SONJA GOMES: I RISE
September 7th, 2019 – February 22nd, 2020
For Brazilian artist Sonia Gomes, I Rise – I’m a Black Ocean, Leaping and Wide is the first solo show at a European institution. The exhibition begins with its first part at Salon Berlin and continues with a second part at Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden, from October 12, 2019, through March 8, 2020.
Bodies hung upside-down, twisted into one another, recalling lynching victims or wilting vegetation. Nerve paths, mental maps, dreamcatchers: Sonia Gomes’ biomorphic sculptures have a worrying, magical presence. Born in 1948 to an unmarried black mother and white father in Caetanópolis, a center of the Brazilian textile industry, Gomes grew up, after the early death of her mother, in the Catholic family of her grandfather. But the African culture and spirituality of her mother and grandmother, as well as an interest in rituals, processions, and myths, made a lasting impact on her life and her later work as an artist. As a teenager, Gomes began deconstructing textiles and items of clothing to create her own style and to make both items for practical use and craft objects. Only at the age of 40, however, when she attended the Guignard University of Art in Belo Horizonte, did she decide, with the support of a teacher, to make a career in contemporary art. Today, following her participation in the 56th Venice Biennale in 2015, she is among Brazil’s most influential artists.
more informations about the exhibition
The exhibition is accompanied by a presentation of the Rwandan Daughters project (2019) by German photographer Olaf Heine that addresses the collective and personal consequences of the Rwandan genocide and the sexual violence inflicted on women in times of war.
OLAF HEINE: RWANDAN DAUGHTERS
September 7th, 2019 - February 22nd, 2020
Almost a million people fell victim to the Rwandan Genocide of 1994, around 250,000 women were raped. Today, perpetrators and victims live as next-door neighbors. And while women have become more influential within Rwandan society over the past 25 years, the rape victims and their children are still often marginalized, living with the stigma of widows and orphans. Today, it is the daughters of the raped women in particular who support their traumatized mothers and fight against this stigma—with incomparable courage and boundless optimism in a society marked by major trauma and authoritarian rule.
Rwandan Daughters is a tribute to the power of these women. In these expressive pictures, German photographer Olaf Heine (born 1968) has made portraits of the mothers and daughters of Rwanda—side by side at the scene of the crime. Sometimes the gaze of mother and daughter goes in different directions, sometimes they touch each other gently. Even a slight smile would be a lie. But the resemblance between their faces speaks of their connectedness and thus their shared hope of being able to leave the past behind. The natural settings often feel peaceable, while the urban space keeps the deprivation and the hurt alive. Nonetheless: crimes took place in all of these locations.
more informations about the exhibition
MUSEUM FRIEDER BURDA | Salon Berlin
Thursday to Saturday 12noon - 6pm
and by appointment via salon@museum-frieder-burda.de
T +49 30 240 47 404
salon(at)museum-frieder-burda.de
www.museum-frieder-burda.de
Free admission
Free guided tours during opening hours
