Nástio Mosquito: King of Klowns

King of Klowns, Nástio Mosquito’s first major overview exhibition at M HKA takes us on a journey of invention, in which we are confronted by personalities demanding that we learn to navigate a complex world.

Nástio Mosquito is a creative protagonist who trespasses into many different fields, including that of contemporary art. His artwork, which is primarily in video and performance, encompasses the invention of multiple personas. Taking inspiration from various worlds—from culture, to politics and mass media—and utilising an unbridled imagination, each artwork forms a portrait of a whole new personality and worldview. Mosquito plays with charisma and with otherness, with being funny and being scary, and with being entertaining and being awkward. Thoughts on war, sex, stereotypes, wealth and religion are amongst the many subjects that are interrogated by these egos that we meet. The questions are ultimately simple yet radical: what do you genuinely care about? What are you willing to die for?

Characterised by its non-conformity, Mosquito’s artworks often toy with “correct” modes of cultural representation, conventions of language, and rhetoric of the media. With the artist himself embodying each new character, we are constantly perplexed by who is the real Nástio Mosquito—at any one moment, he is the preacher, the politician or the joker, or any combination thereof. In an era where the artistic sphere habitually defines artists by their identities, Mosquito’s proposition can for this reason be considered something altogether different. Unrestrained in his portrayal and invention, his art cuts through today’s situation of increasing cultural confinement, and points towards the clarity of a more liberated view upon art, expression and society.

King of Klowns is Mosquito’s first major museum overview exhibition, and will consider the evolution of his practice, as well as his transgressions into, and out of, art. It will present key artworks from the formative period of his practice in the early 2000s through to today, including his excursions into performance, literature and music, as well as his collaborative endeavours. Taking us along a specially conceived journey, the exhibition will also include new reflections by the artist on his own career through substantial new productions. King of Klowns will immerse visitors in Mosquito’s realm of complex characters, in turn demanding of us that we learn to navigate a complex world.

About the artist
Nástio Mosquito has realised projects with institutions including: MoMA, New York; Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Portikus, Frankfurt; Fondazione Prada, Milan; and Tate Modern, London. Amongst the many group exhibitions, he has participated in Documenta 14 (2017); 29th São Paulo Bienal (2010); and the 9th Gwangju Biennial (2012). In 2014 he was recipient of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Center, Kyiv; and in 2015 he received the Cedric Willemen Award (Willemen Group and Contour, Mechelen). In 2016, he was also nominated for the Artes Mundi Prize, Cardiff.

In 2014, works by Mosquito were included in Don’t You Know Who I Am?—Art After Identity Politics, an important research exhibition in the recent history of M HKA in defining a new reading of contemporary art that considers questions of human diversity through new aesthetic and philosophical investigations by artists.

The exhibition is curated by Nav Haq, Associate Director, M HKA