Game of Thrones by Gonçalo Mabunda: Solo Exhibition

Gonçalo Mabunda, will load AKKA Project popup exhibition with Kalashnikovs, rockets and grenades transformed into artworks as thrones and anthropomorphic masks. They are, without a doubt, an ironic way of commenting on his childhood experience of violence and absurdity and the civil war in Mozambique that isolated his country for a long period.

 

The opening of the exhibition will take place on November, 12th at 7pm (Artist’s talk 8pm).

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Mabunda, artist and anti-war activists, is back to Dubai and will load Warehouse #60 at Alserkal Avenue with Kalashnikovs, rockets, pistols, rifles, bombs and grenades transformed into artworks as thorns and anthropomorphic masks from 12th, November to 6th, December 2018.

Turning objects of destruction into sculptures that evoke both Western modernism and African tradition, the artist effectively strips them of their killing power.

Born in 1975 in Mozambique, he has worked as a full-time artist since 1997. By recycling war materials he has created his own unique style, that is recognized throughout the world. Goncalo is most well known for his thrones. According to the artist, the thrones function as attributes of power, tribal symbols and traditional pieces of ethnic African Art.

Mabunda’s work has been exhibited at Venice Biennale, Italy; Brooklyn Museum, USA; Museum Kunst Palast, Dusseldorf; Hayward Gallery, London, Centre Pompidou, Paris among many others.

By using deactivated weapons of war, Mabunda’s work carries a message of how further violence can be prevented, and that destroying the weapons of war can be done in an aesthetic and artistic way.