Unit London has just opened a fantastic group show, The Medium is the Message, featuring a wonderful mix of emerging artists "exploring artistic mediums and the role pigment plays in the expression of identity." Many of the artist you may recognize from our IG over the past year, but for us, its fantastic to see how curateor by Azu Nwagbogu and assistant curators Wunika Mukan and Jana Terblanche balanced the show with a mixture of portraits and still-lifes, and a vibrancy and depth in each artist's work.
"While representation is important, it is empty if it is not succeeded by unfettered existence.," says, Azu Nwagbogu, Founder and Director of African Artists’ Foundation (AAF), a non-profit organisation based in Lagos, Nigeria. "This exhibition veers away from the performative power of the image and ponders existence beyond representation. The Blackness presented here is authentic, quiet, and confident. It rejects the societal gaze whereby Blackness is inextricably linked to majesty or misery with very little gradation between the two, their art unveils many facets of black existence that encompass play, solitude, contemplation and a range of human experience with approaches that do not kowtow to exoticism, but rather reflect the communities from whence they were birthed."
Artist in the exhibition include: Collins Obijiaku (Nigeria), Ludovic Nkoth (Cameroon), Sungi Mlengeya (Tanzania), Eniwaye Oluwaseyi (Nigeria), Edozie Anedu (Nigeria), Zandile Tshabalala (South Africa), Wonder Buhle Mbambo (South Africa), Tiffany Alfonseca (Domenican Republic/ United States), Talia Ramkilawan (South Africa), Emma Odumade (Nigeria), Katlego Tlabela (South Africa), Sthenjwa Luthuli (South Africa), John Madu (Nigeria), Barry Yusufu (Nigeria), Ngozi Schommers (Nigeria), Manyaku Mashilo (South Africa), Ojingiri Oluwaseun Peter (Nigeria), Dawn Okoro (Nigeria/ United States).
