Pipeline is delighted to present the second in its inaugural series of exhibitions, with Emmanuel Awuni. The exhibition Walk, centres upon the notion of movement, and the impulse to stride forward without hesitation. In Awuni’s multidisciplinary practice, which traverses sculpture, performance, painting, and music, no method or medium is placed above another. Instead, Awuni dissolves the hierarchical structures we have come to expect and elevates his materials, transforming found objects into something that has never been seen before.
An essential aspect of Awuni’s practice is music. Awuni is profoundly interested in the transference of energy through music, and the power of its vibrations to elevate a crowd. A work comprising sound and image footage provides the driving energy of this exhibition. Previously recorded in the basement of Pipeline and projected downstairs, the footage captures a musical and visual crescendo in a celebration of love that represents the vital engine of Awuni’s art.
Installed on the ground floor, the work Rise and Show no Fear (2022) was initially created as a site-specific installation for Notting Hill Carnival in collaboration with PM/AM and Harlesden High Street galleries in London. This piece speaks to the collaborative nature of Awuni’s practice and the dialogue of communities. In his paintings, the saturation of Awuni’s palette and flurry of brushstrokes echo the tension and heightened awareness of breathing, not just the free-flowing of breath but also laboured or held breath.
While Awuni’s paintings occupy a space of abstract freedom, his sculptures are rooted in reality. A ceramic head, floating in a sink that is filled with resin, offers a tangible representation of the Black body. Awuni draws particular influence from Caravaggio’s famed David With the Head of Goliath (c. 1610), in which the dangling head of Goliath is replaced by the artist’s own self-portrait. This painting was a plea for mercy, made by Caravaggio as a gift for the Cardinal Borghese who had the power to pardon him for murder. For Awuni, his series of ceramic heads are equally personal. They confront the viewer with the living, breathing Black figure. As inescapable physical markers, these works assert their reality and the space that they occupy.
