Dawit L. Petros
Overview
Dawit L. Petros is a visual artist born in Eritrea and based in Montreal. Working with installation, photography, research and extensive travels, his practice centres around a critical rereading of the relationship between African histories and European modernism. In recent projects, he employs abstraction as an act of translation to push against naturalised ways of understanding form, colour and subjectivity. By drawing upon forms rooted in diverse histories, Petros' artistic language enables a metaphorically rich articulation of the fluidity of contemporary transnational experiences and attendant issues of displacement, place-making and cultural negotiation.
Recent exhibitions include:
Recent exhibitions include:
Trace: Formations of Likeness, Haus der Kunst, Munich, Germany (2023); As We Rise, Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, MA (2023); Ozangé, Spanish Biennial of African Photography, Malaga, Spain, (2022); Spazio Disponible, Galerie de l’UQAM, Montreal (2022); Spazio Disponible, Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina, SK (2021); Prospetto a Mare, Art Gallery of Guelph, Guelph, ON (2021); Gaps, holes, fissures, and frictions, Bradley Ertaskiran, Montreal, QC (2021); To the Edge of Time, KU Leuven, Belgium (2021); A Recurrrence of Forms, Space 204 Gallery, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN (2020); Spazio Disponibile, University at Buffalo Art Galleries, New York (2020);Spazio Disponible, The Power Plant, Toronto (2020); Here We Are, Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto (2018); Nowhere Is A Place, Rencontres de Bamako, Bamako Biennale (2017); Prospect.4 The Lotus In Spite of the Swamp, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans (2017); Recent Histories, Walther Collection Project Space, New York (2016); Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam, Netherlands (2016); The Stranger’s Notebook, Kansas City Art Institute (2016); 56th Venice Biennale international exhibition (2015), The View From Here, Tiwani Contemporary, London (2016); Under Another Name, the Studio Museum in Harlem, NY (2014); Sense of Place, The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (2013); Earth Matters: The Land As Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, The National Museum of African Art, Washington, DC (2013); and Mimesis, Lianzhou International Photo Festival, China (2011). He was awarded an Independent Study Fellowship at the Whitney Museum of American Art in 2012. In 2021 he received the title of Museum of Contemporary Photography Terra Foundation for American Art Fellow and the Paul de Hueck and Norman Walford Career Achievement Award for Art Photography.
Works
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Recollections (Contrasting Notions, Battalion 12), 2023
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Recollections (Contrasting Notions, Battalion 6), 2023
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Spectral Fragment, 2023
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Istruzioni (Transits, Trajectories, Invisible Networks), Part I, 2021
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Untitled (Epilogue VIII), Longueuil, Quebec, 2021
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Untitled (Flight Pattern), 2017
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Nearness and Distance Constitute a Position, Nouakchott, Mauritania, 2016
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The Green March (Beyond the Conclusive Logic of Monumentality), 2016
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Untitled (Overlapping and intertwined territories that fall from view III), Catania, Italy, 2016
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Untitled (Prologue), Nouadhibou, Mauritania, 2016
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Proposition 2, Mountain Badwater, Death Valley, California, 2007
Press
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Conversation: Architects Emanuel Admassu and Jen Wood of AD–WO with Dawit L. Petros
Arctic.edu, December 2, 2023 -
Africa unmasked at the Tate: The continent through its own lens
BBC, July 23, 2023 -
Dawit L. Petros: Recollections now opening at Tiwani Contemporary
Art Daily, July 12, 2023 -
A Major Show of Contemporary African Photography at Tate Modern Considers the Medium As a Tool for World-Building. Here
Sarah Cascone, Artnet, July 4, 2023 -
Peabody Essex Museum To Host 'As We Rise' Black Photography Event
Scott Souza, Patch, June 2, 2023 -
Capture Photography Festival 2023 wraps up with a Speaker Series, April 29
Gail Johnson, Stir Arts & Culture, April 27, 2023 -
Art Collector Kenneth Montague on the Joys of Collecting Emerging Artists
Dominique Clayton, Cultured Mag, April 21, 2023 -
As We Rise: Photography Publication and Coinciding Travelling Exhibition Explore Black Life on Both Sides of Atlantic
Victoria L. Valentine, Culture type, November 18, 2022 -
Past and present: Regina art galleries showcasing Black artists
Luke Simard, CTV News -
Résister aux envahisseurs
Jérôme Delgado, LeDevoir, September 25, 2021 -
Culture africaine: les rendez-vous en mai
Siegfried Forster, Radio France Internationale, May 4, 2021 -
‘It’s about looking around us’: New York’s Frieze art fair tackles social justice
Nadja Sayej, The Guardian, May 4, 2021 -
Dawit L Petros's best photograph: a shipwrecked Japanese trawler
Karin Andreasson, The Guardian, May 17, 2018 -
Highlights From The 1:54 Art Fair In Morocco
Garreth Van Niekerk, Huffington Post, February 28, 2018 -
Happy Days: A Tightly Curated Prospect.4 Offers a Welcome Dose of Optimism
Lauren Ross, Art News, February 23, 2018
Exhibitions
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Dawit L. Petros
Recollections 5 - 29 Jul 2023Tiwani Contemporary is delighted to announce our forthcoming presentation, Dawit L. Petros: Recollections. The exhibition continues Petros’ inquiries into the complex relationship between African and European histories of colonialism and...Read more -
Dawit L. Petros
The Stranger's Notebook (Prologue) 20 May - 25 Jun 2016Tiwani Contemporary is pleased to announce The Stranger's Notebook (Prologue), a solo exhibition of new work by Dawit L. Petros . This will be Petros' first solo exhibition in Europe,...Read more -
Andrew Esiebo, Délio Jasse, Lebohang Kganye, Namsa Leuba, Mimi Cherono Ng'ok, Abraham Oghobase & Dawit L. Petros
The View From Here 22 May - 27 Jun 2015Tiwani Contemporary is pleased to announce The View From Here, a photography exhibition, which will open during Photo London. The View From Here will present works by seven emerging international...Read more