In the Skeleton of the Stars

February 17, 2023  -  April 23, 2023 @ ifa-Galerie Stuttgart (DE)

With works by Minia Biabiany, Pamela Colman Smith, Karl Joseph and Marc-Alexandre Tareau, Mirtho Linguet, Loren Minzú, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Marcel Pinas and Apichatpong Weerasethakul

The exhibition is the third part of the exhibition cycle, which started with Gods Moving in Places at ifa-Galerie Berlin.

In the Skeleton of the Stars, set in the Caribbean and the Amazon basin, is dedicated to the imagination’s political potential. It presents memories, tales and histories that have shaped this imagination, including indigenous mythologies and the violent conquest of the South American continent, through what Édouard Glissant calls the “tropical night” and its “spirits and figures that weigh on the shoulders.” The tropical night—the noise and silence, and the darkness and light—thus opens a portal into different orders of reality, unlocks the imagination and allows us to re-configure our position in the world. The exhibition is also inspired by the decolonial and ecological vision of Guyanese author Wilson Harris, whose texts connect the Amazon basin landscape with its inhabitants’ psychic landscape. His stories describe a quest for oneness and follow ancient alchemical thinking in which the material world is intrinsically linked to the human soul. Throughout, Harris imagines a collective unconscious in which humans, nature, flora and fauna are part of the same being and which bridges times and cultures.

Exhibition developed by Mathieu Kleyebe Abonnenc and Lea Altner in collaboration with ifa Galerie Stuttgart