Grazie Mille Venice Biennale! /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Orbital Mechanics - 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia - Curated by Adriano Pedrosa. Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere.

Thank you Venice Biennial for all the unforgettable moments! Thanks to Alice and Sarah from our amazing production team, to the whole Biennale di Venezia team: Ilaria, Emilia and to all the collaborators who made this project possible: Mondriaan Fonds - Goldsmiths, University of London.

In their ongoing artistic collaboration, Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic incorporate indigo textiles, soundscapes, and performances to address how our world has been shaped by colonialism and migration.

Guzman and Jankovic reinterpret the history of sacred indigo textiles, which are deeply connected with colonial histories and the trade of enslaved Africans who carried the expertise of cultivating indigo with them to the Americas. The textiles in the installation feature an abstract pattern of intercultural DNA sequences that embody a global connection between the Black Atlantic.

The textiles are printed at the Ajrakh workshop of Sufiyan Khatri in Ajrakhpur, India. Using traditional manual dyeing methods, Ajrakh is a 4,000-year-old practice orally passed down through generations.

The accompanying soundscape alludes to ideas of belonging and exclusion through an exploration of diasporic sounds that combine electronic music, dub, punk, and Senegalese drums. The music resonates in a performance titled Messengers of the Sun which embodies the project’s themes such as migration, race, and cultural hybrid identities in a processional parade and dance.

—Amanda Pinatih and Britte Sloothaak

Messengers of the Sun. From the Dub Waves & Interferences series, 2024

Orbital Mechanics at the 60th Venice Biennial /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

It is a great pleasure to invite you to the presentation of our project Orbital Mechanics at the 60th Venice Biennial; Foreigners Everywhere; Curated by Adriano Pedrosa.

Installation: Corderie dell’Arsenale - Performance starts at the entrance of the Arsenale, continuing to our installation at the Corderie dell’Arsenale.

Dates: Wednesday 17th April, 3pm - Thursday, 18th April, 3pm - Saturday, 20th April, 3 pm.

Unravel: at Barbican - The Standard london /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Unravel: at the Barbican Art Gallery review - let the complex fabric of this textile show envelop you

London, UK. 2024. Artist Antonio Jose Guzman with his joint work (with Iva Jankovic) 'Messengers of the Sun', 2022, at a preview of ‘Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art’, a new exhibition at Barbican Art Gallery which explores the medium of textiles. Over 100 artworks by 50 international practitioners demonstrating stitching, weaving, braiding, beading and knotting are on show 13 February to 26 May 2024. Credit: Stephen Chung / Alamy Live News

NANCY DURRANT, CULTURE EDITOR @NANCYDURRANT

Review at a glance / Excerpt

And yet as an artform, textile has consistently been underestimated. Often, it’s dismissed as ‘craft’ or ‘women’s work’, its association with the domestic overriding its versatility, its resonances, and its complexity.

All of which makes it perfect as a form in which to get political. That’s the broad focus of this new exhibition at the Barbican, Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art, which features more than 100 artworks, from small embroideries to vast installations, by 50 international artists including the likes of Yinka Shonibare, Cecilia Vicuña, Magdalena Abakanowicz (recently the subject of a large solo exhibition at Tate Modern), Nicholas Hlobo and more. Many are likely to be new discoveries for visitors.

‘Ancestral Threads’, which takes up most of the ground floor of the gallery and is home to some of the most monumental works, features artists who look back at textile histories. Some shed light on the effects of globalism and trade – Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic’s patchworks, dyed with valuable indigo, recall the exploitation of African enslaved people who brought with them expertise in its cultivation; at one point a length of indigo cloth equated in monetary value to one enslaved human.

As with most Barbican exhibitions, constrained in a sense by its enormous space, there is, conceivably, a bit too much to see. It definitely feels at first that there’s way too much text – but actually, bar just a few irritating lapses into fatuous artspeak, the explanations on the walls, for nearly all pieces, are both informative and genuinely interesting. Not every work will resonate, but it’s never less than fascinating. Give yourself time to let this show unspool.

Barbican Art Gallery, February 13 to May 26; barbican.org.uk

60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Dear All, It is with great pride that we announce that we’ve been invited to participate in the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia - Stranieri Ovunque - Foreigners Everywhere - Curated by Adriano Pedrosa.  Guzman | Jankovic.

Venice Biennale 2024 Artists And Concept Revealed

Guzman | Jankovic by Petra Katanic

The 60th International Art Exhibition, titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, will open to the public from Saturday April 20 to Sunday November 24, 2024, at the Giardini and the Arsenale; it will be curated by Adriano Pedrosa and organised by La Biennale di Venezia. The pre-opening will take place on April 17, 18 and 19; the awards ceremony and inauguration will be held on 20 April 2024.

Since 2021, La Biennale di Venezia launched a plan to reconsider all of its activities in light of recognized and consolidated principles of environmental sustainability. For the year 2024, the goal is to extend the achievement of “carbon neutrality” certification, which was obtained in 2023 for La Biennale’s scheduled activities: the 80th Venice International Film Festival, the Theatre, Music and Dance Festivals and, in particular, the 18th International Architecture Exhibition which was the first major Exhibition in this discipline to test in the field a tangible process for achieving carbon neutrality – while furthermore itself reflecting upon the themes of decolonisation and decarbonisation.

The Exhibition will take place in the Central Pavilion (Giardini) and in the Arsenale, and it will present two sections: the Nucleo Contemporaneo and the Nucleo Storico.

As a guiding principle, the Biennale Arte 2024 has favored artists who have never participated in the International Exhibition—though a number of them may have been featured in a National Pavilion, a Collateral Event, or in a past edition of the International Exhibition. Special attention is being given to outdoor projects, both in the Arsenale and in the Giardini, where a performance program is being planned with events during the pre-opening and closing weekend of the 60th Exhibition.

Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, the title of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, is drawn from a series of works started in 2004 by the Paris-born and Palermo-based Claire Fontaine collective. The works consist of neon sculptures in different colours that render in a growing number of languages the words “Foreigners Everywhere”. The phrase comes, in turn, from the name of a Turin collective who fought racism and xenophobia in Italy in the early 2000s.

«The expression Stranieri Ovunque – explains Adriano Pedrosa – has several meanings. First of all, that wherever you go and wherever you are you will always encounter foreigners— they/we are everywhere. Secondly, that no matter where you find yourself, you are always truly, and deep down inside, a foreigner.»

Come Together Festival / Frascati Amsterdam /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

We would like to invite you to a new performance from our Electric Dub Station Series: The Resounding Echo of the Thunder / Come Together Festival / Frascati Amsterdam / 20th of January / 19 hrs.

An explosive Afrofuturistic sonic dub diary and a ritualistic spoken word monologue on decolonization, polarised societies, polarised families, polarised neighbourhoods, segregation, war and populism. See you soon #electricdubstation

Stigter van Doesburg / Spatial Rotations /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Antonio Jose Guzman - Iva Jankovic - Stigter van Doesburg / Spatial Rotations - Electric Dub Station Series / 04.11.2023 - 10.12.2023 - ‘Electric Dub Station’ is an ongoing collaborative project by visual artists Antonio Guzman and Iva Jankovic. It contains a range of references; from a reinterpretation of indigo blue textiles, deeply rooted in the history of Western colonialism.

Stigter van Doesburg / Spatial Rotations / Electric Dub Station Series

Phaidon Press - Thrilled beyond words /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Thrilled and grateful beyond words to be feature in this new survey on 300 years Latin American artists by Phaidon Press - Featuring: Arcángel Eléctrico (Plan de Escape) 2018.

The essential survey showcasing the work of more than 300 modern and contemporary artists born or based in Latin America Latin American artists have gained increasing international prominence as the art world awakens to the area’s extraordinary art scenes and histories. In an accessible A-Z format, this volume introduces key artworks by 308 artists who together demonstrate the variety and vitality of artwork being made. This book has been created in close collaboration with an expert panel of 68 advisors and writers.

Artists featured include: Allora and Calzadilla, Manuel Alvarez Bravo, Francis Alÿs, Olga de Amaral, Fernando Botero, Leonora Carrington, Lygia Clark, Carlos Cruz-Diez, Leonor Fini, Gego, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Carmen Herrera, Graciela Iturbide, Alfredo Jaar, Frida Kahlo, Guillermo Kuitca, Wifredo Lam, Teresa Margolles, Marisol, Cildo Meireles, Ana Mendieta, Beatriz Milhazes, Ernesto Neto, Hélio Oiticica, Gabriel Orozco, José Clemente Orozco, Diego Rivera, Zilia Sánchez, David Alfaro Siqueiros, Cecilia Vicuña, Adrián Villar Rojas and Faith Wilding.

With an intro by Raphael Fonseca

Messengers to barbican, london /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art - 14 February – 26 May 2024

Participating artists include:

Magdalena Abakanowicz, Igshaan Adams, Mounira Al Sohl, Mercedes Azpilicueta, Louise Bourgeois, Jagoda Buić, Feliciano Centurión, Cian Dayrit, Tracey Emin, Jeffrey Gibson, Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic, Sheila Hicks, Tau Lewis, Teresa Margolles, Małgorzata Mirga-Tas, Faith Ringgold, Angela Su, Lenore Tawney, Cecilia Vicuña, Billie Zangewa, and more. 

Unravel: The Power and Politics of Textiles in Art brings together over 100 artworks by a diverse range of international practitioners to examine the ways in which artists have embraced textiles to communicate multi-layered stories about lived experience, addressing gender, sexuality, colonialism, the movement and displacement of people, ancient forms of knowledge, and more. Spanning intimate hand-crafted works to large-scale sculptural installations, the exhibition presents works that are radical in their form and politics, revealing how textiles have been forces of resistance and repair. This exhibition is co-curated by the Barbican, London and Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam where the exhibition will be on show from September 2024.  

Co-curated by Barbican and Stedelijk Museum. 

Transatlantic Stargate hkw berlin /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

“Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic reinterpret the transatlantic colonial history of indigo-blue textiles”

Transatlantic Stargate - Antonio Jose Guzman & Iva Jankovic - House of World Cultures, Berlin
(Haus der Kulturen der Welt) - O Quilombismo - Of Resisting and Insisting. Of Flight as Fight. Of Other Democratic Egalitarian Political Philosophies - 2.6.–17.9.2023 - Curated by: Bonaventure Ndikung, Cosmin Costinas, Paz Guevara

Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic reinterpret the transatlantic colonial history of indigo-blue textiles, which is deeply connected with the colonial and slavery history of the West. In their ongoing project Electric Dub Station the indigo color represents the diasporic, cultural, and economic history of textile trade and memories of ancient spirits that are woven or saturated into the fabrics. Moreover, indigo is thought to have sacred ancestral powers.

hkw’s Bonaventure Ndikung - Transatlantic Stargate' /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

“We have been trying to… rethink the space. We invited artists to paint walls… even the floor,” Ndikung

HKW artistic director Bonaventure Ndikung poses in front of the work 'Transatlantic Stargate' by artists Antonio Jose Guzman and Iva Jankovic, part of the O Quilombismo exhibition at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW-House of the Cultures of the World) museum in Berlin.

One of the rare African-born figures to head a German cultural institution, Bonaventure Ndikung is aiming to highlight post-colonial multiculturalism at a Berlin arts centre with its roots in Western hegemony.

eds series at Buitenplaats Doornburgh /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Spheres of Fire explores the ways in which migration contributes to the imagining of communities.

In the cloister you will find a spatial installation by Antonio Jose Guzman. Pieces of fabric hang from the ceiling, with geometric patterns painted in indigo. They refer to the connection between all cultures and to history, present and future. The printing technique used is more than 4000 years old. The work explores the ways in which migration contributes to the imagining, breaking up and reshaping of communities and countries. Guzmán: “Indigo is deeply intertwined with the history of Western colonialism, the textile trade and has special ancestral powers”.

NG Gallery Panama | Movimiento Interestelar /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Antonio José Guzmán es un artista inmerso en la investigación constante de la historia y la raza. 

Sus instalaciones y trabajos multidisciplinares, inspirados en reflexiones sobre identidades diaspóricas, narración y análisis cultural, lo han posicionado como uno de los artistas panameños más contemporáneos y universales. 

Martes 11 de abril 2023 | 6:30pm - Avenida Balboa. Plaza Bay Mall. Ciudad de Panamá, Panamá
Banda Invitada: Llevarte a Marte

Movimiento Interestelar es el título de su primera exposición personal en Panamá. La poética visual de Guzmán se articula a partir de patrones gráficos indígenas tradicionales de Panamá, mezclados con la secuenciación del ADN del artista, mediante un algoritmo de orden secuencial de redistribución espacial. A partir de su serie Electric Dub Station, la muestra se articulará como una eclosión de sentidos, involucrando obras bidimensionales, instalaciones textiles y un performance en la noche de su inauguración. La muestra ocupará las salas de NG Art Gallery hasta inicios de mayo de 2023.

EDS at Art Rotterdam /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Electric Dub Station at:

Gallery Stigter Van Doesburg

Art Rotterdam

We are thrilled to announce that our series Electric Dub Station will be shown at Stigter Van Doesburg - Contemporary Art Gallery, during Art Rotterdam 2023 - Stand 22. From Thursday 9 to Sunday 12 February, at the iconographic Rotterdam Van Nelle Factory.

back in Panama! /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

NG Art Gallery

NG Art Gallery is pleased to invite you to the opening cocktail of the collective exhibition, "Plans in Contact". Jueves, 2 de febrero 2023 • 6:30pm - Dirección: Avenida Balboa. Plaza Bay Mall. Ciudad de Panamá, Panamá

Thanks for joining the Gathering at the Stedelijk Museum /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Messengers of the Sun - Magical layers - Black Atlantic interactions.

PERFORMANCE: ANTONIO JOSE GUZMAN & IVA JANKOVIC - 27 Nov 2022, 2 Apr 2023

Messengers of the Sun is a project consisting of performances and textile installation that explores multiple magical layers of Black Atlantic interactions. Taking the form of an Afrofuturist ceremonial procession led by music and dancers, the performance moves through the museum. The title refers to a mythical story in which the lost children of the prophet Sun Ra are “messengers of the sun.” They live in the Sirius-B galaxy, to which ancestors from the African diaspora migrated in times of destruction in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Messengers at the Stedelijk /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Messengers of the Sun

Electric Dub Station Series

Stedelijk Museum - GKA Proposals for Municipal Art Acquisitions. Curators: Curators: Amanda Pinatih and Britte Sloothaak

WHEN THINGS ARE BEINGS - PROPOSALS FOR THE MUSEUM COLLECTION

Exhibition — 26 Nov 2022 until 10 Apr 2023

The group exhibition When Things Are Beings reveals the power of objects and sculptures in a range of visual languages. Bridging the material and immaterial realms, the projects forge connections between ideas and objects, spirituality and materiality, and link social issues to tangible phenomenon.