Ghana’s Venice Biennale pavilion to be named after ET Mensah song

The country's pavilion at the prestigious art showcase will be tagged ‘Ghana Freedom’, a title derived from highlife great ET Mensah’s song of the same name. The song was composed on the eve of Ghana’s independence in 1957.

Long acknowledged as one of the most important names in highlife music, Mensah led the Tempos band and toured extensively. The band achieved fame and Mensah performed with musicians from several countries, including Victor Olaiya from Nigeria and Louis Armstrong from the US. Mensah passed away in 1996 but his music has endured.

“The pavilion examines the legacies and trajectories of that freedom by 6 artists, across three generations, rooted both in Ghanaian culture and its diasporas,” says an official statement.

“Sixty odd years after the liberation of many African from colonial rule, as we gain in political and economic stability and strength, we add our voices, through the beauty of art, to the complexity and plurality of narratives of nations, diasporas, movement, becoming; and of the deconstructions of various hegemonies.”

Some of the questions addressed by a showing at the event include: How does a country see itself in the world? How does it position itself in global discourse and representation? How does it reinforce or deconstruct certain narratives and ‘realities’?

The exhibition will be situated in the Artiglierie of the historic Arsenale and will include large-scale installations by El Anatsui and Ibrahim Mahama, representation and portraiture by prominent photographer Felicia Abban and painter Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, a three-channel film projection by John Akomfrah and a video sculpture by Selasi Awusi Sosu.

Each of these artists will show their work in “elliptically-shaped interconnected spaces”. The pavilion is designed by David Adjaye and curated by Nana Oforiatta Ayim. The late curator and critic Okwui Enwezor served as its strategic advisor.

“The conversation about nations is broadening in the face of issues of migrations; of us redefining our connections to our diasporas throughout our ‘year of return;’ of discussing what it might mean to have our cultural objects returned, and how we thus might redefine ourselves in the world; and of finally moving out of the ‘postcolonial’ moment into one we have yet to envision,” said Ayim.

Referred to as the Olympics of the art world, the Venice Biennale is highly respected but has seen too little of African art since its creation. Only Egypt, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Angola and Tunisia have had representation at the Biennale.

In December, the exhibition will come to the National Museum in Accra.