Cinders of the wreck
Solo show by Dominique White
Curated by Céline Kopp
March 12 – June 5, 2022, Opening: Friday, March 11 from 5pm to 10pm
Panorama, Friche la Belle de Mai
An exhibition commissioned and produced by Triangle – Astérides, centre d’art contemporain d’intérêt national.
Coproduction: SCIC Friche la Belle de Mai and Fluxus Art Projects.
For her first solo exhibition in France titled Cinders of the Wreck, Dominique White pursues her depiction of the State as the Hydra; a relentless beast, with many, regenerative heads. Using disfigured and deformed hunting harpoons in place of the beast’s many heads, and the Ship in place of the beast’s body, Dominique White is questioning the regenerative powers of the State and its ability to constantly mutate as a means of maintaining an oppressive system. Known for giving life to forms which embody both a phantom-like fragility and a threatening presence, White walks the visitors through a universe of anticipation that weaves together theories of Black Subjectivity and Afro-pessimism with the nautical myths of Black Diaspora. Ropes, tired hand-woven nets, casted iron, raffia, and cowrie shells casted and coated in a ghostly shroud of kaolin clay all work together to evoke the transformative power of waves and wreck.
Cinders of the Wreck is the continuity of her recent research on a variety of concepts including what the artist defines as the Shipwreck(ed); a reflexive verb and state of being. Her sculptures, or beacons, prophesy the emergence of the Stateless. This exhibition is the second iteration of her research on the myth of Hydra, following the exhibition “Hydra Decapita” at VEDA Firenze, Florence, Italy (11/13/2021 – 01/15/2022).
DDominique White (b. 1993, UK) lives in Marseille (FR) and works nomadically. Recent exhibitions include “Hydra Decapita” at VEDA Firenze, Florence; “Techno Worlds” at Art Quarter Budapest and “Blackness in Democracy’s Graveyard” at UKS, Oslo (all 2021). White was awarded the ad occhi chiusi… prize by Fondazione Merz in 2021 and the Roger Pailhas Prize in 2019 in conjunction with her solo presentations with VEDA Firenze and has received awards from Artangel (UK) and the Henry Moore Foundation (UK) in 2020. White was in residency at Sagrada Mercancía (CL) member of the Triangle Network, and La Becque (CH) in 2020 and 2021. She was in residency at Triangle - Astérides in 2020, again in 2021 in conjunction with Goethe-Institut Marseille and Goethe-Institut Munich, and currently from December 2021 until the end of April 2022 in the context of the commission and production of « Cinder of the Wreck ». Dominique White is represented by VEDA Firenze, Florence.
