Artists: Wilder Alison, Harry Hachmeister, Jonas Monka, Emmanuel Ndefo, Jonathan Penca, Toni Schmale
Exhibition title: Taking Shapes
Curated by: Miriam Bettin and Alwin Lay
Venue: Lore Deutz, Cologne, Germany
Date: May 19 – July 29, 2020
Photography: Taking Shapes, 2023, Installation views Lore Deutz, 2023, Photos: Alwin Lay. Courtesy of the artists; ASPN Galerie Leipzig; Fiebach Minninger, Cologne; Gaa Gallery, Cologne, New York, Provincetown; Deborah Schamoni
Being in shape is an expression of fitness and physical performance in a normative capitalist society. It describes a static condition, the fitting into a form. Instead of assuming a variety of shapes – and to ask in what kind of shape – the term implies that there is a universal ideal of shape. The exhibition Taking Shapes brings together artists who refuse to follow this limited reading. Rather, their works (sculpture, painting, performance, video, collage) are characterized by the process of form finding: Through probing and extending materials and (partly geometric) shapes between figuration and abstraction against a rigid understanding of the body, the artists work with a fluid and fragmented variety of forms – of bodies, of genders, of objects, of identities, of states, of spaces. Through transgression, the exhibited works oppose binaries and present multiple ways of taking shapes, including modes of shape-shifting and in-between states of constant transformation to ultimately, as Virginie Despentes puts it, open a space „where you can become something entirely different from what you had been allowed to imagine“ so we „live in constant transition – which is the property of life“. (Virginie Despentes, in: Paul Preciado, An Apartment On Uranus, London 2019, p. 26)
TAKING SHAPES (PRELUDE)
Emmanuel Ndefo Adamma – “The Passage” Performance with screening and following artist talk
Saturday, April 22, 2023, 7 pm
As a prelude to the exhibition Taking Shapes, artist and choreographer Emmanuel Ndefo (*1991 in Kano, Nigeria) presents the newly produced solo performance Adamma – “The Passage” for the first time. Based on the Igbo maiden spirit ritual ‘Adamma’, the work touches on forms of transgression and of shape shifting through embodiment and African ancestral spirituality.
“In this work, I will explore Igbo maiden spirit rituals of crossdressing, transsexualism and transvestism as subversive places, where the notion of subjectivity is challenged, where gender norms are questioned, and where identity is always perceived as capable of construction, invention and change.
This work came out of my artistic research of the Adamma masquerade ritual in Igbo societies. The Igbo people are an ethnic group that live chiefly in the south-eastern part of Nigeria and speak the Igbo language, and ‘Adamma’ means ‘beautiful daughter’ in Igbo Language. During this ritual, men would dress up as women and perform flirtatious dances in public, wearing a wooden helmet mask painted with a woman’s face. Maiden spirit rituals in Igbo philosophy are subversive places where men could question and challenge the boundaries of gender. While performing this ritual, I experienced a unique tension which existed during the performance, for when a man puts on a mask and costume to perform as a female ancestor or spirit, he is transformed into a woman while remaining a man.
Taking the above as a starting point, I wanted to develop this performance which will use my body as a focal point to explore queerness within Igbo spirituality. The maiden mask, which I am interpreting as a queer masquerade experience, will be at the center of the performance. I will use the experience of maiden-spirit masking to theorize the tension between my public identity as a straight Igbo man and my internal queer desires. ” – Emmanuel Ndefo
Emmanuel Ndefo is a performance artist, researcher and choreographer working with his body as an instrument of resistance. He is interested in de-colonial and queer pedagogies within indigenous African spirituality and performance practices foregrounding acts that unsettle hegemonic political and social norms around gender and sexuality in Africa. By using performance, exhibitions and group workshops as a medium to explore issues surrounding queerness, intimacy and masculinities within an afrocentric context, Ndefo focusses on historical and contemporary formats of rupture, resistance and subversion within performance practices: The moving body as a place to think, to resist, to challenge dominant narratives, and to generate solidarity for criminalized queer identities in Africa. Emmanuel Ndefo has performed and exhibited internationally, including at the Tate Museum in London, the Centre nationale de la danse in Paris, Frankfurt Lab Germany, CCA in Lagos, and PACT Zollverein in Essen.
Taking Shapes (Prelude) takes place within the framework of LOOTING THE NORMAL supported by Stiftung Kunstfonds / Neustart Kultur.
