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Amoako Boafo
Proper Love
In autumn 2024 the Belvedere is staging Europe’s first museum exhibition on the art of Ghanaian painter Amoako Boafo (born 1984 in Accra). As one of the most important voices from a new generation of Black artists, Boafo portrays his friends, acquaintances, and people from public life, presenting a contemporary image of Black self-empowerment and self-perception.
This exhibition closes, for the time being, a circle in the artist’s biography: After graduating from art college in Accra, Boafo began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 2014. These were years that shaped him as an artist, in which he developed his signature style characterized by his unusual finger-painting technique. Applied to the human body, this creates a sculptural effect that contrasts with the flatness of the rest of the painting. The people portrayed by Boafo embody the idea of Black identity that draws on its own culture, to be understood as an act of resistance against the racist labels of a predominantly white society. This form of Black subjectivity is expressed in the appearance of the sitters, who confront the viewer as self-confident individuals and often seek direct eye contact. Boafo imagined the collage-like garments using textured paper, borrowing from floral and geometric wallpaper patterns as well as referencing Black culture’s historical and political dress codes. The artist’s intensive engagement with Black history is subtly reflected in his paintings that include motifs inspired by literary works by key pioneers of the Black Freedom Movement.
In addition to the exhibition at the Lower Belvedere, Boafo’s works will be integrated in the permanent displays on Vienna 1900 at the Upper Belvedere, showing them in connection with the pictures of key art-historical figures such as Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual catalogue (German/English) with contributions by Ekow Eshun, Sergey Harutoonian, Mahret Ifeoma Kupka, Stella Rollig, Taiye Selasi and Vasilena Stoyanova.
Curated by Sergey Harutoonian.
Assistant Curator: Vasilena Stoyanova
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Biography
Amoako Boafo (b. 1984 in Accra/Ghana) portrays friends, acquaintances, and public figures who embody a contemporary image of Black identity and self-perception. As a member of the African diaspora, Amoako Boafo places the Black body at the center of his artistic work. In doing so, he actively participates in reframing and realigning the global perception of Black culture that has broken free from the external influences of white mainstream society. His painterly style is characterized by a stark contrast between two-dimensional and ornamental pictorial elements and the three-dimensional rendering of his subjects, which he achieves through his signature finger-painting technique rather than using a brush. His sitters, often placed strictly frontal in his compositions, seek direct eye contact with the viewer and confidently meet them at eye level.
The artist graduated from Ghanatta College of Art in Accra in 2008 and continued his studies in 2014 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. Amoako Boafo was awarded the Walter Koschatzky Art Prize in 2017 and the STRABAG-Artaward International in 2019.
His solo exhibitions include the Denver Art Museum (Denver, Colorado), Seattle Art Museum (Seattle, Washington), Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (Houston, Texas), and the Museum of African Diaspora (San Francisco, California), among others.
Amoako Boafo’s works are included in national and international museum collections such as the Musée National d'Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou (Paris, France); Leopold Museum (Vienna, Austria); Los Angeles County Museum of Art (Los Angeles, California); Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum (New York City, New York); Denver Art Museum (Denver, Colorado); Blenheim Foundation (Woodstock, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom), and the Rubell Family Collection (Miami, Florida).
The artist lives and works in Accra, Ghana.
