Going back to my trip to Venice a few weeks ago, and another absolute banger of an exhibition that I got to see, Michael Armitage’s The Promise of Change at Palazzo Grassi—Pinault Collection. Curated by Jean-Marie Gallais in collaboration with Hans Ulrich Obrist, Caroline Bourgeois, and Michelle Mlati, this presentation felt like a bubble of its own, providing a refuge from the biennale frenzy and offering a glimpse into the not-necessarily-desirable-or-inviting but surely authentic world of the Kenyan-British artist.
And when I say “bubble,” I mean that, for a painting buff like myself, this exhibition felt like arriving at a place that feels familiar while absolutely packed with things to discover, explore, and enjoy. I think it was within the first 5 minutes of my visit that I thought to myself, "What a festival of surfaces and colors!" Not a calm, orderly one, but a wild mayhem that’s about to slip into chaos. Applied through liquid gestures, these colors (and what a unique selection of colors it is!) seem to flow in harmony, occasionally exploding alongside unexpected textural highs and lows. Lows going as far as literal holes in the support on which Armitage paints (the bark of the Lubugo tree), and highs culminating in stitched-up patches or wrinkles. These imperfections heighten the sense of urgency, gravity, or craftiness in the depicted scenes and seem to be among the main traits of the protagonists, all while infusing a sense of mystic, hallucinatory appeal to the images.
Looking at the work, it feels as if there is no hierarchy or structured method, as the underpainting moments can be equally important as the final touchups. This makeshift spontaneity gives the work dynamics, vibrancy, and an undeniable presence, creating tension that often underlies the conveyed joy, violence, and the lingering survival instinct. This tension permeates every aspect of the work, from the detritus of the "western world" scattered across the scenery and the composition and color relationships to the surface of the support. Feeling authentic and pushed to the very edge of what it can handle, a traditional bark cloth harvested from the Mutuba tree provides a fragile space to speak about the ongoing perils of bare existence in East Africa while quietly but firmly supporting the resolutely optimistic title. “This exhibition has been brought together thinking about hope, thinking about belief, politics, creation, love, suffering, culture, the human spirit, death, imagination, the land, migration, fear and the promise of change,” states Armitage about the milestone exhibition comprising 45 paintings and a large number of drawings, sketches, and other works. —Saša Bogojev
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