akeem smith

AS PART OF THE LOUIS ROEDERER DISCOVERY AWARD

PRESENTED BY
HEIDI, BERLIN, GERMANY

AKEEM SMITH

ALTARPIECE

4 JULY - 28 AUGUST 2022

10.00 AM - 07.30 PM

ACCESSIBLE

TICKETING

What stories do we have the right to tell? Who has the power to tell them? These two questions inhabit Akeem Smith's photo-sculptures. As a homage to the dancehall scene of Kingston, Jamaica, where he grew up, Smith transformed vestiges from his childhood into relics and complemented them with found and donated photographs. His work draws as much from collective memory as from the artist’s recollections, shedding light on the role of women within this nocturnal life, a space and time he considers as empowering. Smith appropriates a visual culture that emerged in the late 1970s, after Jamaica’s independence and the formation of an indigenous national identity, to sacralize an Afro-Caribbean aesthetic and prompt us to reflect on the place of our cultures in the construction of our views.

EXHIBITION CURATOR: TAOUS DAHMANI.

PARTAGER

AKEEM SMITH

Né en 1991 à New York, États-Unis.
Vit et travaille à New York, États-Unis.

Artiste multimédia travaillant la sculpture et la vidéo, Akeem Smith a grandi dans le quartier de Waterhouse à Kingston, en Jamaïque. Tout au long de sa carrière, il a aplani les distinctions entre l'art conceptuel, la mode et l'anthropologie, dans le but de s'opposer aux idéaux véhiculés par l'iconographie occidentale. Il y a au cœur de sa pratique un intérêt pour l'économie de la production d'images – dans ses formes politiques, sociales et commerciales – et le rôle de l'artiste en tant qu'archiviste, intervenant dans la circulation du savoir et la préservation de la culture.