First Large-Scale Institutional Exhibition of The Otolith Group in the MENASA Region Opens at Sharjah Art Foundation

Overview

Xenogenesis, presented by Sharjah Art Foundation from 13 November 2021 to 5 February 2022, brings together a selection of key works by The Otolith Group, the London-based art collective consisting of Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, founded in 2002. Featuring a cross-section of works produced by the collective between 2011 and 2018, the exhibition reflects the artists’ ongoing commitment to creating what they call ‘a science fiction of the present’ through images, voices, sounds and performance. Suspended between fiction, poetry, documentary and theory, The Otolith Group’s post-cinematic films, high-definition videos and multiple screen installations address contemporary social issues and themes inherited from colonialism, the way in which humans have impacted the earth, and the influence of new media on human activities.

The title of the exhibition references the African-American science fiction novelist Octavia Butler’s legendary Xenogenesis trilogy. Butler’s ideas inform Eshun and Sagar’s longstanding preoccupation with the promise and threat of the idea of ‘alien becoming’, or ‘becoming alien’.

The most recent work in the exhibition is O Horizon (2018). The term O Horizon is used by soil scientists to refer to the surface layer of organic matter continually altered by human existence. Sagar and Eshun adopted this agronomic term for their study of Santinketan, West Bengal, India, where the poet, dramatist, essayist, composer, artist, educator, social reformer and Nobel Prize-winning novelist Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) founded the Visva Bharati University in 1921. In its portrait of recitals, performances, choreography and discussion situated within an ongoing environmental struggle to preserve the health of soil against the attrition of global warming, O Horizon suggests the outlines of a Tagorean ethos for the 21st century.

Another prominent work in the exhibition is The Third Part of the Third Measure (2017), co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation for Sharjah Biennial 13 (SB13), and part of the Foundation’s Collection. The Third Part of the Third Measure emerges from The Otolith Group’s longstanding engagement with the work of the African-American composer Julius Eastman (1940–1990). Filmed and recorded in six takes with three cameras at RAK Studios in St John’s Wood, North London, on 12 and 13 February 2017, The Third Part of the Third Measure returns to the moment of 16 January 1980 when Eastman led three pianists in a performance of his controversial compositions.

Several works in the exhibition explore the impact of new media on humans, including Anathema (2011). By descending beneath the LCD screens of advertisements for smartphones, laptops and flat screen televisions, Anathema envisions the material substrate of liquid crystal technology as a sentient entity. From this perspective, liquid crystal is reimagined as an entity that possesses consumers for its own occult objectives. Anathema exemplifies Eshun and Sagar’s enduring preoccupation with science fiction as a diagnosis of the present rather than the future. In From Left to Night (2015), the biomorphically geometric digital abstractions that pass across the multiple screens bring viewers into a sustained encounter with the material substrate of liquid crystals beneath the screens of smartphones, laptops and flat screen televisions. From Left to Night envisions the hidden technology of the liquid crystal as an abstract landscape that estranges the forms of mimetic rivalry produced by the active screens of social media.

In Statecraft: An Incomplete Timeline of Independence (2014-2019), commemorative stamps provide The Otolith Group with a rich iconography for narrating the political imaginary of African independence, as mass-manufactured designs issued to memorialise significant national events. By sequencing the births and military coups d’etat of Africa’s new nation states in a historical timeline, Statecraft brings viewers face to face with the dissimulative aesthetics of national unity.

Xenogenesis was first shown at the Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven in May 2019, and was curated by Annie Fletcher. Its presentation in Sharjah is organised by Van Abbemuseum and Sharjah Art Foundation and co-curated by Annie Fletcher, Director, Irish Museum of Modern Art and Hoor Al Qasimi, Director, Sharjah Art Foundation. Original exhibition architecture designed by Diogo Passarinho Studio.

Xenogenesis was on view at the Institute for Contemporary Art, Richmond, Virginia (2020), Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (2020), and Buxton Contemporary, Melbourne (2020). Following its presentation in Sharjah, the exhibition will travel to the Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, Ljubljana in 2022 and the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, in 2022.

Publication

The publication Xenogenesis, a polyphonic exploration of the work of The Otolith Group, will be officially launched in conjunction with the exhibition opening at Sharjah Art Foundation. Presenting all bodies of work contained in the exhibition, the publication presents materials and graphics from the artists’ broader practice and brings together important thinkers, scholars, art historians and writers from disparate fields including Denise Ferreira da Silva, Annie Fletcher, Anselm Franke, Shanay Jhaveri, George E. Lewis, Mahan Moalemi, Fred Moten, Grant Watson, Vivian Ziherl and the late Mark Fisher. Edited by The Otolith Group and Megs Morley, and designed by Luca Frei, Xenogenesis will be available in the United Arab Emirates exclusively at Sharjah Art Foundation shops alongside the exhibition opening on 13 November 2021. Xenogenesis is published by Irish Museum of Modern Art and Archive books, with the generous support of the international partners and tour venues, Buxton Contemporary, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), Institute of Contemporary Art, Virginia, Sharjah Art Foundation, Southern Alberta Art Gallery and Van Abbemuseum.

Talks Programme

The exhibition opening on 13 November will be accompanied by a Talks Programme which includes two conversations: ‘Visions of the Future, Speculations on the Present: Thinking with Octavia Butler’ with Anjalika Sagar and Kodwo Eshun, and ‘Xenogenesis: A Conversation with The Otolith Group’ that includes Anjalika Sagar, Kodwo Eshun, Annie Fletcher and Ciarán Finlayson. The conversations will be followed by the official launch and signing of the monograph Xenogenesis: The Otolith Group.

More details can be found here.

Visiting the Exhibition:

13 November 2021–5 February 2022
Galleries 1, 2, 5 and 6, Al Mureijah Art Spaces, Sharjah
Opening hours are Saturday to Thursday 9:00 am–9:00 pm, and Friday 4:00 pm–9:00 pm

Three works are situated outdoors and will begin screening at 6:05 pm. They are Medium Earth (2013), O Horizon (2018) and Anathema (2011).

Admission is free, however, advanced booking is required at sharjahart.org.

About the Artists

Founded by Kodwo Eshun and Anjalika Sagar, The Otolith Group creates film, installations, audio works and performances. Their film and video works incorporate post lens-based essayistic aesthetics that explore the temporal anomalies, anthropic inversions and synthetic alienation of the posthuman, the inhuman, the non-human and the anti-human.

The Otolith Group has been commissioned to develop and exhibit their works, research, installations and publications by a wide range of museums, public and private galleries, biennials and foundations worldwide.

Significant solo exhibitions of their work include the touring exhibition Xenogenesis, first on show at Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, the Netherlands (2019) and later at Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge (2020); O Horizon, The Rubin Museum of Art, New York (2018); The Radiant, Art Gallery Miyauchi, Japan (2017); In the Year of the Quiet Sun, Bergen Kunsthall and CASCO Office for Art Design and Theory, Utrecht (2014–2015); Novaya Zemlya, Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2014–2015); Medium Earth, REDCAT, Los Angeles (2013); Westfailure, Project 88, Mumbai (2012); Thoughtform, Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona and MAXXI, Rome (2011–2012); A Long Time Between Suns (Part I), Gasworks, London (2009); and A Long Time Between Suns (Part II), The Showroom, London (2009), for which they were nominated for the Turner Prize in 2010.

Their work has been shown internationally in group exhibitions, including CC: World, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW) (2020); Non-Aligned, NTU Centre for Contemporary Art, Singapore (2020); the first Sharjah Architecture Triennial (2019); Carnegie International, 57th Edition, Pittsburg (2018); bauhaus imaginista. Corresponding With, Japan, The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (2018); Sharjah Biennial 13 (2017); 11th Gwangju Biennale (2016); Marrakech Biennale (2016); GLOBALE: Infosphere, ZKM | Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe (2015–2016); The Anthropocene Project, HKW (2014); The Whole Earth, HKW (2013); ECM: A Cultural Archaeology, Haus der Kunst, Münich (2012–2013); dOCUMENTA 13, Kassel (2012); Taipei Biennial (2012); Biennale de Lyon (2011); British Art Show 7 (2010–2011); Manifesta 8, Murcia (2010–2011); São Paulo Biennial (2010); Shanghai Biennale (2008); Riwaq Biennale (2007); International Biennial of Contemporary Art of Seville (2006); Tate Triennial, Tate Britain (2006); and Transmediale (2004).

About Sharjah Art Foundation

Sharjah Art Foundation is an advocate, catalyst and producer of contemporary art within the Emirate of Sharjah and the surrounding region, in dialogue with the international arts community. Under the leadership of founder Hoor Al Qasimi, a curator and artist, the Foundation advances an experimental and wide-ranging programmatic model that supports the production and presentation of contemporary art, preserves and celebrates the distinct culture of the region and encourages a shared understanding of the transformational role of art. The Foundation’s core initiatives include the long-running Sharjah Biennial, featuring contemporary artists from around the world; the annual March Meeting, a convening of international arts professionals and artists; grants and residencies for artists, curators and cultural producers; ambitious and experimental commissions; and a range of travelling exhibitions and scholarly publications.

Established in 2009 to expand programmes beyond the Sharjah Biennial, which launched in 1993, the Foundation is a critical resource for artists and cultural organisations in the Gulf and a conduit for local, regional and international developments in contemporary art. The Foundation’s deep commitment to developing and sustaining the cultural life and heritage of Sharjah is reflected through year-round exhibitions, performances, screenings and educational programmes in the city of Sharjah and across the Emirate, often hosted in historic buildings that have been repurposed as cultural and community centres. A growing collection reflects the Foundation’s support of contemporary artists in the realisation of new work and its recognition of the contributions made by pioneering modern artists from the region and around the world. Sharjah Art Foundation is a legally independent public body established by Emiri Decree and supported by government funding, grants from national and international nonprofits and cultural organisations, corporate sponsors and individual patrons. All exhibitions and events are free and open to the public.

About Sharjah

Sharjah is the third largest of the seven United Arab Emirates, and the only one bridging the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. Reflecting the deep commitment to the arts, architectural preservation and cultural education embraced by its ruler, Sheikh Dr Sultan bin Mohammad Al Qasimi, Sharjah is home to more than 20 museums and has long been known as the cultural hub of the United Arab Emirates. It was named UNESCO's Arab Capital of Culture for 1998 and the UNESCO World Book Capital for 2019.

Media contact:

Alyazeyah Al Marri
alyazeyah@sharjahart.org
+971(0)65444113