News
2020-10-26
Photograph by John Akomfrah now part of the Lewben Art Foundation collection
The Lewben Art Foundation has acquired photograph by well known British artist John Akomfrah. His works belong to collections such as Deutsche Bank, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, MoMA, the National Gallery of Canada, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Tate, and many more.
John Akomfrah was born in 1957 in Accra, Ghana. In 1982 Akomfrah graduated in sociology from the University of Portsmouth. The artist co-founded the Black Audio Film Collective in 1982-98 with artists Lina Gopaul and David Lawson. His works belong to collections such as Deutsche Bank, the Louis Vuitton Foundation, the Chicago Museum of Contemporary Art, MoMA, the National Gallery of Canada, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the Tate, and many more. Akomfrah has received more than 20 awards, as well as honorary doctorate from universities such as the University of the Arts in London, Goldsmiths University and the University of Portsmouth. He currently works and lives in London.
John Akomfrah is an artist, writer, director and curator. In his works, he explores the themes of postcolonialism, memory and temporality, and often comments on the experiences of migrants. Early in his career, Akomfrah formed a diverse visual style for his films, creating and combining archival material from various periods, writings from literary and classical sources, and self-filmed footage. It is through montage that he destroys the narratives that are established and through that he speaks of imporant social problems.
