Platform presents: WORLD 3
, 19:00
Free entrance
The Otolith Group’s exhibition “In the Year of the Quiet Sun” is currently in its last week at Bergen Kunsthall. On the occasion of releasing the publication WORLD 3, this Platform event consists of a presentation of the book, in addition to a screening of the film My Name is Albert Ayler.
The exhibition “In the Year of the Quiet Sun” revisits moments from the grand political project of mid century Pan-Africanism, envisioned by revolutionaries such as W.E.B Du Bois, George Padmore, Frantz Fanon and Kwame Nkrumah as the total liberation of the African continent from Europe, through the building of a United States of Africa.
One of the key works in the exhibition is the installation Statecraft. In this installation the short century of decolonization, as formulated by Okwui Enwezor, is envisioned in the form of a political calendar assembled from the unlikely and anaesthetic medium of the postage stamp. These masscult artifacts, issued to commemorate the independence of African nation-states, from the centenary of the founding of the Republic of Liberia in 1947 to the founding of the Republic of South Sudan in 2011, are integrated into an elaborately designed display system that invites sustained attention to this often overlooked media.
The artists publication WORLD 3 both completes and complements the exhibition. In close relation to the work Statecraft, the book also employs the postage stamp as its main visual medium. The book assembles a trialogue between First Day Covers from newly independent African states, envelopes from the diaspora of the digital auction and an associative inventory of quotations from thinkers such as Walter Abish, Ayi Kwei Armah, Amilcar Cabral, Helene Cixous, Basil Davidson, Assef Djebar, Jacques Derrida, WEB Du Bois, Bessie Head, Frantz Fanon, Ruth First, Doris Lessing, Clarice Lispector, Kwame Nkrumah, Ali A Mazrui, Achille Mbembe, Fred Moten, Sony Labou Tansi, Nathaniel Mackey, B. Kojo Laing, Dambudzo
Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar will give a presentation of WORLD 3.
Screening:
My Name is Albert Ayler (2007)
Director: Kasper Collin
79 min.
As a supplementary side program to the exhibition The Otolith Group have chosen to present the film My Name is Albert Ayler (2007) by Kasper Collin, on the occasion of the book release.
The prophetic free jazz saxophonist Albert Ayler, who today is seen as one of the most important innovators in jazz, was obsessed with his radical music and by the thought that people one day would understand it, as he said in his own words “If people don’t like it now, they will”. In 1962 he recorded his first album in Sweden. Eight years later he was found dead in New York’s East River, aged 34. This documentary follows the trail of Ayler from his native town of Cleveland by way of Sweden to New York, meeting family, friends and close colleagues. Ayler himself guides us with his voice and music. Seven years in the making, the film includes newly discovered footage of Ayler and his band.
THE OTOLITH GROUP was founded in 2002 by Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun. The Otolith Group are based in London. WORLD 3 is published by Bergen Kunsthall in collaboration wiht Casco – Office for Art, Design and Theory. Design by Blank Blank.
Platform is Bergen Kunsthall’s own lecture series. Supported by Fritt Ord.