"Karimah Ashadu's 'Tendered' at Camden Art Centre marks the British-born, Nigerian artist's first institutional solo exhibition in the UK, presented in collaboration with Fondazione In Between Art Film. Centered on 'MUSCLE' (2025), Ashadu's most recent moving-image work, 'Tendered' offers a focused view into Ashadu's practice that probes constructions of Nigerian masculinity, foregrounding its entanglements with labor, class, patriarchy and colonial afterlives."
"In 'MUSCLE,' which will have its Berlin premiere on February 15th at the 76th Berlinale, Ashadu turns her lens toward a community of bodybuilders training in the slums of Lagos. Through lingering close-ups of straining torsos and meticulously maintained physiques, the artist reframes the body as a repository of labor, discipline and aspiration. The camera's attentive gaze doubles as a mirror, reflecting back the viewer's own projections and biases constructed around Black male bodies."
"I've been fascinated by Nigeria as my subject for a little while. It's really talking about the notion of independence and what it means to be independent-as a country, as an individual, as a collective. I'm thinking about independence in a very specific way, obviously linked to the colonial history and the notion of independence in itself, when it's something that another country declares onto you and therefore you are."
Tendered is a UK institutional solo exhibition centered on the 2025 moving-image work MUSCLE and presented at Camden Art Centre in collaboration with Fondazione In Between Art Film. MUSCLE follows a community of bodybuilders training in the slums of Lagos, using lingering close-ups of straining torsos and meticulously maintained physiques. The film reframes the male body as a repository of labor, discipline and aspiration while the camera’s gaze reflects viewers’ projections and biases about Black male bodies. The work links constructions of Nigerian masculinity to labor, class, patriarchy and colonial afterlives. The artist situates independence and autonomy within post-extractive rebuilding and patriarchal norms shaping what it means to present as a man.
Read at Berlin Art Link
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]