Alex Mawimbi, until January 6, 2018 in Gallery SANAA, Utrecht, The Netherlands
Untitled with Mossi, 2017.
About:
Alex Mawimbi (formally known as Ato Malinda) holds an MFA from Transart Institute, New York. Through a combination of performance, drawing, painting, installation, video and ceramic object-making, she investigates the hybrid nature of African identity, contesting notions of authenticity. Mawimbi has worked with western museums to dispel notions of a ‘Unitarian Africa’, so often seen in ethnographic exhibitions. With a further focus on gender and sexuality, she is inspired by LGBTQ communities whose stories are rarely, if not reductively, told.(text 1:54)
Untitled with Zaramo Figure, 2017.
Untitled with Mask by Nuna Peoples Burkina Faso, 2017
Alex Mawimbi (born 1981, Kenya), lives and works in Rotterdam. She has a Master of Fine Arts (MFA) from Transart Institute, New York. Her works consist of performance, drawing, painting, installation, and video. Through her diverse practice, Mawimbi investigates the hybrid nature of African identity, contesting notions of authenticity. She has worked with western museums to dispel notions of a Unitarian Africa, so often seen in ethnographic exhibitions. In addition to this she also focuses on gender and female sexuality. She is inspired by LGBTQ communities whose stories are rarely told.
Mawimbi was one of the honourees of the inaugural African art awards given out by the Smithsonian Institution (2016). She was also one of the awardees of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship (2015) and won the One Minutes Award (2012) for moving photography. Her solo shows include “Games” (2013) at Savvy Contemporary which centred round sexual abuse, and “Incommensurable Identities” (2011) at Aarhus Art Building which examined tenuous relations between Europe and Africa. She has exhibited in group exhibitions at Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main (2014), the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution (2015), Salon Urbain de Douala in Cameroon (2010), Brooklyn Museum (2016) and the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Copenhagen (2015), among others.(from website artist)
