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Unteres Belvedere - Amoako Boafo. Proper Love
Unteres Belvedere - Amoako Boafo. Right Love
Event by: Verein der geprüften Wiener Fremdenführer
Location: Orangery in the Lower Belvedere, Rennweg 6, Wien - Landstraße
Talks & discussions, Exhibitions
About event
The Belvedere is showing the first institutional exhibition on the artistic work of the Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo (* 1984 in Accra). Europe. As one of the most important voices of a new generation of Black artists, Boafo portrays friends, acquaintances and public figures in his paintings who convey a contemporary image of Black self-empowerment and perception.
With this The exhibition brings the artist's biography full circle: after studying art in Accra, Boafo studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna from 2014. Here he not only experienced his formative years artistically, he also developed his distinctive style, which is characterized by the unusual use of finger painting. This results in the sculptural depiction of the human body, which creates a strong painterly contrast to the remaining, flat parts of the picture. The people portrayed by Boafo embody the idea of a black identity that is drawn from one's own culture, which can be understood as an act of resistance against racist attributions from the white majority society. This form of black subjectivity is also expressed in the appearance of the people portrayed, who appear to the viewer as self-confident individuals and often seek direct eye contact. Boafo stages the clothing like a collage with paper textures that not only borrow from floral and geometric wallpaper patterns, but also have references to historical and political clothing codes in black culture. The artist's intensive preoccupation with black history is subtly reflected in the paintings when literary works by central thinkers of the black freedom movement are used as motifs.
In addition to the exhibition in the Lower Belvedere, works will be included in the exhibition collection to Vienna around 1900 in the Upper Belvedere, to Boafo in connection with central art historical positions such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.
A bilingual catalog (DE/EN) will be published for the exhibition with contributions by Ekow Eshun, Sergey Harutoonian, Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Stella Rollig, Taiye Selasi and Vasilena Stoyanova.
Curated by Sergey Harutoonian.
Assistant curator: Vasilena Stoyanova