Nora Al-Badri and Nikolai Nelles are presenting Not a Single Bone at Berlin’s NOME, opening September 8 and running to November 11.
The exhibition explores the West’s colonial history of cultural extraction through paleontology, making the science and mythology around dinosaur fossils what art historian W.J.T. Mitchell calls “the totem animal of modern culture.” The duo will present their most recent HKW-funded project, called ‘Fossil Futures’ and based around research around the former German colony and excavation site of the Tendaguru Beds in Tanzania.
In reproducing these fossils using artificial intelligence and leaked data, along with the traditional tools of museums, the work questions “the fictions of authenticity told by Western institutions, and seek[s] to uncover alternative emancipatory narratives.”
Al-Badri and Nelles will also present an iteration of their 2015 project ‘The Other Nefertiti,’ an open-sourced reproduction of the Ancient Egyptian Royal Bust enabled through a data leak, its original still claimed by the Egyptian Museum of Berlin collection.
It’s that time of year again. After the slumber of summer down time, September is back to work for the art world. With our emails flooding, we decided to inhale, digest, organise and re-present what we are most excited for.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed with all the upcoming events and exhibitions, have a look through our incomplete compilation of art shows recommendations for September. There’s a new space opening called Black Tower Projects with a group show, along with some others at The Koppel Project, Assembly Point, Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA. Music events to look out are on at DRAF and Wysing Arts Center, as well as some festivals and fairs, including Hyperlocal and Deptford X, and a number of compelling solo shows at The Residence Gallery, Kevin Space, Sandy Brown, Bodega, Sorbus and more.
Read on and we’ll keep updating throughout the month:
London
Patrick Goddard, ‘Great Fool Theory’ (2016) Installation view. Courtesy the artist + Seventeen, London.
Jala Wahid, Bitter Pith (2014). Exhibition detail. Courtesy the artist + Room E-10 27, Paris.
– Deptford X 2017 with Evan Ifekoya, Project O, Sam Austen, Tom Ireland, Sisters From Another Mister + others at venues across Deptford, sep 22 – Oct 1
– Lauryn Youden is presenting Kunstsommer Detox, hosted by Reflektor M and part of Sacred Serpent Sessions at Frankfurt’s Meridian Spa Skyline Plaza, Sep 1