NU BARRETO – AFRICA: RENVERSANTE, RENVERSEE
2018-11-19In 2009, Nú Barreto began a new series of paintings that would revisit the American flag with Pan-African colors. Desunited States of Africa is a series of nine works, included in this exhibition. Here, the artist adopts a new approach and questions a variety of themes, especially that of the disunion of the African people.
By borrowing the composition of the American flag, thus referencing Jasper Johns’s American Flag (1954-1955), Nú Barreto inscribes himself in the tradition of artists who use the visual power of symbols to highlight social issues. Let us also mention the artist David Hammons, who, with African-American Flag (1990), questioned public opinion on the African-American cultural identity. By appropriating the color palette of the UNIA (Universal Negro Improvement Association) flag, he suggested a hybrid reinterpretation of it. Hammons’s historic flag would inform the political dimension of Barreto’s work.
Opposite – Éventrée, 2018
Exhibition runs through to December 29th, 2018
Galerie Nathalie Obadia
3 rue du Cloître Saint-Merri
75004 Paris
France
