dahomey.
Roméo Mivekannin
Image Panoramique, Homme Courantavec Animaux
2024
Acrylic and elixir bath on canvas
250x550cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Thumm.
Galerie Barbara Thumm presents the exhibition Human in Motion by Roméo Mivekannin in its project space, featuring pieces from his series “L’homme qui marche / The walking man” (2022-2024). Mivekannin draws upon the photographic study “Human figure in Motion” from British photographer Eadweard Muybridge, who revolutionized the history of his field and cinema in the late 19th-century by “stopping action, capturing and decomposing movement,” according to the artist. For instance, Muybridge’s study captured people performing various movements which he photographed with different cameras from multiple angles, rendering sequential, separate images. Mivekannin questions the notion of human in motion and reinterprets Muybridge’s photographs, employing sequential images of figures in movement to represent migration, memory, and time.
Roméo Mivekannin
Homme Descendant Escalier,
2022
Acrylic and elixir bath on canvas
250x250cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Thumm
Peter Bonde
It’s Good Enough for Nansy
Opening – 7 JUN 2024, 6-9 pm
Danish painter Peter Bonde (born in 1958, Copenhagen) presents his latest works in the exhibition It’s Good Enough for Nansy, at Galerie Barbara Thumm. The gallery will show some of the artist’s pieces from 2023 and 2024 for the first time in Berlin. Bonde’s practice blends inspiration from Abstract Expressionism and Conceptual Art with a contemporary approach. His abstract and colorful compositions explore the power and function of mass-circulated imagery, the fragility of memory, and personal archives. With a career spanning over four decades, Bonde was part of the 1980s “De Unge Vilde” (The Wild Youth), a group of artists who attended Copenhagen’s Royal Academy of Art between 1976 and 1982. His career expanded internationally and he represented the Danish Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1999 (with Jason Rhoades), to later showcase his works in Danh Vo’s installation at the Biennale’s 2019 iteration.
Peter Bonde
THANK YOU STEFAN
2023
Oil, Spray, Inkjet on Mirror foil 160x200cm
PBo/P 6
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Thumm
Bonde continues to experiment and create works that oscillate between painting, sculpture, and installation. He employs a unique technique, using ultra-reflective mirror foil instead of blank canvases, which underscores his belief that no artistic creation emerges from nothing. Instead, he builds upon existing traditions and incorporates additional elements as his process develops. For instance, he paints over the reflective surface with oil, using fierce brushstrokes that seem to explode from within, creating a dynamic interplay of light and color. Bonde‘s compositions, though abstract, vividly evoke the strokes and color palettes of Nordic and other European artists. For instance, Per Kirkeby’s richly textured canvases and depiction of nature translates into Bonde’s abstract landscapes. Similarly, Edvard Munch’s „Self Portrait with the Spanish Flu” influenced Bonde’s compositions, inspiring his use of colors and brushwork. Such references, often subtle and sometimes more explicit, result in a compelling bridging of art historical traditions with a contemporary twist.
Peter Bonde
PISSINGINPOOLS #2
2024
Oil, Inkjet on Mirror foil
200x160cm
Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Barbara Thumm.