R.I.P. Germain

Gidi Up (2018)

24/09/2018 - 15/10/2018

A solo exhibition at Peak, London, UK

Gidi Up

R.I.P. Germain

Frieze week Rodeo (special night) ​Friday 5th October

Drinks will be served

Show on view from ​Monday 24th September - 15th October

What does it mean to have so little control over how people see you, and to be so pressed from all sides? What happens when how you present yourself is taken as an invitation to consume you? Flippant consumption of the black male body is rampant; how can making images of the black male body be resistant to that? What does it mean to make work about this as a black man, and who gets to consume it and on what terms?

Got a screwface all night, all day

Screwface keeps breddas at bay

Screwface means keep well away, stay away

Screwface means get out my way

Screwface means you don’t know me

What you looking at, what’s your beef?

Screwface means I’m not having it

Screwface means I’m not a chief

Screwface mean I’m not happy right now

That’s why no smile was used

Screwface means I’m not pleased

Screwface means I’m not amused

Screwface means I just wanna walk not talk

Screwface means I just wanna leave

When I activate my screwface, give me space

Screwface means let me breathe

Enter the zone where the cycle of objectification and representation is narrowed to a hysterical loop: social war, existential war, inner war, outer war, total war. Take a breath, if you can.