Pascale Marthine Tayou: Plastik Diagnostik 17 November 2007 – 13 January 2008
Milton Keynes Gallery, UK. Catalogue with a text by Nicholas Bourriaud and an interview with Hans Ulrich Obrist will be published to accompany the exhibition as well as a series of events > www.mk-g.org
Pascale Marthine Tayou's (b. 1966) work is presented with a selection that questions cultural and national identity and the role of the individual. Through his installations, drawings, films and performances, Tayou articulates the nomadic existence of his life, from birth in Cameroon to travelling throughout Europe and his journeying as an artist working internationally. On his travels he collects train and airline ticket stubs, restaurant and shop receipts and labels or wrappings for socks, razors and batteries. He integrates these pieces into his works and confirms so the fluidity and borderlessness of space, culture and thought, and reminds us that one’s our lives are inextricably linked with economics, migration and politics. more culture >>>
fig.: Pascale Marthine Tayou, Jpegafrica - Africagift, 2007. Image by Ela Bialkowska, courtesy Galleria Continua, San Gimignano - Beijing. In Jpegafrica/Africagift, 2006, Tayou refers directly to Africa and its countries. Jpegafrica/Africagift is made up of every flag of each African country arranged in a large pyramid pile. Each flag is imbued with the symbolism of national identity and acts as a substitute for the African citizen or collective, continually reconfigured. The Cameroonian flag acts as a self-portrait within a larger picture. Marthine Tayou does not see himself as an African artist however, but like that of his peers, his work is bound up with the cultures and communities of Africa and its identity within the rest of the world. Marthine Tayou provides a different view of Africa, on the people and their culture.