Ibrahim Mahama | |
|---|---|
| Born | 1987 (age 36–37) Tamale, Northern Region, Ghana |
| Education | Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology |
| Occupation | Artist |
Ibrahim Mahama (born 1987) is a Ghanaian artist [1] of monumental installations. [2] [3] He lives and works in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale, Ghana. [4] He is the founder of Red Clay Studio, Savannah Centre for Contemporary Arts and Nkrumah Volini.
He obtained a Master of Fine Arts degree in Painting and Sculpture in 2013 and a bachelor of Fine Arts degree in Painting in 2010 at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology, Kumasi, Ghana. [1]
He often works with found objects by transforming them in his practice and giving them new meanings. Mahama is best known for draping buildings in old jute sacks which he stitches together with a team of collaborators to create patchwork quilts. He was the youngest artist featured in the Ghana Pavilion at the 2019 Venice Biennale. His work was shown during the 56th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale in Italy All The World’s Futures curated by Okwui Enwezor in 2015. [4]
Mahama shows his works in Ghanaian markets, as well as galleries. This is intended to provide a critical reflection on the value system inherent to his materials. [2] He is also a painter and sculptor.
In 2013, Stefan Simchowitz, along with Dublin gallerist Ellis King, sued Mahama. Mahama had been paid by the dealers, but refused to authenticate derivative works they produced from Mahama's installations of Ghanaian coal sacks. In 2016, Simchowitz settled with Mahama. [5] [6]
In 2019, he started the Savannah Center for Contemporary Art (SCCA), Tamale. [7] Mahama also repurposed 120 scratched second-class train seats through a parliament he calls the "parliament of ghost", a replica of Ghana's parliament chamber. The parliament of ghost was installed at the Whitworth Art gallery in Manchester. [8]
Mahama's work was exhibited at Artspace for the 22nd Biennale of Sydney in 2020. [9]
As part of his contribution to the development of Africa through art, [10] Mahama was named the 73rd most influential African by theafricareport.com in the list of 100 most influential Africans 2019/2020. [11]
Mahama is married to Khadija Yussif Iddi. The pair got married in July 2023 at a private ceremony in Tamale. [12]
| Exhibition | Year | Location | Country |
|---|---|---|---|
| Garden of scarcity [13] | 2022 | De Oude Kerk, Amsterdam | Netherlands |
| Lazarus [14] | 2021 | White Cube | United Kingdom |
| Fragments [15] | 2017 | White Cube | United Kingdom |
| Material Effects | 2015 | Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University | United States |
| Civil Occupation | 2014 | Ellis King, Dublin | Ireland |
| Kawokudi Coal Sack Installation, Accra, Ghana Nima Coal Sack Installation, Accra, Ghana Adum Coal Sack Installation, Kumasi, Ghana Jute, What Is Art? | 2013 | Accra Accra Railway Station, Kumasi K.N.U.S.T Museum, Kumasi | Ghana |
Sisala Coal Market, Coal Sack Installation Trading Identities, Installation | 2012 | Newtown, Accra MFA Block, Kumasi | Ghana |
| The colonized body, Installation | 2011 | Kokomlemle, Accra | Ghana |
| Class and Identity, Installation, K.N.U.S.T, Kumasi, Ghana | 2010 | K.N.U.S.T, Kumasi | Ghana |
| Purity? Cultures of display, Installation | 2009 | Bomso, Kumasi | Ghana |
Tamale is the capital city of the Northern Region of Ghana. It is Ghana's third largest city, with a population of 371,351 people. The city has been ranked as the fastest-growing city in West Africa. Tamale is located in the Kingdom of Dagbon, Ghana's oldest Kingdom. Major ethnic groups who resided in Tamale are Dagomba, Gonja, Mamprusi, Akan, and Dagaaba.
Alhaji Aliu Mahama was a Ghanaian engineer and politician who was Vice-President of Ghana from 7 January 2001 to 7 January 2009. A member of the New Patriotic Party, he was Ghana's first Muslim Vice-President.
Real Republikans was a Ghanaian association football club based in the capital, Accra, along with Hearts of Oak, and was among the most successful Ghanaian clubs in the country’s first decade of independence. It holds Ghana's record for the most consecutive FA Cup wins, four. The club formed the core of the national team, the Black Stars, in its early years.
Nayon Bilijo is a Ghanaian politician and a former Member of Parliament for the Saboba constituency of the Northern Region of Ghana. He is also an agriculturalist, forestry consultant and politician as well as a former Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development.
Stefan Simchowitz is a Los Angeles-based art collector, art curator, and art advisor. He is a vocal proponent of social media as a legitimate way of discovering, distributing, and popularizing the fine arts, primarily using Facebook and Instagram as platforms for self-promotion, discovering new artists, and endorsing those he already manages.
Zohra Opoku is a German-born Ghanaian textile artist and photographer. She used textile patterns to inform her photographed portraits. She was born in Altdöbern, Germany, and she lives in Accra. She is known for her installations, performances, textile designs, photographs and videos.
Ibrahim Mahama is a Ghanaian businessman and founder of Engineers and Planners, a West African indigenously-owned mining company. He owns other businesses in Ghana, including Dzata Cement Limited. He is the younger brother of John Dramani Mahama, President of Ghana from 2012 to 2017.
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Ghana Freedom was a Ghanaian art exhibition at the 2019 Venice Biennale, an international contemporary art biennial in which countries represent themselves through self-organizing national pavilions. The country's debut pavilion, also known as the Ghana pavilion, was highly anticipated and named a highlight of the overall Biennale by multiple journalists. The six participating artists—Felicia Abban, John Akomfrah, El Anatsui, Selasi Awusi Sosu, Ibrahim Mahama, and Lynette Yiadom-Boakye—represented a range of artist age, gender, locations, and prestige, selected by curator Nana Oforiatta Ayim. The show paired young and old artists across sculpture, filmmaking, and portraiture, and emphasized common threads across postcolonial Ghanaian culture in both its current inhabitants and the diaspora. Almost all of the art was commissioned specifically for the pavilion. Architect David Adjaye designed the pavilion with rusty red walls of imported soil to reflect the cylindrical, earthen dwellings of the Gurunsi within the Biennale's Arsenale exhibition space. The project was supported by the Ghana Ministry of Tourism and advised by former Biennale curator Okwui Enwezor. After the show's run, May–November 2019, works from the exhibition were set to display in Accra, Ghana's capital.
Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art is a centre of arts initiated by Ibrahim Mahamah in Tamale, Ghana. The centre is a space where artist run projects, exhibitions and research hub, cultural repository and more.
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Gilbert Seidu Iddi is a Ghanaian academic and politician, who is a member of the National Democratic Congress. For more than 15 years, Iddi worked in several senior management positions International Development and Agricultural agencies including managing an extensive agricultural programme funded by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD). He served as Northern Regional Minister during the Rawlings era between 1997 and 2001. He served as the chief executive officer of the Savannah Accelerated Development Authority (SADA) from 2011 to 2013.
Ibrahim Mahama is a Ghanaian lawyer, and civil servant. He was Ghana's Commissioner for Secretariats and Departments from 1967 to 1968 and Commissioner for Information from 1968 to 1969.
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Tamale Senior High School formerly Government Secondary School, Tamale, Gbewaa Secondary School, and more recently Tamale Secondary School is a co-educational second cycle boarding school located at Education Ridge, a suburb of the Sagnarigu Municipality. The school was founded in 1951 by the then British Colonial Authorities as the first second cycle institution of the Northern Territories.
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