The immersive art shows of 2022 have taken the art experience to a whole new level. We are experiencing a massive cultural shift as more boundaries for how art is being exhibited are being scaled on a regular. This means that not only is the exhibiting space a major part of the installation, the viewers are also central to the exhibition.
Here are some of the immersive exhibitions that happened in 2022.
- Asë: Afro Frequencies at ARTECHOUSE
ARTECHOUSE Immersive Art Gallery opened an afro-surrealist exhibit in DC called “Asë: Afro Frequencies” this year. It was an interactive art exhibit whose goal was to celebrate the global Black experience by telling the stories of African kings and queens through visuals by Vince Fraser and spoken word poetry by Ursula Rucker. The artwork on display includes interactive and immersive pieces such as a fully mirrored room full of shifting wheels of light in bright colours; motion-sensor-operated maps of Africa projected onto the floor. Which shifts and spins under visitors’ feet; and a series of digital, futuristic-looking African masks that visitors can virtually try on. Fraser focuses on African masks in a lot of his work. This gallery featured designs inspired by rulers from the Ethiopian and Mali empires, traditional voodoo guardian symbols of the Ogun people, and helmet-shaped masks from the Yoruba people, among others. Many of the artworks’ titles were inspired by the Yoruba language too.
Image courtesy of Washington Informer
- Rébellion Afrobeat at the Paris Philharmonic
Image courtesy of Getty Images
The rébellion afrobeat is a new immersive exhibition that is currently on view at the Paris Philharmonic. The exhibition is celebrating the life and legacy of Fela Kuti, the Nigerian music legend regarded as the pioneer of Afrobeat. Paris Philharmonic is paying homage to the late musician by recreating the atmosphere of his sweaty, politically-charged nightclub, The Shrine, in Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos. Which became a beacon for global stars in the 1970s, including Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney. Curated by Alexandre Girard-Muscagorry, Mabinuori Kayode-Idowu and Mathilde Thibault-Starzky, the show aims to unfold the entire musical and political trajectory using archives and unpublished photographs, allowing visitors to get as close as possible to Fela’s music and his political struggles.
The exhibition runs from 20 October 2022 to 11 June 2023 at the Paris Philharmonic.
- Fruiting Bodies
Fruiting Bodies, curated by Sam Rauch from the Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, showcases art projects that focus on food, from beer to fungi. Fruiting bodies is a group exhibition focused on using food as a powerful vehicle for storytelling. In this exhibition, food functions as a medium and subject. At the gallery entrance, Berlin-based Nigerian artist Emeka Ogboh, presents a suite of four videos formulated as fictive TV commercials for Sufferhead Original, a craft beer conceived for documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany from 2017. Occupying the entire rear gallery is the immersive video installation The Contest of the Fruits by Slavs and Tatars. A Berlin-based collective devoted to mapping the literary and political geography of Eurasia through a wide-ranging practice spanning books, lectures, and exhibitions. The use of food as a literary device, characteristic of the artists’ combination of scholarly rigour and irreverent presentation, is a potent strategy to disinhibit viewers from engaging with the sensitive and politically charged ideas that reside at the crossroads of language, religion, and identity in a pluralistic world.
Image courtesy of New York Art Tours
