Rapping on canvas, Alexandre Diop

 

2022 was a big year for Alexandre Diop, the Franco-Senegalese artist now living in Vienna, Austria. Under the mentorship of Kehinde Wiley, his first exhibition in Paris "La prochaine fois, le feu" opened during the art fair Paris+ by Art Basel, in October. Following a four-month-long residency at the Rubell Museum Miami at the beginning of the year, he filled the venue with his work for a solo show in December, just in time for Art Basel Miami Beach. Presently, five of his "roaring monumental canvasses" are on view at the Rubell Museum DC, displayed in the vast luminous foyer at the entrance of the building, a renovated high school, part of a project aimed at revitalizing the neighborhood. 

First impressions are lasting. Surrounded by Diop's works I remember being overwhelmed by the dense imagery filling the vast space. I could not figure out the subject of the works other than it seemed epic, and I got closer  to Mondo Carne (2022). The huge painting (103x191 in.) describes an apocalyptic world through gruesome scenes featuring flailed bodies, skulls, screaming, disfigured faces... a pile of human misery.  One cannot avoid thinking of Basquiat when looking at the painting which also includes barely legible writing in French meaning "stop this masquerade, there is enough to eat for everyone" (according to the wall text). The disturbing picture we are looking at seems from another time or another world, and yet, is inspired by the daily struggle of entire populations to survive, as "you enjoy your $2-dollar extra shot in your venti Starbucks Coffee". Made with traditional oil paint, oil stick, pastel, acrylic, charcoal, gouache on canvas, the raw, visceral composition is a violent, gruesome start to the show. 

L'incroyable Traversée d'Abdoulaye Le Grand, Troisième de la Lignée (The Incredible Crossing of Abdoulaye the Great, Third in Line to the Throne), 2022, tells the mythical story of Abdoulaye, obviously the artist. Initially a scenario for a movie,  the fable relates the journey of the hero who interacts with different characters, some good, others bad. Black and white, good and bad, a crossing between two worlds alludes to the river Styx of the Greek mythology. Cerberus becomes a monster tamed by Abdoulaye riding the beast. The story built with themes embedded in our psyche unfolds from left to right and the white background of the triptych allows the silhouettes of the personages to stand out in lively postures. Looking at the details of the elaborate graffiti-like composition reveals the very personal technique of the artist who arranges refuses found in the streets, dumps and various indescribable places, using hammers and staplers to tack them to the wooden canvas. 

Diop starts gathering material like a sculptor and produces scenes worthy of a painter like the next triptych, a colorful composition titled L'Histoire du Monde-Le Temps et l'Espace (The History of the World-Time and Space), 2022. The ambitious subject is tackled with gusto by the artist who manages to add a dash of  humor. If Eve, the temptress and the cause of our downfall is present, the monkey on the lower right takes over the work about the past. The wise observer has a pensive gaze and a sardonic grin as he scratches his head. This is the miracle of art: how to render such an insightful expression with pieces of colored paper. The word "loco" nearby, like in a cartoon, conveys his thoughts as he looks at the history of mankind. The location for the present is in Miami as per an upside down banner on top of the second panel. The claustrophobic accumulation of images, scribbles, dribbles, snippets of advertisements, with a partly decomposed portrait of Warhol (at least his wig), alludes to a confused, stressful world filled with anxiety. A lost breasted-man occupies most of the third tableau about the  future as thriving monkeys keep watching the world led by cartels and its final apocalypse.

 Following these visionary, mythic, violent works, the two nudes side by side on the facing wall feel out of place. Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame be (to him) who thinks evil of it), 2022 and Le Mensonge d'État (The Lie of the State), 2021 are replicas (Diop's style) respectively of the famous Grande Odalisque (1814) from Ingres and Olympia (1863-1865) from Édouart Manet. Every detail is carefully reproduced: fan, blue drapery, long spine, elongated arm. The face appears to be a mask with the same detached expression. Idem for Olympia and her erotic posture, the orchid in the hair, the black servant. I could not find the cat, and the bunch of flowers is replaced by a text "Cheikh Anta Diop, Civilisation ou Barbarie". It refers to the Senegalese historian, anthropologist , physicist and politician with the same surname than the artist. Looking carefully to each portrait, there are more scribbled messages. To quote the artist about his works: "there’s really a lot for me to talk about every time I discuss these pieces".  

Not a painting, not a sculpture, not a tapestry, not a graffiti, not a bas-relief, ... Diop has mastered a unique technique, using objects as his palette, hammers and staplers as his brushes. He also sometimes leaves his own blood and spit as he works fast and furiously on his canvasses. The scion of an ancestral Senegalese family, he has a vision of history mixed with an anti-establishment view permeating through his work. Not quite thirty years old, the artist is looking forward to a bright future, and has many projects and ideas: "There are so many things I want to do. For me, this is really just the beginning of my career. I want to develop and not repeat the same things...I think the act of painting or sculpture is to recreate [oneself] as a human... It’s also not always about art, it’s also about life. What I feel. What I see." The future will tell what is next for the multidisciplinary artist full of promises. Hopefully he does not get too close to the fire and burn his wings, like Icarus who melted his getting to close to the sun. 

photographs by the author:

Mondo Carne (2022)

L'Histoire du Monde-Le Temps et l'Espace (The History of the World-Time and Space) detail, 2022

Honi soit qui mal y pense (Shame be (to him) who thinks evil of it), 2022

At the Rubell DC

 

With more than 7,400 works by more than 1,000 artists in its collection, the Rubell family has become a prominent mover of the art world, extending its reach from Miami to Washington DC with the Fall opening of the Rubell Museum DC in the Southwest Waterfront area. Ensconced in the heart of an African-American community, the Randall Junior High School building abandoned for decades was recently renovated to become an art venue, leading to the unavoidable gentrification of the neighborhood. The challenge will be to keep its soul despite its new purpose. From the entrance through the auditorium going up up and down the stairs of the three levels, corridors, classrooms (now galleries) are a constant reminder of its previous life. 

Bathed in the sunlight drawing shapes on the floor, the wide space of the auditorium is the perfect setting for four major pieces by their size and quality, two on each side. Kehinde Wiley's Sleep, 2008, and Another Man's Cloth, 2006, from El Anatsui are like magnets for the viewers as they walk in. The punchy introduction is followed by a visit of the first gallery (twenty four total!) where the viewers can immerse themselves in Keith Haring's cartoonish series Untitled (Against All Odds), 1989, dedicated to Don Rubell's brother deceased from AIDS, while listening to the music of What's Going On, an album from Marvin Gaye's, previous student at the school. The surprisingly small size of the rooms allows intimate solo or group shows. One of the galleries is dedicated to female artists with nudes from Mickalene Thomas, Cecily Brown, Marlene Dumas and Lisa Yuskavage, another to African-American male artists with works from Glenn Ligon, Rashid Johnson, Gary Simmons and Leonardo Drew who takes over the show with Untitled #25, 1992, a giant wall of cotton placed in the middle of the room, a feat in itself. The self-taught artist Purvis Young from Miami, gets two walls in a corridor for his paintings about funerals, protesters and pregnant women, and Hank Willis Thomas for his Unbranded Series, 2006-2008, in which he highlights the perverted use of black men's image in advertisement, a wall to wall display of photographs filling a gallery and an adjacent narrow passage.  It is the occasion to discover the caricatural portraits from Tschabalala Self empowering black females, accompanied by a wall text about intersectionality, and Sylvia Snowden's series Shell;Glimpses, 2010-2012, about her daughter's character depicted through an abstract expressionist vein with brash colors and heavy impasto. 

The list of artists goes on: Maurizio Cattelan, Carrie Mae Weems, Christian Boltanski, Danh Võ, CadyNoland,... Sometimes represented by one small piece lost among the overcrowded display like Kara Walker or Robert Colescott, the fifty artists selected for the exhibition are all "responding to pressing social and political issues" through their works as described on the museum's website. The walls are covered with  paintings, drawings and photographs, along the stairs, the landings, the corridors, leaving little space to take a step back. A few sculptures are located in the central halls on the first and second floor. The visit ends in the basement where three installations are relegated possibly due to their sensitive subject and shocking visual impact on some visitors especially children. Starting with the least controversial, a room filled with plastic detritus thrown among broken classical columns, all covered with imitation gold leaf. A refusal to Accept Limits, 2007, from John Miller invites the visitors to wander among  glittering piles of garbage. Next door, in contrast, three pieces from Josh Kline bring a miserabilist touch with a lighted shopping cart filled with various items and a too realistic female body lying on the floor in a fetal position, thrown in a transparent plastic bag. The long-winded wall text poorly printed about capitalism predicts a dismal future. Is Casja von Zeipel a provocateur? Post Me, Post You, 2022, her pornographic installation with all the props made a stir last Spring at the Frieze New York Art Fair and appears more appropriate for a sex-dungeon. Enough said about it and forget the selfies... gross. 

What's Going On, the vague title of the show, allows the inclusion of diverse works and a long list of artists, the ultimate aim being the presentation of the Rubell Family Collection for the benefit of the visitors (and the Collection). However, more can be less. 

photographs by the author:

John Miller "A Refusal to Accept Limits", 2007.

Tschabalala Self, "Two Girls", 2019

Cecily Brown "Black Painting 4", 2003