Exhibition dates: 17 February 2023 to 23 April 2023
Opening: Thursday 16 February 2023, 19:00
Conversation with the curators: Friday 17 February 2023, 18:30
Press viewing: Thursday 16 February 2023, 11:00
ifa Galerie Stuttgart, Charlottenplatz 17, 70173 Stuttgart
Please register for the press viewing at: ifa-galerie-stuttgart(at)ifa.de
From 17 February to 23 April the ifa Gallery Stuttgart is presenting the group show In the Skeleton of the Stars. This exhibition is the last of a three-part exhibition cycle that the two ifa Galleries developed together last year with the artist Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc. It links up with the broad themes that the ifa Galleries in Stuttgart and Berlin wish to further explore in their 2023 programme – sound and earth.
The exhibition In the Skeleton of the Stars, set in the Caribbean and the Amazon Basin, is dedicated to the political potential of the imagination. It presents memories, tales and histories that have shaped this imagination, including indigenous mythologies and the violent conquest of the South American continent, through what Édouard Glissant calls the tropical night and its "spirits and figures that weigh on the shoulders". The tropical night – the noise and silence, and the darkness and light – thus opens a portal into different orders of reality, unlocks the imagination and allows us to reconfigure our position in the world.
In the Skeleton of the Stars is also inspired by the decolonial and ecological vision of Guyanese author Wilson Harris, whose texts connect the Amazon Basin landscape with its inhabitants' imagined landscapes. His stories describe a quest for oneness and follow ancient alchemical thinking in which the material world is intrinsically linked to the human soul. Harris imagines a collective unconscious in which humans, nature, flora and fauna are part of the same being and which bridges times and cultures.
The photo series Mèt Bwa by Mirtho Linguet, which is based on the folk tales by Guyanese writer Michel Lohier, bestows form onto magical and disconcerting figures, mythical phenomena, and what the artist calls the "fruits of a tragic arrangement". Linguet's photographs draw on the subversive power and the irony of the Guyanese carnival, and they call on and conjure up magical and supernatural powers.
In their video works, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz and Apichatpong Weerasethakul also create mythological creatures that are based on contemporary struggles for power, ancient wisdom, and botanical knowledge.
Photographer Karl Joseph and the anthropologist and ethno-botanist Marc-Alexandre Tareau present a project that investigates the relationship of Afro-Guyanese cultures to the biological diversity of the Amazon.
Minia Biabiany’s sensual and tangible installation also uses natural materials and technologies that have symbolic and cultural significance. She explores the relationship between people and the landscapes they live in, always with the ongoing connection to a colonial past and with the present-day situation in Guadeloupe in mind.
For more than twenty years, the work of Marcel Pinas has been motivated by his desire to preserve the culture and language of his own community, the Ndyuka, a Maroon people. The Maroon wars and the "maroonage" were important milestones in the struggle against slavery in the Caribbean and in Guyana Shield in the eighteenth century. Having fled the plantations and hidden in the forests, the Maroons fought wars of liberation against French and Dutch slave owners. Pinas’s sculptures, installations, and drawings are an expression of his special relationship to landscape, history, memory, and language.
In the video works of Loren Minzú the human body is transformed into the elements around it – wind, water, earth, and fire – and also enters into connection with the planetary constellations of the sun and the moon. These are also echoed in the seventeenth-century alchemistic objects that are also shown in this exhibition.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue in German and English.
Idea by Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc and Lea Altner in collaboration with ifa Gallery Stuttgart.
Press viewing
A press viewing takes place on Thursday 16 February 2023 at 11:00 at ifa Gallery Stuttgart. Please register at: ifa-galerie-stuttgart(at)ifa.de
Press images are available here.
Opening: Thursday 16 February 2023, 19:00
Exhibition dates: 17 February 2023 to 23 April 2023
Conversation with the curators
Friday 17 February 2023, 18:00
Curators Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc and Lea Altner will discuss their idea and offer insight into the
exhibition (in English).
Art Conversations and Guided Tours
We invite you to art conversations and guided tours of the exhibition, and to an aperitif, at 16:00 on:
Thursday 2 March 2023
Friday 10 March 2023
Thursday 23 March 2023
Friday 21 April 2023
There are special tours on request for visually impaired and blind people. Registration: alber(at)ifa.de
Workshop for the whole family, children from 5 years with parents, grandparents, godparents … with Menja Stevenson and Daniela Schulreich:
A Game with Chance
Sunday 5 March 2023, 14:00 – 16:00
We leave this afternoon to chance, curiously and creatively experimenting with various printing techniques to make pictures that cannot be planned. These techniques are very simple – monotype, frottage, and cord printing – and they can be combined with each other. They invite us to take a playful approach to forms and colours. And at the end we will be surprised by the amazing things we discover in our pictures. Registration: hammerbacher(at)ifa.de
Tarot Cards Reading
Sunday 12 March 2023, 16:00 – 18:30
In appreciation of Pamela Colman-Smith, whose Annancy Stories are part of the exhibition In the Skeleton of the Stars, Moriz Stangl will read the Tarot cards of the Harris-Crowley and Colman-SmithWaite deck with visitors to the ifa Gallery. In 1909, the American scholar and mystic Arthur Edward Waite asked writer and illustrator Pamela Colman-Smith to design a Tarot deck. She created a rich pictorial language based on occult symbolism, and it became a standard for Tarot deck illustrations. Registration: hammerbacher(at)ifa.de
Long Night of the Museums
Saturday 25 March 2023, 18:00 – 1:00
The ifa Gallery team will take you on hourly short tours of the exhibition In the Skeleton of the Stars. We will mix drinks for you to the sound of Caribbean rhythms.
Reading
Friday 21 April 2023, 19:00
The Stuttgart actress and theatre director Barbara Stoll will read from the story Palace of the Peacock by Wilson Harris (1921– 2018). This novel was written in 1960. Its main character Donne is an inveterate conqueror. He undertakes an exhibition in order to find labourers for his plantation, but as he travels he experiences changes both to the goal of his journey and within himself. Wilson Harris's novel is told in bold and often contradictory images. His prose is a search for the lost Caribbean traditions of Guyanese community.
About ifa
ifa–Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen is an intermediary and protagonist that uses its networks, projects, and research to promote freedom in art, civil society, and science all over the world. ifa creates analogue and digital spaces for encounters, exchange, and co-creation. ifa supports artistic and cultural exchange in exhibition, dialogue, and conference programmes, and it acts as a centre of excellence for international cultural and educational policy. ifa is part of a global network and relies on sustainable, long-term partnerships. ifa is supported by the Federal Foreign Office of the Federal Republic of Germany, the state of Baden-Württemberg and its capital Stuttgart. www.ifa.de
About the ifa Galleries
The ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen Galleries in Stuttgart und Berlin present contemporary art in a global perspective, addressing post-colonial movements and artistic reflections on the themes of migration, the environment, and cultural transfer. The work of the ifa Galleries is based on seeing the world from a diversity and plurality of perspectives, discovering new stories, and shaping emancipatory processes, interactions, and artistic spaces. Our focus is on long-term relationships with artists, partners, and visitors, and our exhibitions and education programmes are developed through practices of collaboration that trace global entanglements and piece them together in new forms of narrative.
www.ifa.de
Contact and opening hours ifa Gallery Stuttgart
Bettina Korintenberg, gallery director and director of the ifa galleries
Charlottenplatz 17
70173 Stuttgart
ifa-galerie-stuttgart(at)ifa.de
www.ifa.de
@ifa.visualarts
@art.ifa
Tues – Sun 12:00 – 18:00
Closed Mondays and on public holidays
Entrance free
Press contact
Corinna Wolfien
Books Communication Art
+49(0)175 5676046 mail(at)corinnawolfien.com
Stefanie Alber
Press ifa Gallery Stuttgart
+49(0)711222 161
alber(at)ifa.de
Miriam Kahrmann
ifa – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Director of Communication
+49 (0)7112225 105
presse(at)ifa.de