The Faithful Friend: The Lover Friend’s Love for the Beloved

Free entrance
Fri. 21 April 17:00-22:00
Sat. 22 & Sun. 23 April 11:00-18:00
Fri. 28 April  17:00-22:00
Sat. 29 April  11:00-23:00
Sun. 30 April  11:00-22:00
Location: Pre-Reserved Studio C

The artists in this show, curated by Ferdinand van Dieten and Iris Kensmil, address how culture has long since changed by the influence of Black and Queer. 

Tony Cokes has been making controversial video essays since the 1980s, in which he interprets our contemporary, capitalist society and the role of art and pop culture in it. He does not use any image. Coke forces the viewer to concentrate purely on music, color, and text.

Iris Kensmil depicts the power of Black people from a feminist perspective. She painted portraits of Jules Eastman and Black Queer activists.

Joy Mariama Smith is a performance, installation, and movement artist, and educator their* work focuses on issues related to visibility, projected identities, and self-representation in different contexts, and investigates the interplay between the body and its cultural, social, and physical environment. In Smith’s dance, performances, and installations, they create spaces in which the distinction between spectator and participant becomes blurred and visitors are encouraged to reflect on the ways in which they deal with space. When they facilitate, they actively try to uphold inclusive spaces.
*they/them/their- used as a first person gender neutral pronoun in English.

Kevin Osepa is born and raised on the island of Curaçao. His work revolves around his own identity as well as, in a broader sense, of Afro-Caribbean youth in a post-colonial world. Although the themes he explores are autobiographical, his work can also be read as a quasi-anthropological study. Using different techniques Osepa makes colorful images and stories in which religion, African diaspora, and family take place.

Moshekwa Langa was born in the village of Bakenberg in South Africa during the age of apartheid. His work is rooted in his personal experiences and upbringing during this time in his life where he focuses on themes like, alienation, identity and displacement. Through his work, he triest to make sense of himself and the world we are living in.

Dustin Thierry is a contemporary artist and photographer from Curaçao whose work depicts the African-Caribbean community. The artist creates portraits that not only celebrate the African-Caribbean diaspora in all its diversity and changing forms, but also raise socially relevant issues. In addition, each project uniquely contributes to Thierry’s lifelong quest for identity, safety, and family. He shows that portraiture itself is a relationship; his gaze is loving, and the result is restorative and generative for himself, his community, and society at large.

With special thanks to: Hartwig Art Foundation, Amsterdam, and Greene Naftali Gallery, NY