UNIT 7 showed works by Shubha Taparia (lives and works in London, UK), alongside Mohamed Monaiseer (lives and works in Cairo, Egypt).
‘The two artists brilliantly use well-known symbols in subversive ways: Gold is fused with tarp by Taparia to create a dualistic understanding of transition, time and transformation in sublime sculptural paintings, 2020-2022. Monaiseer on the other hand uses grids, text and writing as his medium to create a painterly language – loaded with cultural and political associations yet deprived of meaning.’ Prahlad Bubbar
We would like to extend our special thank you to Christine Takengny, Senior Curator, for her expertise, and Prahlad Bubbar, leading specialist of South Asian Art and 20th century Art and Design, for his creative input. UNIT 7 has had a great year as an inclusive springboard for ambitious art practices. Some of the highlights of this year have been Crescent a large-scale sculptural, immersive installation by Shubha Taparia and a powerful performance by Zinzi Minott as part of the Brent Biennial 2022.
The show Silent Rhythm has exhibited at Unit 7 from November 19th, 2022, to February 28th, 2023. With a closing charity event to support the Karta initiative.
“Shubha Taparia is a conceptual artist who is widely known for her sophisticated photographs, films, performances, and ambitious large-scale installations. Interested in the notion of the transient, Taparia often creates her artwork from industrial materials which she encounters in the urban landscape: ‘With even the slightest of interventions or even a closer look, the most impermeable and severe looking materials reveal their organic and soft aspect. I highlight that with gold’ is how she describes her artistic approach to the overlooked relics of everyday life.
Taparia’s new mixed media panels Transitional Weaves form a new chapter in her Illumination series, 2010-ongoing. In a laborious and time-consuming process Taparia applies synthetic gold-leaf sheets by hand onto the surface of dark tarpaulin, a water-resistant material often found on construction sites as a temporary cover to protect the architecture as well as other building materials. The golden panels are moulded with coats of resin creating a wavy surface that simulates their ‘used’ look on a building site. The resulting shine enhances the idea of highlighting the material, whilst fiberglass is applied at the back to solidify them. At UNIT 7 Taparia’s artworks are presented as wall- mounted sculptures but are also suspended within the space so that they can be viewed from both sides. Taparia’s powerful serial ready-mades refer to Western art movements like minimalism and geometric abstraction. At the same time, for her Illumination series the artist is skilfully drawing from the craftsmanship of Indian painting traditions that use gold for highlighting and ornamentation”. Christine Takengny
CHRISTINE TAKENGNY holds a MA in Art History and Education (University of Stuttgart) and a MFA in Curating Contemporary Art (Goldsmiths College). She joined the Contemporary Art Society as Senior Curator for Museums Acquisitions in 2011. She was Junior Curator for Modern and Contemporary Art at Ulmer Museum, Germany and Assistant Curator at Gasworks and the Serpentine Gallery. As Associate Curator for Iniva she curated the exhibition Whose Map is it? New Mapping by Artists. Other curated exhibitions include Tina Hage – Universal Pattern (Kunsthalle Göppingen, Germany, 2022); Shifting Gazes (Yinka Shonibare Guestprojects, London, 2014), Mapping Mobilities (Open Space, Vienna, 2012), the online- exhibition Truth: Connecting the Dots (orbits.com, 2011), Ethnocentrix – Museums Inside the Artist (October Gallery, 2009) and Weickmann’s Curiosity Cabinet – Hommage with Georges Adéagbo, Candida Höfer and Mathias Beckmann (Ulmer Museum, 2007) and Curating Fictions, a series of talks at the Whitechapel Gallery. Recent texts she published include ‘Curating in the Age of Postcolonialism and Global Migration – Documenta 10 – 14’ (in: Crossing Borders, Transition and Nostalgia in Contemporary Art, 2019). Since 2016 she regularly writes ‘Friday Dispatches’ for the Contemporary Art Society’s weekly newsletter. Christine Takengny was a Goethe-Institute Stipend for a Curatorial Residency in Seoul, South Korea and a Consultant for LOBE – Berlin. From 2019 – 2021 she was Collection Advisor for the UK charity ‘Paintings in Hospital’ as well as Advisor for the Arts Council’s ‘Ambition for Excellence’ Programme in collaboration with the Northern Centre for Contemporary Art/National Glass Centre in Sunderland.
** On March 18th/2023, Unit 7 London held a closing event for ‘Silent Rhythm’ exhibition in support of Kartha Charity: View Event Highlights