Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON

Logan Center Exhibitions is pleased to present the first international solo exhibition by London-based artist Larry Achiampong (b. 1984) featuring new and recent works from the past three years.

Working across sound, video, performance, and installation, Larry Achiampong explores shifting notions of identity and belonging in our post-digital age. At the heart of Achiampong’s practice is an exploration of the different cultural spheres that he inhabits as a British-Ghanaian artist, deeply entrenched in the oftentimes anonymous and fluid citizenry of the digital realm. Mining a plethora of images, sounds, and texts from his personal archives and those freely available on digital search engines, social media platforms, and virtual environments including Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia, Achiampong investigates the ways in which mass information sharing have afforded multiple histories and cultural identities to emerge.  

Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON premieres the newly commissioned video work Sunday’s Best, 2016. Documented across a number of sites in London, Sunday’s Best maps out a narrative of coming to terms with the incongruence of faith practices that straddle western and non-western influences.

Delving into the virtual spaces of everyday life and drawing on the artist’s personal experiences, the exhibition also includes a new series of blackboard drawings titled “#OPENSEASON.” Remixing hashtags and quotes from various social media feeds into poignant and sometimes irreverent statements, these handwritten works tease out the ironies of socio-political solidarity forged through fleeting digital interactions.

Also on view is the expansive sculptural installation Battalion, 2014–present, a collection of salvaged skateboards repainted by the artist in brightly hued abstract patterns. Here Achiampong expands his use of found materials to speak to the different subcultures that inform his work. Battalion also suggests an occupation of the gallery with its collective body finding counterparts in the religious and virtual communities represented elsewhere in the show.

Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and curated by Yesomi Umolu, Exhibitions Curator. Additional support provided by Arts Council England and the British Council.

Related programming

Finding Fanon film screening and artist talk
Friday, September 16, 7pm
Stony Island Arts Bank (6760 S Stony Island Ave, Chicago)

Join us at the Stony Island Arts Bank for a screening of two films in the Finding Fanon (2015–present) trilogy followed by a conversation with artists Larry Achiampong and David Blandy, moderated by Yesomi Umolu, Logan Center Exhibitions Curator.

Presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and Black Cinema House, and co-sponsored by the Nicholson Center for British Studies. Additional support provided by Arts Council England and the British Council.

Opening and performance
Wednesday, September 21, 6–8pm
Logan Center Gallery (915 E 60 St, Chicago)

Join us to celebrate the opening of Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON. Achiampong will deliver a live in-gallery performance that draws out a relationship between aspects of history embedded in various audio samples and the future worlds of videogame visuals.

All events are free and open to the public. 

About the artist
Larry Achiampong’s solo and collaborative projects have been exhibited, performed, and presented at the EVA International, Limerick; Tate Britain and Tate Modern, London; Hauptbahnhof (dOCUMENTA 13), Kassel; The British Film Institute, London; Modern Art Oxford; New Art Exchange, Nottingham; SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; Bokoor African Popular Music Archives Foundation, Accra; and The Mistake Room, Los Angeles. Recent residencies include Tyneside Cinema, Newcastle; Praksis, Oslo; Sound & Music and The British Library, London, and Wysing Arts Center, Cambridge.

Achiampong completed a BA in Mixed Media Fine Art at University of Westminster (2005) and an MA in Sculpture at Slade School of Fine Art (2008). Achiampong is currently a recipient of the Artsadmin Artists’ Bursary. He lives and works in London.

Logan Center Exhibitions
Logan Center Exhibitions presents international contemporary art programming at the Logan Center Gallery and throughout the Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts at the University of Chicago. Reflecting the sprit of inquiry at the university, Logan Center Exhibitions focuses on open, collaborative, and process-based approaches to cultural production.