Kiluanji Kia Henda

Something Happened on the Way to Heaven

curated by Luigi Fassi

31 gennaio – 1 March2020

The MAN Museo d’Arte Provincia di Nuoro is pleased to present the first major solo exhibition in a European museum dedicated to Kiluanji Kia Henda (Luanda, Angola, 1979), one of the most important artists and activists of African origin on the contemporary art scene. The exhibition will run from Friday 31 January to Sunday 1 March 2020.
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven is an exhibition curated by Luigi Fassi, director of the MAN. It has been organized specifically for the museum in Nuoro, which, in collaboration with the Fondazione Sardegna Film Commission, invited the artist to stay on the island and show us Sardinia through his eyes. This project has adopted the same invitation/residency formula used last year with the French-Ivorian artist François-Xavier Gbré and continues the MAN’s exploration of the contemporary African art scene.
 
Something Happened on the Way to Heaven features a series of sculptures and installations created especially by Kiluanji Kia Henda during his time on the island, alongside earlier photographic works. In the artist’s new pieces, Sardinia’s beautiful landscape is merged with the architectural traces of the Cold War and the military bases still present on the island. These are elements that characterize the entire Mediterranean basin today, which is a place of migration and social injustice within a setting of idyllic natural beauty.