Dates: May 17-31, 2021
Venue: Alliance Française
About
To many of Kenya’s youth in the mtaa, ‘the hoods’, boxing provides an essential outlet from everyday struggles of life. A possibility to secure a better future.
Through this series of photos, Tobin Jones exposes the fragile state of the sport in Kenya since its heady days of the 1980s and 1990s when Kenya produced gold medalists in the All-Africa Games, the Commonwealth Games, and the Olympics.
There is a Time and a Place: A solo exhibition by Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser.
Dates: Until 11 June 2021
Venue: Circle Art Gallery
About
Circle is pleased to present There Is a Time and a Place, the first ever solo exhibition for emerging Kenyan artist Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser (b. 1995).
Jonathan Gathaara Sölanke Fraser is a multidisciplinary artist working across various media living and working in Nairobi. Fraser studied Fine Art at Kenyatta University. Previous exhibitions include I Will See What I Want to See, 2019 at Circle Art Gallery; If Not Now, 2018 at Cave Bureau, Nairobi; Line: The Basic Element, 2018 at One Off Contemporary Art Gallery, Nairobi; Stranger Times, 2017 at Circle Art Gallery; Anatomy of Me, 2017 at The Art Space, Nairobi.
Fraser uses drawing as a means to engage with the world around him through a varied approach that includes observational sketching, plant pressing, digital image collection and writing. This multifarious set of activities presents a unique opportunity to activate his interaction with his environment. This interactivity with the world strives towards a more internal and intuitive “knowing”, a knowing born less of experience and learning and more of dreaming.
In his first solo exhibition, Fraser works through drawing to complicate meaning as well as create new relationships between objects and ideas by utilizing slowness, bodily awareness and careful observation. Elements in the drawing field are allowed to take up the same quality of space, eschewing the various contexts they would typically exist in. The composition of the drawing field itself is broken down so that one’s conventional approach to looking at and understanding it is revised. The drawings are energetic and enigmatic and in this way encourage the viewer to participate actively in the processes the artist himself uses.
Fraser invites the viewer to consider the transformation, big or small, brought on by even the slightest shift in the conditions under which we encounter, or are presented with an object. This process of de-contextualization – sometimes subtle, other times abrupt – is aided by repetition of certain motifs and objects within and across several compositions. This gesture extends them across space and time. The reiteration and multiplication stretches the distance between the initial and final encounter with an object within the work. In doing so, it engenders a slowing down and increased attentiveness to these groups of interactive symbols and how they function according to the illogic of Fraser’s environments. In these works, the artist emphasizes the contingent nature of meaning, highlighting how our reading of objects is dependent on their relationships with other objects, with space, and with time.
The works in this exhibition combine drawing as description and analysis with drawing as an act of conjuring. Fraser performs a visual alchemy, his mystifying mises en scene inviting the viewer to follow along as he traverses a dreamlike space where meaning, while unstable, is always lurking just around the bend.
In line with social-distancing rules Covid-19 safety restrictions, viewing of the exhibition is by appointment only. Please use the link below to book a time slot.
Jonathan Fraser’s solo exhibition, book appointment on ARTSVP
Opening Date: Saturday, April 24, 2021
Venue: Red Hill Art Gallery
Until May 30, 2021
Time: 11 am to 5 pm
Entry: by Appointment
Opening Date: Saturday, April 24, 2021
Venue: Red Hill Art Gallery
Until May 30, 2021
Time: 11 am to 5 pm
Entry: by Appointment
Opening Date: Friday, April 30, 2021
Venue: Nairobi National Museum
Time: 3:00 pm
Entry: KES 200/-
RSVP: https://kenyamuseumsociety.org/contact-us/
Performance by classical violinist, Fred Pessa
Until May 2, 2021
FMI, visit; https://www.kenyamuseumsociety.org/event/the-affordable-art-show/
Dates: April 14 – May 7, 2021
Venue: Circle Art
Entry: Appointment (https://artsvp.co/7862ca)
Featuring: Kirubel Abebe, Surafel Amare, Lijkidus Bezawok, Direje Demissie, Henok Getachew, Girmachew Getnet, Tamrat Gezahegn, Meron Hailu, Engidaget Legesse, Engidaye Lemma, Ashenafi Mestika, Selome Muleta, Amare Seifu, Alexander Tadesse, Tiemar Tegene, Tibebe Terffa, Eyasu Teylaneh, Liayne Tilahun
Curated by Mifta Zeleke
Addis Contemporary ll
The second edition of Addis Contemporary, six years on from the first edition, offers a snapshot of how the Addis art scene has developed since then. Almost all of the participating artists in this second edition are important in this movement and are active in the Addis art scene. The show presents a wide range of artists, from the modernist painter, Tibebe Terffa’s, sustained practice of aesthetics to young, emerging artists who bring vigorous academic skills; research and contemporary approaches to making art. Addis Contemporary II shows the breadth and depth of Ethiopia’s contemporary art, which is often seen as separate from the rest of the East African art scene.
“It is my belief that the exhibition could instigate further scholarly and independent approaches as well as a chance to collect and access contemporary art from Ethiopia.” – Mifta Zeleke
In line with social-distancing rules Covid-19 safety restrictions, viewing of the exhibition is by appointment only.
Dates: Until April 30, 2021
Venue: Alliance Française
Dates: Until May 2, 2021
Venue: the National Museums of Kenya
Entry: Museum Rates Apply
About
The ‘International Inventories Program’ is research, database and exhibition project lead by artists and scholars from Germany, Kenya and France. A key focus of the International Inventories Programme has been the inventorying of Kenyan cultural objects archived in different museums and Institutions abroad. Currently at 32,501 objects from 7 countries across the globe, the database hosts a number of objects that were bought from or donated to cultural institutions by collectors, missionaries and/or their families.
The project is a partnership between the artist collectives #SHIFT (Germany/France) and The Nest Collective (Kenya), National Museums of Kenya (Nairobi), Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum (Cologne), Weltkulturen Museum (Frankfurt) Goethe-Institut Nairobi,Goethe-Institut and funded by Kulturstiftung des Bundes.
Dates: March 11-31, 2021
Venue: Alliance Française
An immersive photographic exhibition/installation by the photographers Adji Dieye (Senegalese/Italian) and Thandiwe Muriu (Kenyan). The two artists explore contemporary African imagery through both a critical and an aesthetic lens.
Adji Dieye
Adji’s Maggic Cube series investigates the notion of branding and its impact on society via the prism of the ubiquitous stock cube used in West African cuisine. Through her projects, Adji Dieye addresses the visual representation and commodification of identity while critiquing cultural norms and stereotyped gender roles.Thandiwe Muriu
Thandiwe’s Camo series is a vivid and playful display inspired by African fabric. The Camo Series is derived from the word camouflage and refers to how easily we can hide / loose our identity and sense of self in our culture. Camo is a visual celebration of the unique beauty of the African woman.
Dates: March 11-31, 2021
Venue: Alliance Française
An immersive photographic exhibition/installation by the photographers Adji Dieye (Senegalese/Italian) and Thandiwe Muriu (Kenyan). The two artists explore contemporary African imagery through both a critical and an aesthetic lens.
Adji Dieye
Adji’s Maggic Cube series investigates the notion of branding and its impact on society via the prism of the ubiquitous stock cube used in West African cuisine. Through her projects, Adji Dieye addresses the visual representation and commodification of identity while critiquing cultural norms and stereotyped gender roles.Thandiwe Muriu
Thandiwe’s Camo series is a vivid and playful display inspired by African fabric. The Camo Series is derived from the word camouflage and refers to how easily we can hide / loose our identity and sense of self in our culture. Camo is a visual celebration of the unique beauty of the African woman.
