The 2020 exhibition programme at the Gropius Bau begins with Six Songs, Swirling Gracefully in the Taut Air, a photography exhibition showcasing works from various long-term series composed by Berlin-based Nigerian photographer Akinbode Akinbiyi over four decades. This exhibition explores Akinbiyi’s approach as a wanderer and mediator between the hemispheres, ceaselessly documenting and walking across coastlines and cities such as Lagos, Berlin, Johannesburg, Bamako, Athens, Chicago, Dakar and Khartoum. The city is his studio and people’s daily rituals become recurring manifestations before his camera. This exhibition highlights his unique relation to medium format photography and use of the twin-lens reflex camera in communicating the soul of inhabited landscapes. Taken from hundreds of photographs that comprise these durational projects and form the artist’s personal archive, a special selection will be brought together at the Gropius Bau, marking his first major solo exhibition in Germany after his participation at documenta 14 in Kassel and Athens.
