LEO ASEMOTA

The Ens Project’s First Principles

Exhibition Dates: 16 September - 26 November 2011

Preview: Thursday 15 September, 6 - 11pm

New Art Exchange is proud to present our Autumn exhibition: The Ens Project’s First Principles by Leo Asemota, curated by David Schischka Thomas.

Leo Asemota (b. 10 August, 1967 in Benin City, Nigeria) is based in London. For the past six years Asemota has been working on “The Ens Project”.  Unfolding in phases and fixated on the human head as its symbolic weight, the project is informed by a ritual of head worship of the Edo peoples of Benin called Igue, Victorian age of invention and Empire building and Walter Benjamin’s text “The Artwork in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility” in linking up ideas on art and the essential self in light of scientific and industrial advances in contemporary life.

First Principles (2005 - 2008) formally establishes phase one of The Ens Project. Considered an essential preliminary and evolved over six stages, this survey at New Art Exchange is the foremost presentation in its entirety of Asemota’s appraisal of the validity of the trinity of sources giving structure to his ideas and his underlying focus on the head as the primary index of identity, authority and spiritual essence. Encompassing photographs, orhue (kaolin chalk) and coal drawings, sculptures and video installations, the body of work engages a multitude of themes characterized by colonial and diaspora narratives, religious faith, authenticity and globalization. First Principles also offers a glimpse of “The Handmaiden” the central character in the recently completed second phase of The Ens Project as well as the conceptual framework for “Eo ipso” the multi-media live artwork based on the Igue ritual in the project’s imminent third and final phase.

Recent exhibitions of works from The Ens Project include solo shows: The Prime Mover’s will on the Architect (2010) Contemporary Rooms at EotLA, London; The Handmaiden Part 2 (2010) Centrum Beeldeende Kunst Zuidoost, Amsterdam; The Handmaiden Part 1(2010) Metal, Edge Hill Station Liverpool and Testimony (2009) BookArts Bookshop, London. Group shows and screenings include Africa Reflected on Video (2009) Netherlands Media Art Institute, Amsterdam; One’s History is Another’s Misery (2009) Stedelijk Museum (Bureau Amsterdam) from Autocenter Berlin; Living Landscapes (2009) Aberystwyth University and Emerging Discourse Part 2: Performance and Mimicry (2008) Bodhi Art New York.

Leo Asemota's official website: EotLA.com