Image courtesy of Amoako Boafo
Gagosian presents new paintings by Amoako Boafo. The solo exhibition, “what could possibly go wrong, if we tell it like it is,” will be Boafo’s debut exhibition with the gallery. The first part of the show will open from March 16, 2023 to April 22, 2023 at 980 Madison Avenue, while a selection of the exhibited works will be presented in May 2023 at dot.ateliers in Accra, Ghana.
Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo (b. 1984) lives and works in Accra. Boafo’s art focuses on the significance of representing, recording, and celebrating Blackness while developing new ways to approach it. His practice shows the various ways in which art can reflect and sustain the power of representation. By presenting mainly individuals from the Diaspora and beyond, he exclusively examines Black subjectivity, diversity, and complexity.
Boafo’s large-scale portraits show his friends and those he admires with candour, joy, and individuality. His monumental paintings, which are mostly focused on Black identity, have already become significant works in the representation of contemporary Africa and the African diaspora.
Boafo is passionate about celebrating Black existence and this extends to his work in support of the democratisation of art. To include his contemporaries who will be unable to attend the show in New York due to US visa limitations, he paintings will be sent to dot.ateliers in Accra.
dot.ateliers is a space intended to strengthen and advance Ghana’s cultural ecosystem. Commissioned by Boafo, architect David Adjaye designed and built the three-story building, which houses a gallery, studios, an art library, and a café. The space offers exhibitions and residencies that encourage creative experimentation and support bold expression.
Boafo paints his subjects’ faces and bodies with his fingertips rather than brushes, the directness of his touch enhancing their expressive features. The characters occupy domestic spaces, their casual grace accentuated by the familiarity of these settings.
His work can be found in prestigious collections like: Baltimore Museum of Art; Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington, DC; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Institute of Art; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris; Albertina, Vienna; Leopold Museum, Vienna; Aïshti Foundation, Beirut; and Longlati Foundation, Shanghai.
His most recent exhibitions include: Denver Art Museum (2023–24), Seattle Art Museum (2023), Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco (2021–22), and Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (2022), amongst others. Boafo is the recipient of the Walter Koschatzky Kunstpreis in 2017 and STRABAG Art award International in 2019.
