JOHN AKOMFRAH RA
John Akomfrah (born in 1957) lives and works in London. He was a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, which started in London in 1982 alongside the artists David Lawson and Lina Gopaul, who he still collaborates with today. Notable works include Handsworth Songs (1986), The Unfinished Conversation (2012), Peripeteia (2012) and Mnemosyne (2010), Vertigo Sea (2015), Purple (2017), shown at the Barbican in London, co-commissioned by Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden, TBA21—Academy, The Institute of Contemporary Art/ Boston, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow. More recently, Akomfrah debuted Precarity (2017) at Prospect 4 New Orleans, following the life of forgotten New Orleans jazz singer Charles ‘Buddy’ Bolden. In 2019 he participated at the first Ghana Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, presenting Four Nocturnes (2019).
He has had numerous solo exhibitions including Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham (2022); E-WERK, Freiburg (2022); Remai Modern, Saskatoon (2022); Towner Eastbourne, Eastbourne (2021); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona (2021); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla (2020); Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, (2020); Secession, Vienna (2020); BALTIC, Gateshead, UK (2019); ICA Boston, MA (2019); Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon (2018); New Museum, New York (2018); Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Umeå (2015, 2018); SFMOMA, San Francisco (2018); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid (2018); Barbican, London (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2017); Turner Contemporary, Margate (2016); Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen (2016); STUK Kunstcentrum, Leuven (2016); Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan (2014); Tate Britain, London (2013-14) and a week long series of screenings at MoMA, New York (2011).
His participation in international group shows includes: ‘Fault Lines’, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA (2022); ‘Posteriority’, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Busan, South Korea (2021); ‘Am I Human To You?’, Art Museum KUBE, Alesund, Norway (2021); ‘Affect Machine: Self-healing in the Post- Capitalist Era’, Taipaei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2021); Ghana Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); ‘Strange Days: Memories of the Future’, New Museum x The Store, London, UK (2018); Prospect 4, New Orleans, LA, USA (2017); ‘Restless Earth’, La Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2017); ‘Unfinished Conversations’, Museum of Modern Art, New York City (2017); ‘British Art Show 8’ (2015- 17); ‘All the World’s Futures’, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2015); ‘History is Now: 7 Artists Take On Britain’, Hayward Gallery, London (2015); ‘Africa Now: Politcal Patterns’, SeMA, Seoul, South Korea (2014); Sharjah Biennial 11, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2013); Liverpool Biennial, UK (2012) and Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2012). Artists’ biographies He has also been featured in many international film festivals, including Sundance Film Festival, Utah, USA (2013 and 2011) and Toronto International Film Festival, Canada (2012). He was awarded the Artes Mundi Prize in 2017.