PRESENTATION:Serge Attukwei-Clottey Beyond  The Skin

Through his installations, sculptures and actions, Serge Attukwei Clottey invites us to reflect collectively and transversally about the environment and the global economy, marked by inequalities and contradictions, and the migrations that result from these. The artist’s first project in Spain features an installation that will cover the front of the museum until December, as well as a public programme involving dialogue and collaboration with different communities living in Barcelona.

By Dimitris LEmpesis
Photo:  Museu Tàpies Archive

The Project “Beyond the Skin” includes a range of actions and exhibits, starting with the major installation on the front of the Museu Tàpies, entitled “Afterlife Voyage”. It started on Tuesday 2nd July at 6.30 pm with a public procession set up by the artist and entitled “Silent Steps, Dance, Memories Sound”, which goes round the centre of Barcelona to the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya with the collaboration of Periferia Cimarronas and einaidea Fundació Eina’s research and cultural programming platform. “The Coal Men” is an action to be run by Clottey at the venue Periferia Cimarronas as part of the Grec festival. After the summer, the project will con-tinue with a season of films devoted to the work of Sarah Maldoror and the international seminar “Architectures of the Skin, from the Body to the Street”. “Beyond the Skin” has forged a system of alliances with different insti-tutions and bodies in the city, including the Teatre Nacional de Catalunya, the Grec festival, the Periferia Cimarronas venue, einaidea Fundació Eina’s research and cultural programming platform, the Filmoteca de Catalunya and the Institut Français de Barcelone, among others. The project”Beyond the Skin” springs from the work of Serge Attukwei Clottey on what the artist calls afrogallonism, a concept that confronts global material culture by cutting, drilling, stitching and melting found materials. The mass of yellow plastic gallon containers in Africa, not necessarily manufactured there, makes visible not only its geopolitical history but also its neocolonial present. In Clottey’s work, re-using parts of these containers serves as a system of redistribution and as a vehicle for reflection on the economic and migratory realities of Africa. This idea sets out from the possibility of re-using these materials as the starting point for an ecosystem in which they preserve a memory while at the same time rewriting or re-weaving it. The artist explains that every gallon container has a complex origin story. These “Kufuor” gallons take their name from ex-president of Ghana John Agyekum Kufuor. They became symbolically infamous when the country was suffering from serious short-ages in the years following 2000. Originally used as cooking oil containers and then reused to store water or fuel, they represent a conscious effort to turn plastic waste into art. With these yellow containers Clottey creates tapestries showing his concern for the culture and identity of the city of his birth, Accra, capital of Ghana, where he found the raw material for his work. The artist works though installation, performance, photography, painting and sculpture to explore personal and political narratives rooted in the histories of trade and migration. The result of “Afterlife Voyage” covers 123 m2 of the front of the museum, while leaving some of its architectural features visible in order to dialogue with them. As the artist puts it, the installation explores the rich tapestry of his family heritage, going back to his ancestors’ migration from Jamestown to Labadi, making this work a proclamation both personal and political. This work, imbued with a combination of the complex impacts and influences of globalisation, as well as personal family narratives and universal experiences of migration, settlement and displacement, all intricately interwoven, also aims to connect with local criticism of the system. The work travels the world to capture the public’s attention, boosting its resonance and its impact. The materials used to cover the front of the museum are part of the original installation presented for the first time by the artist in Ghana, and used for his installation at the Venice Biennale of Architecture in 2023. After being cleaned, these pieces have taken on a new form for the front of the museum in an intensive three-week workshop shared by the artist and his team with participants from einaidea Fundació Eina’s research and cultural programming platform and people linked to the Afro-descended community of Periferia Cimarronas. All of them worked together to construct the piece, a modular recycled plastic object conceived especially for the Museu Tàpies. “Beyond the Skin” is a reflection on ecologism, the environment and the migra-tions imposed by the global economic system, marked by inequalities and contradictions. It includes an open, educational public programme run with various communities living in Barcelona and in a range of venues, making it possible to generate a system of alliances with different institutions and organisations in the city

Photo: Preparation in Eina of the pieces of the installation “Beyond the skin” by Serge Attukwei Clottey © Fundació Antoni Tàpies, 2024

Info: Curator: Imma Prieto, Museu Tàpies, Carrer Aragó, 255, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, Duration: 3/7-1/12/2024, Days & Hours: Tue-Sat 10:00-19:00, Sun 10:00-15:00, https://museutapies.org/