CULTURE
Ugandan art sensation Acaye Kerunen makes her North American debut at Art Basel Miami Beach this fall
IT'S ONLY NATURAL From left: a portrait of artist Acaye Kerunen and two mixed-media works from 2021 that were inspired by the traditional crafts of her native Uganda— Banange and Bamutenda!. 56
“E
xperiencing Acaye Kerunen’s work for the first time in Venice was an absolute revelation,” says gallerist Tim Poe, of Blum & Poe, which has outposts in Los Angeles, New York, and Tokyo. “Her multidimensional view of the world—of collaboration, of community, of sustainability, of beauty, collectively the best that art can bring to the world—has been pure magic.” The Kampala-based Kerunen has virtually taken the art world by storm since April, with the
opening of “Radiance: They Dream in Time,” an exhibition in the inaugural Uganda pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale, which runs through November 27. Curated by Shaheen Merali, the presentation features a suite of what the artist calls “meditations on the intricacies of natural systems,” which draw heavily on ancestral knowledge and the craft traditions of her native Uganda, the works having been forged of natural materials: banana fiber, raffia, reeds, and palm leaves, locally sourced from the wetlands around Nalubaale (Lake Victoria) and the Great Lakes region of Central Africa. The incorporation of such
KERUNEN: © ETHEL AANYU; BANANGE, 2021: ACAYE KERUNEN STUDIO, © ACAYE KERUNEN, COURTESY PACE GALLERY
A Woven World View
AVENUE MAGAZINE | NOVEMBER—DECEMBER 2022
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