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Nari Ward

Mudam Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Jul 1–Nov 20, 2006

Installation view of Geography: Bottle Messenger at Mudam Luxembourg

Luxembourg

Eldorado: a search
“Eldorado” is first of all an adventure, the search of a treasure, that of imagination: “A museum as ideal dwelling place. An undetermined space devoted to the imaginary through an interactive relationship between architecture, interior spaces and a historical site, and which plays out the functionalities, uses and conventions that govern the representation of art, its definitions, its observation and certainly the entirety of its experiences. The exhibition stirs up the works, and therein lies its true value“ (Jean-Louis Froment, for the exhibition catalogue “Eldorado”).

“Eldorado” is supported by all these - artists, art lovers, key figures from the cultural and political scene - who, for the last fifteen years, have worked towards the museum project in Luxembourg, seeing the light of day. The exhibition invites the public to discover the venue “from the cellar to the attic” where around sixty artists have contributed, and to participate, each in an individual way, in this creation and in this development of a place of dreams and desires that Mudam represents.

Eldorado: a poetic distance
The exhibition covers many facets of expression which artists are currently using: photography, painting, drawing, video, new media, fashion, design, graphics, sound, architecture, sculpture. It shows the relationships that the different techniques have with each other and displays their coherence and how they complement each other in relation to themes that the artists transpose in their contemporary works. Mudam keeps a close eye on changes in these practices as part of its duty. Art is the expression of a poetic distance from the world, going beyond the tools which are used - the question of technique no longer matters: “It is through that same polyphony where all artistic sonorities simultaneously merge the moment they are brought forth that these objects present the inaugural history of the museum“(Jean-Louis Froment, for the exhibition catalogue “Eldorado”).

Sculpture by Nari Ward

Nari Ward

Geography: Bottle Messenger, 2002

About the Artist

Portrait of Nari Ward

In a career spanning over three decades, artist Nari Ward (b. 1963, St. Andrew, Jamaica; lives and works in New York, NY) has gained recognition for an interdisciplinary and multimedia practice that engages historical and contemporary discourse around race, migration, democracy, identity, and community. Ward is best known for his wall and installation-based sculptural works created primarily from materials found and collected throughout Harlem, his longtime neighborhood in New York. These objects imbue his work with a sense of intimacy, reflecting the shared experience of community. Combining materials to re-contextualize their original meanings, Ward’s assemblages probe a range of spiritual and conceptual issues through literal and metaphorical juxtaposition.

Materially specific but conceptually ambiguous, Ward’s multimedia and performance works unfold into many possible interpretations—as materials and movements accumulate, so too do signifiers. Each found object—including baseball bats, strollers, shoelaces, cash registers, bottles, and shopping carts—contains a multiplicity of meanings and histories that speak to both collective experience and individual memory. The intentional synthesis of such objects, combined with the more traditional disciplines of painting, sculpture, and performance, allows for varied interpretations, inviting viewers to project their own associations and transcend the specific context of any given work. At the same time, Ward’s art reflects on the complexities of contemporary society, transforming overlooked material through artmaking to foreground forgotten histories or marginalized communities.