Courtesy the artist and Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Paris. Photo: Alexandra de Cossette

SANTIAGO MOSTYN - 08-18 (PAST PERFECT)

Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Paris

7 April - 22 May, 2022

Santiago Mostyn’s films, installations, texts, and performances explore the dissonance of lives lived between different political spheres. Mostyn builds intuitive narratives through layering and collage, whether in video or installation, working fluidly with both new and archival imagery. His work simultaneously employs footage of historical events, political and cultural figures, and racial injustice to examine questions of memory and identity, both personal and collective.

In 08-18 (Past Perfect), Mostyn extends his thinking around the fragility and potential of the body in two distinct political spaces: late Capitalism in the United States, and post-colonial populism in southern Africa and the Caribbean. In his 2019 video triptych Altarpiece (exhibited at the Institut Suèdois in Paris in 2019 and at Andréhn-Schiptjenko Stockholm in 2021), Mostyn sourced material from online archives and combined these with his own recordings to explore how broad histories and personal memory might intersect in the gestures of Black bodies confined to these two spheres.

Building on the research behind Altarpiece, Mostyn has in 08-18 (Past Perfect) created pairings and triptychs of analogue photographs, made over the course of a decade of travel between sites of personal significance for the artist. In each pair or trio, photographs from the different locations are placed in contrast (Harare–Tobago, Carenage–Mutare, Miami–Port-of-Spain) to consider how individuals on either side of the Black Atlantic choose to pose or assemble, and how gestures carry over time or across generations. Mostyn installs these photographs in a non-chronological ‘timeline’, creating a rhythm as the viewer reads the photographs in a rolling flow, with the gaps in the installation as part of the rhythm.

Exploring the mechanics of photography, Mostyn has created a wallpaper for the gallery using a simple cyanotype process – rolls of paper prepared with light-sensitive emulsion that develops over the course of the exhibition, turning progressively deeper shades of blue.

Santiago Mostyn (b. 1981, San Fransisco USA) is based in Sweden but maintains strong ties to Zimbabwe and Trinidad & Tobago, the countries of his upbringing. He received his BA in from Yale University and after attending Städelschule from 2006-2007, he received an MA in 2013 from the Royal Institute of Art, Stockholm. Santiago was a resident at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin in 2021, and will be a fellow at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart in 2022. Recent exhibitions include 8-18 (Past Perfect) at Gerðarsafn Art Museum, Reykjavik (2022); The Real Show at CAC Brétigny (2022); Swimming Pool-Troubled Waters at Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2021); Deep Listening for Longing at the 2021 Borås Art Biennial, Sweden (2021), With New Eyes at Goteborgs Konsthall, Gothenburg (2021), Your Shadow is a Mirror at Andréhn-Schiptjenko, Stockholm, Sweden (2021), and Grass Widows at Southern Alberta Art Gallery, Lethbridge, AB, Canada (2020).

For further information and visuals, please contact Joséphine Bursachi:

josephine@andrehn-schiptjenko.com

www.andrehn-schiptjenko.com