Meschac gaba biography of william shakespeare
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Gaba's survey exhibition Museum for Contemporary African Art & More showed at the Museum de Paviljoens in Almere, the Netherlands; the Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel, Germany; and the Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno in Las Palmas, Canary Islands, in 2009/10.
Notable group shows include Imaginary Friends, Joan Miro Foundation, Barcelona, Spain (2023); THIS IS NOT AFRICA – UNLEARN WHAT YOU HAVE LEARNED, ARoS Aarhus Kunstmuseum, Denmark (2021); The House of Opportunity, S.M.A.K, Ghent, Belgium (2020); Risk, A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town, South Africa (2019); The Warmth of Other Suns: Stories of Global Displacement, Phillips Collection, Washington DC, USA (2019); Leaving the Echo Chamber, the 14th Sharjah Biennale (2019); African Metropolis.
His work often balances the use of traditional and contemporary techniques, creating a fusion of past and present. A single home can contain both voodoo artefacts and a Christian figurine, for example. This kind of work typifies Meschac Gaba’s preoccupation with the legacy of slavery and the African diaspora, as well as his fascination with architecture and intercultural exchange.
Gaba was born in 1961 in Cotonou, Benin.
From 1996-1997, he studied at Rijksakademie voor Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, where he presented the Draft Room, the first installment of his Museum of Contemporary African Art. Other “rooms” of this project include the Museum Shop (first shown at S.M.A.K. Gaba examines how cultural identity is constructed; how trade networks function; how value is created and lost; how African art is viewed; and the role played therein by museums, artists and audiences.
His work has also been featured at Tate Modern in London, Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris, Hayward Gallery, Southbank Centre in London, Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, Ullens Center for Contemporary Art in Beijing, Museum voor Moderne Kunst Arnhem in the Netherlands, and at MoMA PS1 in New York during his 2003-2004 residency.
The Objects We Choose, Curated by Pedro Alonzo
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New YorkJune 20 - July 31, 2024Read moreTHE RETURN OF THE REAL
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New YorkJuly 14 - August 28, 2020Read moreSongs in the Dark
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New YorkJanuary 11 - February 20, 2020Read moreMESCHAC GABA
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New YorkJune 22 - July 28, 2017Read moreMESCHAC GABA: MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART
DEUTSCHE BANK KUNSTHALLESeptember 20 - November 16, 2014Read moreMESCHAC GABA: EXCHANGE MARKET
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New YorkApril 26 - June 7, 2014Read moreBetween the Lines
Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New YorkJanuary 9 - February 8, 2014Read moreMESCHAC GABA: MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART
TATE MODERN, LONDONJuly 3 - September 22, 2013Read moreMESCHAC GABA: SOUVENIR PALACE
LIVERPOOL BIENNALESeptember 18 - November 18, 2010Read moreMESCHAC GABA: THE MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY AFRICAN ART 1997-2002
KUNSTHALLE FRIDERICIANUM, KASSEL / MUSEUM DE PAVILJOENS, ALMERE, THE NETHERLANDSJanuary 1 - December 31, 2009Read moreMESCHAC GABA: GINGER BAR
50TH VENICE BIENNALEJune 15 - November 5, 2003Read more
Meschac Gaba
Meschac Gaba was born in the largest city of the former Republic of Dahomey (present-day Benin), a year after the former French colony gained independence.
He has been a trailblazer in the exploration of cultural identity and has inspired countless artists to delve deeper into their own heritage and experiences.
Gaba's work has been exhibited in prestigious institutions and art biennials worldwide, gaining recognition and acclaim from critics and art enthusiasts alike. Gaba married Dutch curator Alexandra van Dongen at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam in 2000.
Several resemble the typical spaces found in Western museums, such as the Library, which contains stories from Gaba’s childhood, books donated by art institutions, old computers powered by bicycles, and a coffin with the voice of a storyteller, after the African saying, ‘When someone dies, a library is lost’. An Imaginary City at MAXXI, Rome (2018); Enchanted Bodies / Fetish for Freedom at Galleria d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo (2018); The Red Hour, 13th Dakar Biennale (2018); More for Less at A4 Arts Foundation, Cape Town (2018); Their Own Harlems at The Studio Museum in Harlem (2017); Afrique Capitales at La Villette in Paris (2017); Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design at the Vitra Design Museum, Weil am Rhein (2015); Atopolis, Mons 2015 - European Capital of Culture; Liberated Subjects: Present Tense, Foundation De 11 Lijnen, Oudenburg (2015); The Theatre of the World, Museo Tamayo, Mexico (2014); When Attitudes Became Form Become Attitudes: A Restoration / A Remake / A Rejuvenation / A Rebellion, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco; Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit (2013); Benin Biennale (2012); La Triennale - Intense Proximity, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2012); The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds after 1989 at ZKM Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe, Germany (2011); Touched, the 2010 Liverpool Biennale; Port City at Greenland Street Gallery, Liverpool (2008); Africa Remix (2004-2007) and, in 2006, the São Paolo, Gwangju, Sydney and Havana biennales.
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For instance, Sweetness (2006) is a model of a fantasy city made from sugar cubes, uniting familiar buildings worldwide into a utopian, global but eminently fragile city. In this installation, he references the ancient intertwining of art and religion across cultures and polytheism in Benin. He responded by building his own conceptual museum, comprising twelve interactive, transplantable rooms.
His surreal, sometimes wry and often playful museum is autobiography, novella and protest rolled into one.
The museum’s first space is the Draft Room, a collection of ceramic chicken legs – a reflection on the overproduction of food in Europe – and devalued banknotes, amongst other things.
Meschac Gaba: A Pioneer in Contemporary Art and Cultural Identity
One of Meschac Gaba's most significant contributions to the art world is his groundbreaking creation, the Museum of Contemporary African Art.
Conceived as an interactive and immersive art installation, the museum challenges traditional notions of what a museum should be. Money as an instrument of power is a common motif within Gaba’s practice. in Ghent, Belgium, 1999), Museum Restaurant (W139, Amsterdam, 1999), Game Room (Le Pavé Dans La Mare, Besançon, France, 1999), Library of the Museum (Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art,Rotterdam, 2001), Salon (Palais de Tokyo, Paris, 2002), and the Marriage Room, where the artist married his wife during its first presentation at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam, 2000. The entire work currently belongs to the permanent collection of the Tate Modern, which showed it for the first time in the United Kingdom in 2013.
He belongs to the generation of African artists that are working towards the creation of a post-colonial identity. It provokes the Western art world and aims not only to highlight African contemporary art, but also to analyse the raison d’être for borders between the two worlds.