Grada Kilomba
Heroines, Birds and Monsters
“Heroines, Birds and Monsters” is Grada Kilomba’s first solo exhibition in the US, presenting her unique practice of storytelling. “What if history has not been told properly? What if our history is haunted by cyclical violence precisely because it has not been buried properly?”, the artist asks.
In her immersive video installations, photography, performance and sculpture, Kilomba intentionally interrupt the proverbial ‘white cube’ of the museum, to revise the concepts of history, power, memory and trauma.
As the title of the exhibition announces, the ‘heroines’, the ‘birds’ and the ‘monsters’ become the main characters of her poetic and political imagery that is concerned with creating decolonial and feminist narratives.
In collaboration with Goethe-Institut.
Photo: Heroines, Birds and Monsters series, ISphinx, Act I, 2020. Archival pigment print on cotton paper mounted on Alu Dibond. Courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.
Grada Kilomba is an artist living in Berlin, whose work interrogates concepts of knowledge, power, and violence. Her work has been presented in major international events such as La Biennale de Lubumbashi VI; 10th Berlin Biennale; Documenta 14, Kassel; 32th Bienal de São Paulo, among others. Her work features in public and private collections worldwide, including the Tate Modern Collection, in London.
Images: Heroines, Birds and Monsters Series, 2020
1. Antigone, Act I; 2. Antigone, Act II; 3. Antigone, Act III; 4. Sphinx, Act I; 5. Sphinx, Act II; 6. Sphinx, Act III; 7. Creon; 8. Creon and the Burial, Act I; 9. Creon and the Burial, Act II; 10. Creon and the Burial, Act III; 11. Creon and Haemon, Act I.
