Martin Barlow, curator of the exhibition Moving Into Space at the National Football Museum talks about the exhibition.
Art
Amadou Sanogo
Amadou Sanogo, Le Monde Journalistique, 2011
It is important that Amadou Sanogo’s paintings have no frames. He makes his canvases from lengths of workaday cloth bought in the local market, choosing not to stretch them or present them within the enclosure of a frame. This conscious distancing of his work from the Western conventions of painting speaks of his desire to identify those points of difference and similarity between the past and the present, traditional and contemporary culture, and the role of young people within this culture. The subject matter of his paintings scrutinises national and international politics, journalism and the justice system. Sanogo follows the news closely on TV5 Monde, online and in the press, and gathers images of presidents, newsreaders, and other public figures who have been corrupted by power, rendering them in powerfully expressive paint. This method of seeking his subject matter through television stems back to his earliest experience of drawing outside a television shop in his home town of Ségou, Mali.
Biography
Born in 1977 in Ségou, Mali. Lives and works in Bamako, Mali.
Studied Fine Art at Bamako’s prestigious Institut National des Arts (l’INA) and Institut des Arts Plastiques.
Shows include Museos y Modernidad en Transito, at the Museo de America, Madrid, Spain, 2012; Le Trait, the Centre Culturel Français de Bamako, Mali, 2011; Au dela du cadre, the artist’s house, Bamako, Mali, 2010; Fiches d’identification, itinerant exhibition in different neighborhoods in Bamako, Mali, 2009 (during 9th Rencontres de Bamako: Biennale Africaine de la Photographie, Bamako, Mali, 2011); Terrains vagues, Quartier Orange, Bamako, Mali, 2009.
He took part in a residency at MC2a in Bordeaux, France in 2010.
Works in the Show
Les Derniers bains de foule, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
158.5 x 155cm
Photograph – Courtesy of the Artist
Le Regard des Cons Permanents, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
170 x 290cm
Photograph – Courtesy of the Artist
Le Monde Journalistique, 2011
Acrylic on canvas and collage
146 x 197cm
Photograph – Courtesy of the Artist
Le Regard Handicappé, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
152 x 256cm
Photograph – Courtesy of the Artist
Le Juré, 2011
Acrylic on canvas
173 x 112cm
Photograph – Courtesy of the Artist
Latest
Barthélémy Toguo, Lucy Azubuike and Nnenna Okore, three of the exhibited artists, talk about their work and their interest in using materials which reflect the lifestyle and experience of the people of West Africa.
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Reviews
Nine countries show off their talent as five city venues link up for a summer celebration. Helen Nugent in the Guardian
Street life, dazzling dress, social commentary and a riot of sensuous colour interweave in a rich assembly of West African art, writes Charles Gore in the Times Higher Education