online catalogue

Lejano de todas partes
Opening Saturday September 3rd / 6PM - late
4 September - 16 October 2022

No Man’s Art Gallery is honoured to present Lejano de Todas Partes (far from everywhere), the first solo exhibition by Alejandro Galván (1990, MX). Lejano de Todas Partes follows an intensive residency period of the artist in Amsterdam. The gallery invited Galván to join the residency programme after a series of studio visits in Mexico City earlier this year.

 Alejandro Galván is a painter who lives and works in Nezahualcóyotl (Neza), one of the most populated and dense areas of Mexico City. Neza is part of the State of Mexico, an area that comprises several municipalities on the outskirts of the centre of Mexico's capital. It has a complex history of governmental neglect, violence and marginalisation and at the same time houses a proud community with a strong sense of togetherness, the warm home and heart of the working class. These dualities are visualised in the artist’s large scale paintings of watercolour, ink, gouache and charcoal on wooden panels. Rich pictorial scenes reference cityscapes that include pre-hispanic culture and Mexican mythology combined with Catholic imagery, manga inspired figures together with medieval bestiaries and newspaper coverage of disturbing scenes next to intimate portraits of the artist’s family, female figures important to him and his neighbours.

Each painting is honoured with a Quinametzin, an Aztec titan that appears as a beast or figure and symbolises a particular place, its energy and its people. In Coyotl (2022), it is the proud coyote with its piercing gaze surrounded by the white tops of the mountains of El Nevado de Toluca. Female members of the underground Neza-based punk band Los Congolones are depicted as strong and powerful contemporary Mexica (Aztec) warriors on the streets the artist took daily on his way to the subway station of Pantitlán. This terminus is an important junction of el barrio where large crowds cross paths. 

In Coyotl (2022) Galván evokes the pride of his home town, by visualising communal resistance and creativity despite unruly grounds. At the heart of the painting a young innocent girl is seated amongst bougainville flowers that have symbolic value in the Mexican feminist movement. The concrete hill that surrounds her is an accidental monument that once started as a communal dumping ground for dead animals. To block the stench of rotting flesh, the dumping ground was covered in concrete and a fertile land grew on the excess of organic material. The transitional power of death to creativity is emphasised by the presence of Mictlantecuhtli, god of death, gatekeeper of the underworld in ancient Tenochtitlan on which ruins today's subway station of Pantitlán is built. 

The intricate pencil drawings centre around the concept of the Quinceañera, a rite of passage celebrated amongst all social classes in Mexico and throughout Latin America dating back to pre-hispanic times. It marks a girl's 15th birthday, the transition from childhood to womanhood. El Sombras (2022) and Quinceañera (2022) are set in the infamous Iztapalapa. Only inhabited for half a century, the area has now grown into one of the most densely populated peripheral municipalities, claiming mountainous territory like parasites. The drawings both honour the quinceañera and emphasise the traditional gender roles that are imposed on a young woman in a society where machismo rules and womanhood is envisioned through the man’s gaze, either being objectified or labelled with the sole purpose of being a mother.

The diptych Las Estrellas Me Iluminan Al Reves (2022) builds on a passage from Bernardo Esquinca’s novel ‘Carne de Ataúd’, set in the largest dump of Neza: Bordo de Xochiaca. The dump is enclosed by shacks held together by discarded banners of political parties. It is a place the artist often visited for its soccer field, which is located right in its centre. A devil masked eagle, with black chicken feet as claws, a floating serpent’s head, standing on a trash belt. The transformation of the Mexican coat of arms is a metaphorical display of black magic, a reverted energy of sorts. Under the wings of the Quinametzin eagle the famous Alfredo Guttierez sings El Solitario about a drunk man that drinks to forget, hoping for a new beginning, feeling that in life the stars have illuminated him in reverse:

 Vivo tomando porque es el trago es pa’los machos
Un desamor me puede causar la muerte
Y si el mar se convirtiera en aguardiente
En el me ahogara para morirme borracho

The triptych Río de la Compañía Mateo 14:22-33 (2022) is set in a similar environment as Las Estrellas Me Iluminan Al Revés (2022). The river borders Neza, Chimalhuacan and San Lorenzo. None of the municipalities bordering the canal govern this area, which has made this no man’s land a place where animals, trash and bodies are dumped. In his childhood Galván crossed the bridge from Neza to Chimalhuacan every weekend to play with his cousins. The loving memories of his childhood are merged with the smell of trash and clouds of dust from unpaved roads. Only through reading the newspapers he learned to know its darker side. Río de la Compañía Mateo 14:22-33 (2022) shows a procession, towards what or whom is unknown, but the act itself demonstrates a sense of hope and belief. Taken from a biblical scene (Matthew 14:22-33) Galván honours the people of the area by letting them walk on water. Río de la Compañía Mateo 14:22-33 (2022) shows sacrality is everyday life, a miracle of the common people, a metaphorical image of human agency. 

The opening of Lejano de todas partes coincides with No Man’s Art Gallery’s 4 year anniversary party, the official afterparty of the opening of the cultural season. The exhibition extends to both gallery locations: NMAG Kiosk, Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327 and NMAG Bos en Lommerweg 88

Photos: Neeltje de Vries

Alejandro Galván (1990, MX) is a painter who lives and works in Nezahualcóyotl, the most populated and dense area of Mexico City. He graduated from La Esmeralda, Mexico City’s most prestigious art academy in Fine Arts in 2016. Galván won the Young Mexican Prize 2020 promoted by the UK Mexican Art Society in London, England.Recent exhibitions include “Diálogo abierto: San Carlos/La Esmeralda”, The National Center of Arts (CENART); the Vasconcelos Library: the Pablo Goebel Fine Arts Gallery; Ecatepec Contemporary Art Museum (MArCE); Salón ACME. Galván is currently part of the FONCA ́s Young Creators program.

Art Rotterdam
19 - 22 May 2022

Main Section
Mia Chaplin
Sisse Holst Pedersen
Marilyn Sonneveld

Projections
Buhlebezwe Siwani

online catalogue

WENDY CABRERA RUBIO | AFRA EISMA | ALAN HERNANDEZ
SAM SAMIEE | HEND SAMIR | Buhlebezwe siwani

online catalogue

Graphic design: Cengiz Mengüç

As part of Amsterdam Art Weekend, No Man’s Art Gallery is thrilled to present Queen’s Substance a group show that includes the works of Afra Eisma (NL), Alan Hernandez (MX), Hend Samir (EG), Buhlebezwe Siwani (SA), Sam Samiee (IR) and Wendy Cabrera Rubio (MX).

In a beehive, the carefully balanced power dynamics depend on a single substance, exerted by the Queen Bee. This Queen’s Substance is licked from her body by her worker bees, who in their turn pass it along to the rest of the hive. As the Queen ages the substance is spread too thinly. Steadily and inevitably her society crumbles….

Opening: Thursday May 12th
Time: 5 - 9PM
Location: No Man’s Art Gallery KIOSK, Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327
13 May - 25 June 2022

Photos: Neeltje de Vries

Art Brussels
28 Apr. - 01 May 2022
Booth D.39

Afra Eisma
Sam Samiee

online catalogue

Angelina Nonaj | Bo Deurloo | Esther van der Heijden | Kelvin Dijk | Mila de Graaf | Olivia de Ruijter | Paula Hernandez Mollison | Pum van de Koppel

open: source space takes over NMAG KIOSK for a pop-up show of friends that join forces in creating an exhibition, in search for a more democratic manner of representation within the field of arts. Creating a landscape of relational elements that bind each other together. With focus on communal space as leading factor.

Alongside the exhibition, the program exists out of live performance, music and a custom made menu by close friends.

Friday 22nd of April opening 5 - 10PM

Saturday 23rd of April dining
Book dinner via DM on Instagram of open:source space: @o.s.space. Max. 24 spots available

Sunday 24rd of April finissage 6 - 10PM

*open:source space will be held at NMAG KIOSK, Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327

06.02 - 27.03 2022

No Man’s Art Gallery is honored to present Impilo inegama, the second solo exhibition of Buhlebezwe Siwani (1987, ZA) at the gallery.

In Impilo inegama (loosely translated: Life has a name), Siwani addresses how Black motherhood is not viewed in a tender manner as one would view the process of becoming a mother, primarily because Black women’s bodies and fertility have not always belonged to themselves.

“When we hold conversations on and about slavery, we are focused on the bodies that make a voyage, rarely do these conversations touch on women who were kept as slaves whose sole purpose was to bear children who could work as slaves themselves.” (Siwani) A new series of soap paintings reflects on the experience of motherhood for these enslaved mothers and the voyage of the foetus within the mother’s body. Their titles Mdlezana translated from isiXhosa mean new mother, as this will be the only phase of motherhood these mothers get to experience before their babies are taken away from them.

In the video Ulishiyele bani ibele (2022), directly translated from isiZulu meaning “who did you leave the breast for?” We see the artist, herself carrying a child, performing repetitive rhythmic movements. Her voice recites the poem The Slave Mother (1854) by Francis Ellen Watkins Harper:

He is not hers, although she bore

   For him a mother’s pains;

He is not hers, although her blood

   Is coursing through his veins!

In both Ulishiyele bani ibele and Mdlezana we witness the unbearable loss; - the loss of a child, of self, of motherhood, of one’s body, but Siwani also shows us an incredible strength. A vigorous force that is materialised in ceramic sculptures. In Umdali and OoMama abadala the artist honours the creator, the life giver. This strength carried by not one but a group of women; a cycle of ceramics is placed close to the ground, rooted to earth. The hand of Siwani has left behind its traces, suggestions of mark making, taking ownership over one’s own body, one’s own womanhood and one’s own fertility.

Press: “De bittere smaak van zwart moederschap” Lucette ter Borg in NRC Newspaper, March 2022

Opening hours:
Wednesday, Thursday and Friday : 12.00 - 17.00h or by appointment (call 06-3755 0132). This exhibition extends to both gallery locations in Amsterdam: Bos en Lommerweg 88-90 (mezzanine) and Willem de Zwijgerlaan 327.

Photos: Neeltje de Vries

Buhlebezwe Siwani is a visual artist working predominantly in performance and installation. Siwani completed her BAFA(Hons) at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg in 2011 and her MFA at the Michealis School of Fine Arts in 2015. Siwani’s work interrogates the patriarchal framing of the black female body and black female experience within the South African context. Siwani’s art practice is strongly correlated with her practice as iSangoma, a spiritual healer that works within the space of the dead and the living.

Siwani was awarded the Standard Bank Young Artist Award in 2021 and nominated for the Theodora Niemeijer Prize in the same year. Past exhibitions include Sonsbeek 20-24, Arnhem, El Espacio 23, Miami, USA; Materiality, Iziko National Gallery, Cape Town, SA; Being There, Foundation Louis Vuitton, Paris, FR; Curitiba Biennial 2019, BR; Tell Freedom, Kunsthal KAdE, Amersfoort, NL; Documenta 14, Athens, GR, Kassel, DE; Africa Raccontare un Mondo, PAC Museum, Milan, IT; Deep Memory, Kalmar Art Museum, Kalmar, SE; Busuku benzolo, Labor Zero Labor, Triangle Arts, Marseilles, FR; Reparations, Theater Spektakel, Zurich, CH.