Opening Reception: Open Season

Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON September 16 – October 30, 2016 Opening reception September 21, 2016, 6–8pm Join us to celebrate the opening of Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON. Achiampong will deliver a live in-gallery performance that draws out a relationship between aspects of history embedded in various audio samples and the future worlds of videogame visuals. Working across sound, video, performance, and installation, London-based artist Larry Achiampong (b.1984) explores shifting notions of identity and belonging in our post-digital age. OPEN SEASON is the artist’s first international solo exhibition and features works from the past three years. The exhibition will include a new version of works titled #OPENSEASON, based on Achiampong’s ongoing series of blackboard drawings, as well as Sunday's Best - a newly commissioned video piece. At the heart of Achiampong’s practice is an exploration of the different cultural spheres that he inhabits as a British-Ghanaian artist, deeply entrenched in the oftentimes anonymous and fluid citizenry of the digital realm. Mining a plethora of images, sounds, and texts from his personal archives and those freely available on digital search engines, social media platforms, and virtual environments including Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia, Achiampong explores the ways in which mass information sharing have afforded multiple histories and cultural identities to emerge. OPEN SEASON presents works that consider how belief systems within the diaspora are inflected by colonial influences. Delving into the virtual spaces of everyday life and drawing on the artist’s personal experiences, other works on view tease out the ironies of political solidarity forged through fleeting digital interactions. Larry Achiampong: OPEN SEASON is presented by Logan Center Exhibitions and curated by Yesomi Umolu, Exhibitions Curator. Additional support provided by Arts Council England and the British Council. (image: Larry Achiampong, Sunday's Best, 2015-2016. Photo: Sylvain Deleu)