27. June - 7. September 2014

«La Naissance de Stockholm..!»

Moderna Museum Stockholm

Daniel Birnbaum met Georges Adéagbo when he was the artistic director of the 53rd Venice Biennial in 2009. A couple of years later, he became the director of the Moderna Museum Stockholm, and invited Adéagbo 2014 to compose a site-specific work for the museum and the capital of Sweden.  During several research visits Adéagbo 2012-2013 collected images to be transformed in Benin into paintings and carved panels. When he saw the first painted view of Stockholm dating 1635 in the Storkyrkan, (the big church) he decided to call his installation “La naissance de Stockholm” (The birth of Stockholm) and had the image reproduced in Benin into a relief carving. In addition, he referred to the history and collection of the Moderna Museum, in particular Robert Rauschenberg’s sculpture of a goat walking through a car tire, called Monogram (1955-59), by having it painted in Benin by one of his team-members on canvas.(see  introduction of his team) Adéagbo had a square house built into the space of 19 x 19 meters with one entrance. His hand-written texts were projected on the walls, appearing white as if neon-signs. The entire installation was purchased 2014 with a contribution from The Friends of Moderna Museet and was partially re-installed in Moderna museum's exhibition called "After Babel" in 2015.