FONDAZIONE NICOLA TRUSSARDI presents IBRAHIM MAHAMA "A FRIEND"

From Tuesday, April 2, to Sunday, April 14, 2019, Fondazione Nicola Trussardi presents A FRIEND, a monumental installation specially conceived for the two neoclassical tollgates of Porta Venezia by the Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama (b. 1987, Tamale, Ghana), curated by Massimiliano Gioni. The site-specific installation is presented on the occasion of the Milanese Art Week, and during the Milan Design Week – Salone del Mobile.

Ibrahim Mahama / Silence between the lines, Ahenema Kokoben, Kumasi, 2015 / Kumasi, Ghana, installation view / Courtesy the artist

Following Mahama’s large-scale interventions in various major international exhibitions—from the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale (2015) to Documenta 14 (2017) in Kassel and Athens—the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi has invited the artist to Milan to carry out an urban-scale installation at a key site in the city: the crossroads of Porta Venezia. This location is one of six main gateways in the ancient city walls and stands on the same axis as previously erected gates during the Roman, medieval, and Spanish eras.

A Friend aims to reflect on the very concept of the threshold—that place of passage defining inside and outside; one’s self and the other; the friend and the enemy.

As in the numerous public installations realized by Mahama in museums, libraries, government buildings, theaters, and railway stations around the world, the artist will wrap Porta Venezia with jute sacks. Creating a second skin, the artist will generate a new identity for the two structures, underscoring their historical origins and symbolic functions as places of trade and exchange. Mahama’s temporary interventions address both the past and present of the city, and, on this particular occasion, also seem to connect with the urban projects of the artist Christo, who, in the 1970s, wrapped the monuments of Leonardo and Vittorio Emanuele in Piazza della Scala and Piazza del Duomo. At the time, Christo’s actions seemed to criticize the world of consumption, while today, Mahama’s “civil demonstrations,” as the artist calls them, tell of a more complex world of global tensions.

Through his research and the transformation of materials, Mahama investigates some of today’s most important issues: migration, globalization, and the circulation of goods and peoples across borders and between nations. His large-scale installations make use of materials gathered from urban settings—such as architectural fragments, wood, fabric, and, in particular, jute sacks—often sewn together and draped over major architectural structures.

Torn, patched, marked with various signs and coordinates, and with dramatic slapdash stitching, the sacks become gauzes enveloping the wounds of history—symbols of conflicts and dramas that, for centuries, have been consumed in the wake of the global economy. At the same time, Mahama’s jute sacking alludes to the hidden workforce behind the international circulation of goods, as he explains: “[It] tells of the hands that lifted it, as well as the products it contained, travelling through ports, warehouses, markets and cities. People’s living conditions remain imprisoned within it

A Friend is part of a series of incursions undertaken since 2013 by the Fondazione Nicola Trussardi on the occasion of miart: including special projects, temporary shows, performances, and pop-up interventions that have brought international artists such as Jeremy Deller, Sarah Lucas, Gelitin, Darren Bader, and Stan VanDerBeek to Milan.

April 2-14, 2014 (Open 24 Hours)