Over the past few years, Ibrahim Mahama has produced a tedious collection of works that have attracted and connected the various exhibition spaces, art centers, landmarks and other public spaces that have received him.
Through his often stunning works, Ibrahim Mahama dismantles verifiable circumstances, plagued by the thought of deception or urgency, to expose the beneficial outcomes that could emerge from such contexts.
Burlap, glittering shoeboxes and sewing machines structure the natural substances of installations that investigate the themes of his work, relocation, globalization and monetary trade.
For his most memorable independent exhibition in France, Ghanaian contemporary artist Ibrahim Mahama continues to reflect on reused materials, the progression of commodity and information, while stretching into another lane.
« The Memory of Love » is an exhibition of engineering, furniture, music and textile archives that he is showing at the Frac des Pays de la Loire in Nantes until October 02, 2022.
Throughout the course, guests are greeted by works. Raised on the facade of the structure six banners extracted from the 25 that composed the work his first exhibition in New York in front of the famous Rockefeller Center. Made from jute sacks obtained or traded in Ghanaian commercial sectors, the flags revive one of the artist’s most familiar materials. These bags, used to ship valuable goods, carry the memory of the people who carried them and sometimes marked them with their names.
Within the exhibition space, items taken from near the artist’s studio in Tamale are joined by a selection of pieces from his own collection of handmade wax prints and other glossy textures with a wide range of images and implications.
The theme of the plate seen as on the twenty or so entries that make up the main work seems to repeat the presence of records highlighting over 50 collections of current post-freedom music. Collected from a Ghanaian DJ’s band, these plates are generally relics of the post-provincial era, as are the entrance doors, lockers, and wooden rockers.
The different motifs – “Kofi Annan’s cerebrum,” “Cash can Fly,” “Fly whisk” – of these printed textures, also highlighted through different plates/figures, refer in their own way to Ghana’s historical backdrop, whether applauding political legends, celebrating authentic occasions, or asserting a personality.
Having first prepared himself for painting, Ibrahim Mahama reveals here his preference for piece, material and variety. An indication of a bygone era, a vestige of an era whose impacts are constantly being re-evaluated, “The Memory of Love” exhibition takes the visitor on a delicate visual and aural excursion through reality.
