By Richard Lewsey, Artist and Poet
An Artist's Reaction on: Unit Gallery’s exhibition “In Praise of Black Errantry” at the Palazzo Pisani S Marina Venice. April 17-June 29 2024 , during the 60th Venice Biennial
Artists represented: Stacey Gillian Abe, Winston Branch, Jonathan Lyndon Cheb, Rachel Jones, Hilda kortei , Sola Olulode, Anya Painstil, Charmaine Watkins. Jean- Michel Basquiat, Romare Bearden, Phoebe Boswell, Adelaide Damoah, Paul Dash, Miranda Forrester, Claudette Johnson, Keith Piper, Hank Willis Thomas, Joy Yamusangie, Trevor Mathison with Dubmorphology and Black Audio Film Collective.
The exhibition is inspired by the Martinique born French writer and philosopher EdouardGlissant (1928 - 2011 ) who advocated errantry as a form of freedom and resistance.Curated by Indie A Choudhury from the Courtauld Institute.
The haecceity of the work of Adelaide Damoah painter and performance artist shines from her paintings. Examples are: 'Ejwe' (four) 2023 and 'Kpaanyo' ( eight ) 2023
Cyanotype, ink, skin paint, gun metal pigment and gold on watercolour paper.
The thought processes and materials blend ingeniously.
The obscurants are in the mire.
The parenthesis of augers.
Keith Piper's 'The Seven Rages of Man' 1984-2018 is a mixed media installation.
The Seven ages and rages through which the black multitude has gone, and the future to come.
Colour images with fragmented sculptures emerging from them, hollow masks cast from the artist's face made from bandages, plaster and car paint.
Emblazoned by statement, the living abasciscus.
Anya Painstil's work 'Nose bleeds, no back teeth no eyebrows. I'm a slow learner apparently. Except for Knitting, picked that up in seconds' 2023 has unusual presence.
Majestic éboulement enforced and deterioration effusively declined.
Jean- Michel Basquiat's 'Samo 11' (1981) a grey surface with white lines replenishes the ocean.
Winston Branch has in his work 'The Coming' 2024 an expansive justification of colour in the halcyon space that is scintillating sentiments of time.
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