Modernity & Aesthetics of the New Black Atlantic

The State of L3 Pan African Contemporary Arts & Film Collective

10 Jul 2010
22 Aug 2010

From the 10th July, SMART Project Space presents Modernity & Aesthetics of the New Black Atlantic, an exhibition by The State of L3 exploring the connection between migration, visual culture and African heritage. Based in Amsterdam, Dakar and Recife, The State of L3 has created a rhizomatic network of artworks and artists working with multimedia exchanges, projects, videos and internet archive.

Enlarge

Antonio Jose Guzman - The Day We Surrender to the Air, 2009, film still, bron

Throughout their work the concept of Afrofuturism plays a key role, a literary and cultural aesthetic that combines elements of science fiction, historical fiction, fantasy and magic realism with non-Western cosmologies in order to interrogate, and re-examine historical events of the past. The exhibition includes the Dogon L3 Voyager for Interstellar Planetary Travel, a cinema boat showing work that 18 artists from the collective made for the project, and the installation Transatlantic Sacred Sites of the State, a multi-channel video installation based on parts of A.J. Guzman’s film trilogy The Day We Surrender to the Air, as well as parts of the State of L3 collective films. Last but not least the exhibition includes The Mysterious Universe of the Marabout's, a “micro altar installation” with small sculptures by Antonio Jose Guzman.

The State of L3 recently participated in the latest edition of the Dak’art biennale and will exhibit at MUHKA, Antwerp in Autumn 2010. The exhibition at SMART Project Space partly coincides with a presentation in Galerie 23, Amsterdam. See also the website