The Supreme Exodus Laboratoire AGIT’art Dakar /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

In Dakar, Senegal with Atelier GF Workstation: Producing costumes, investigating West African textiles and research on the legendary Dakar Laboratoire AGIT’art, for our performance at the Havana Biennial 2019.

LABORATOIRE AGIT’ART - founded in Dakar in 1974, was a revolutionary and subversive art collective that sought to combine traditional African performance and creativity with a modern aesthetic. Established by the artist Issa Samb, the filmmaker Djibril Diop Mambéty, painter El Hadji Sy and the playwright Youssoupha Dione, Laboratoire Agit’Art started an interdisciplinary collective, devising street performances, improvisational happenings, installations and workshops. Although diverse in their practice, they were united in critiquing and challenging the prevailing négritude philosophy in Senegal.

The Supreme Exodus: Masquerades - Négritude Movement - Laboratoire Agit-Art - Afro Latin American Art. - Dakar Team: Iva Jankovic, Samba Thiam, Ibou Sane. - With the generous support of Mondriaan Fonds - Photos by Ibou Havas

Minerva Art Academy - The Supreme Exodus LAB /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

The Supreme Exodus LAB

Last months students worked together with artist Antonio Jose Guzman to create an exuberant collection of costumes, masques and head pieces. Inspired by the ongoing project of Guzman on migration, DNA and origin, the students make costumes of the most diverse materials. The exterior of matrasses – symbolic for the items migrants take with them across the border-, folded paper, dolls and flags. In addition, fifty m2 textile is screenprinted to use in the costumes. In addition to the presentation in the Koepelzaal, the costumes will be worn in a procession during the Biennial of Havana in April 2019. 

Project Coordinators: Sanne Boekel, Margriet Brouwer & Iva Jankovc

Photos by Harma Kaput

tokyo art meetings - the fading and the fleeting /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Atelier GF Workstation is in Tokyo doing our pop-up Transcultural Transit Talks. Our talks are a ephemeral experience that allows people to communicate with us in a collective experience centred around creativity, sound and technology. Our pop-up experiences are ephemeral by their very nature. They last for only a brief period of time. They are transitory and as a result, exciting and compelling. The Supreme Exodus “Tokyo Transit Talks and Impromptus” create a sense of urgency and interrupt daily routines to explore our transcultural motivations.

We meet different art initiatives in Tokyo and talk with artists on the streets of Asakusa. Our goal is to assemble ideas and talks with groups in Tokyo and Dakar that understand the unique and diverse history of art & textiles into our creative processes, from a wide variety of disciplines, cultures and backgrounds.

The Supreme Exodus Tokyo /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

From Tokyo to Dakar! Afro-Asian Threads

In Tokyo researching textiles based on Yoshiko Iwamoto Wada: Arimatsu to Africa: Shibori Textiles Developed for African Trade in 1948–49. Published in the Textile Society of America - 2016.

monochromatic nieuw dakota /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

Monochromatic, Ajrakh DNA pattern sequences & Nail Strings

The Monochromatic series will be shown in Nieuw Dakota together with Guzman’s Dukkha Series, in which an assemblage of geometric thread and photo sculptures with influences of Constructivism come together with the culture of the Congolese Diaspora in Panama. The installation at Nieuw Dakota shows us a fascinating universe in which cultural influences from all over the globe come together: the enigmatic anatomy drawings by Jean-Michel Basquiat meet geometrical textile prints from northern India, which merge with the ritual ‘cosmos drawings’ by Günther Uecker as well as the nail patterns in Congolese Nkisi figures.

Opening: October 15th, 4-6 pm
Exhibition: October 15 – November 19
Public Program: October 28: During the 24 hours Amsterdam Noord, the artists invite us to a 15 minute performance with a live barrel organ and visuals related to the installation.

Monochromatic Transillumination #1 /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

DUSTY & THE ELECTRIC DUB -D.A.T.E.D. - (A.J. GUZMAN AURORA & ADAMS) Paris 2012Antonio Guzman assembled his live Transillumination # 1 with singing and Voice of Aurora Adams.

Transillumination #1, developed with singer songwriter Aurora Adams.

This coming Saturday 28th of October as part of the elaborate research done for Project Monochromatic, I’ll be performing Transillumination #1, DNA sequences & Repetitive Compositions, developed with North American singer songwriter Aurora Adams.

This coming Saturday 28th of October as part of the elaborate research done for Project Monochromatic, I’ll be performing Transillumination #1, DNA sequences & Repetitive Compositions, developed with North American singer songwriter Aurora Adams.

Lectures and Talks at the Stedelijk Museum /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

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Stedelijk Museum

Lectures and Talks at the Stedelijk Museum about the works of Remy Jungerman, Ulises Carrión, Otobong Nkanga’s and about MOMA’S 2009 show In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art, 1960–1976.

"I Am a Native Foreigner” is one of a series of exhibitions on the theme of migration staged by the Stedelijk in 2017 and 2018. As director Beatrix Ruf noted earlier this year: “It is important to always tell new stories, both with our collection and with separate exhibitions.”

Bozar - Latin American Cartographies /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

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Curated by Antonio Jose Guzman

Art, Social Cohesion and Urban Landscapes
19 MAY ’17 — 15 AUGUST ’17

BOZAR/Centre for Fine Arts
Support: European Commission
Collaboration: Recyclart Fabrik, Zinneke, Atelier GF Workstation

Works by The Fire Theory, Bijari, La Ciudad Verde, EscueLab.org, LAALvaca, Método Salgari, Oscar Leone Moyano, Dália Rosenthal, Federico Martínez Montoya, Fernando Escobar, Charlotte Charbonnel, Deúniti, Goto, Mister Basurama, Cine de Plano, Guillermo Araujo, Maximiliano Nulchis Graffitti, Gris Perú, EPA!, minipimer.tv, Cartografías del Azar, Regina José Galindo, Humberto Vélez, Raquel van Haver.

Scientific Committee: Paul Dujardin, Mercedes Giovinazzo, Toni Cots (LAIC Project Coordinator), Sophie Lauwers and Conrado Uribe (LAIC expert)

“Bozar is a visual laboratory”

This exhibition is a visual laboratory. A journey into the realities of a vibrant continent through different points of view and mediums: from video to sounds or installations. Artists, cultural platforms and activists are today at the forefront of generating new perspectives around violence, learning, memory, resilience or mobility.

Urbanlab Medellin /  by Antonio Jose Guzman

LAIC: Cities in both Latin America and in Europe have become major global actors and strategic territories where tremendous social, political, economic, environmental and cultural changes are currently taking place. Exhibition: Latin American Cartographies BOZAR, Brussels,  May – July 2017 - Curator: Antonio Jose Guzman- Organizers – Founders: Bozar, Interarts, European Union