(085) Art Basel Online Viewing Room
'Art Basel OVR: 2020', Art Fair
Online Viewing Rooms, [23.09.20 - 26.09.20]
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Samson Young
Solo Exhibition - [20.08.16 - 29.10.16]
MASTERY OF LANGUAGE AFFORDS REMARKABLE POWER
Samson Young is presenting his first solo exhibition in India at Experimenter Gallery, Kolkata. In ‘Mastery of Language’ Young exhibits works on paper, videos and a performance which span the course of the exhibition to unveil a connection between language and power. Young takes inspiration from Franz Fanon, the Martinique Afro-Caribbean philosopher, whose work emphasises the pivotal role of language in cultural, racial and political domination. By re-cycling and ‘vandalising’ hand-written manuscripts of his original musical composition, rendering them unintelligible, Young explores the appropriation of visual and aural language. The idea of ‘performative’ power underscorest these works; power comes with the awareness of the ‘performative’ nature of musical signs and therefore the possibility to manipulate them and summon something (an act, a sound, a gesture) into being.
