Artist: Hamishi Farah
Exhibition title: Dog Heaven 2 : How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes
Curated by: Mohamed Almusibli
Venue: Fri Art Kunsthalle Fribourg, Fribourg, Switzerland
Date: June 5 – July 31, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Fri Art Kunsthalle Fribourg
The exhibition
Dog Heaven 2 : How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes is Hamishi Farahʼs first institutional exhibition and a sequel to the artistʼs first solo show in Europe in 2015 in Brussels. The exhibition gathers newly commissioned paintings and other recent works.
Hamishi Farah is a self-taught artist whose work in conceptual and figurative painting plays inside the production of a politics and philosophy of representation, with a particular focus on the libidinal afterlife of coloniality and itʼs permeation through contemporary art.
While representational painting is shackled to narrative, representation itself flirts with an atemporal immanence upon arrival at a Blackness understood outwardly as a concept that negatively structures human capacity. The philosopher Fred Moten argues that the negative structuring of human capacity is not to invoke the inhuman but something closer to the ante-human, what necessarily came before, in perpetuity before, suggesting this world-shaping Blackness as another name for the force that is not endemic to, but currently occupied by the people who refer to ourselves as Black. To stretch an Afropessimist logic atemporally, you could assume Jesus Christ was Black because it was necessary for Christians to reenact his murder in perpetuity to feel human.
The exhibition is organized by Mohamed Almusibli, independent curator based in Geneva, Switzerland.
The title
Dog Heaven (2015) is a sculpture made of a table, a fountain, a pump. The fountain has a dog’s head affixed to one side, its tail on the opposite side. The work made on the occasion of the artists’ first exhibition in Europe in 2015 returns and gives its title to the exhibition. It is a tribute to the first dog to survive a shipwreck and become the first canine migrant. The sculpture is accompanied by a retroactive application for the importation of pets installed in a molding on the wall.
The content
The works in the exhibition are productions from 2015 to 2021 and each reflects the artist’s field of research into issues and methods of representation. The selection of recent works such as Helen (2017) and Black Lena Dunham (2020) touch on the possibilities of non-human representation, inspired by Afro-pessimistic theory. Representation of Arlo (2019), meanwhile, demonstrates the uneven politics of representation.
Through the image of a ghost, a huge spider, or various biblical representations such as Christ or Saint Thomas, each new work commissioned for the exhibition engages philosopher Fred Moten’s theory of the ante-human.
The exhibition is completed by a selection of original drawings by the artist taken from his comic book Airport Love Theme (Book Works, 2020).
Hamishi Farah
Hamishi Farah is a self taught artist formerly based in Melbourne, Australia. Farah has participated in numerous solo and group exhibitions internationally in commercial, institutional, artist run, and offsite settings. They are represented by Arcadia Missa in London, UK and Chateau Shatto, Los Angeles, USA. Hamishi is a founding member of Aotearoa based rap collective Fanau Spa. Their graphic novel Airport Love Theme, based on a true story, is published by Book Works in the UK in January 2020.
Mohamed Almusibli
Mohamed Almusibli (CH/YE) is an artist and independent curator based in Geneva, Switzerland where he co-founded and runs the art space Cherish. He has curated exhibitions and performances at AutoItalia, London; Karma International, Zurich; Centre d’Art Contemporain, Geneva among others. He is currently a curator in residence at the Centre d’Art Contemporain in Geneva where he shows a monthly selection of video art in his Almusibli Panorama program which will conclude with the first Swiss Moving Image Award.
Fri Art Kunsthalle
Since its opening in 1991, over 160 exhibitions 30 outdoor projects were organised by Fri Art Kunsthalle, along with a rich program of talks, conferences, concerts and performances.
Fri Art is situated at Petites-Rames 22, an industrial building in the old town of Fribourg, Switzerland. Located at the crossroad of different linguistic regions, the art center is an important venue for the Swiss contemporary art scene.
Fri Art has gained international reputation for the adventurousness and global scope of a curatorial program that mixes young artists, historical surveys and important group exhibitions. In recent years, Fri Art presented several personal exhibitions by young or established artists, both swiss and international, such as Calla Henkel & Max Pitegoff (2020), Ketty La Rocca (2020), Gene Beery (2019), Hanne Lippard (2018), Lucie Stahl (2018), Peter Schuyff (2017), Cameron Rowland (2016) or Hannah Weinberger (2014).
Hamishi Farah, Spinning Around, 2021, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Spider under Glass, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Dog Heaven, 2015, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Black Lena Dunham, 2020, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Ostentation Vulnerum, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Ostentation Vulnerum, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Dog Heaven 2, Ghost of the Black Dog, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Dog Heaven 2, Ghost of the Black Dog, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Crucifix, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Dog Heaven 2, Ghost of the Black Dog, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Exhibition view, Dog Heaven 2, How Sweet the Wound of Jesus Tastes, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle
Hamishi Farah, Doubting Thomas, 2021, Fri Art, 2021. Photo Guillaume Python. Courtesy of Fri Art Kunsthalle