Nectar

Konsthall C's autumn exhibition is called Nectar — a solo exhibition by the New York-based artist Xaviera Simmons. In her first exhibition in Sweden, the artist digs deep into the image archive belonging to the 130-year-old newspaper AFRO American. AFRO has been writing about world history from a Black perspective since it was founded in 1892. Afro Charities director Savannah Wood is opening up the newspaper's image archive to artists in an effort to make its history more accessible through art projects.

The exhibition consists of photography and video that contextualizes a historical and contemporary engagement with systems, ideas, people, and architecture that subvert American empire-building as a seemingly never-ending process of expansion. According to the artist, the historical material from the newspaper AFRO offers life-sustaining nuances and glimpses of possible ways forward. Click here for an interview with Xaviera. 

In the exhibition, we encounter works in which damage, pleasure, abstinence, spiritual commitment, resistance and repair are central. However, Simmons never loses sight of the fact that the United States and its European models built their empires on the premise of white supremacy. In Simmons' new work, the tonal qualities of the black and white archival material emerge, while the artist's own additions of layers upon layers of human figures, the presence of the camera and gaze, text, and physical and virtual landscapes connect with AFRO's photographers and illustrators who in many cases enhanced the images for the magazine by hand adding detail and contrast to their documentation of everyday life.

Xaviera Simmons’ sweeping practice includes photography, painting, video, sound, sculpture, text and installation. Her work engages the formal histories of art through the construction of landscape, language, and the complex histories of the United States and its continuing empire building internally and on a global scale.
Simmons received her BFA from Bard College (2004) after spending two years on a walking pilgrimage retracing the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade with Buddhist Monks. She completed the Whitney Museum’s Independent Study Program in Studio Art (2005) while simultaneously completing a two-year actor-training conservatory with The Maggie Flanigan Studio, NY.

Afro Charities is a non-profit organization that manages the 130-year-old newspaper archive belonging to AFRO American Newspapers. Afro Charities is led by Savannah Wood who produces artistic and educational projects inspired by the collection. AFRO is issued throughout the East Coast of the United States. Historically, the paper had European bureaus during World War II, meaning the archive extends geographically far beyond its hometown of Baltimore, Maryland. The AFRO's collection is one of the best-preserved black newspaper archives in the United States, and includes approximately three million photographs, thousands of letters, rare audio recordings and other materials related to the publishing business. In 2022, AFRO will celebrate its 130th year of continuous publication. Xaviera Simmons' project Nectar is created as part of Afro Charity's artistic and educational program. Afro Charities is currently developing an abandoned building in the heart of Old West Baltimore into a permanent home and research center for the AFRO Archives. Afro Charities works to ensure that future generations will have access to the important stories documented in the archive's collection.

KADIST is located in Paris and San Francisco, among other places, where they present exhibitions, events and organize artist residencies, as well as produce new works based on their own collection.

Welcome to the opening 12-17 on the 10th of September.

AFTERPARTY with DJ Nathan Hamelberg at Körsbär Kafé at 17–20! Register link: https://forms.gle/cD1JKqv4VMJBLucr7

Nectar was produced by KADIST, Paris in collaboration with Afro Charities, Baltimore.
With the support of Villa Albertine, FACE Foundation and Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.