HANG DON'T CUT : SLAVS AND TATARS feat. Andrey Anro, Dozie Kanu, Mina Masoumi, Lin May Saeed

ANDREY ANRO (b. 1987, Smarhon, Belarus) lives and works in Berlin. Anro uses painting, photography, digital collage, and installation to explore topics such as historical heritage, politics, dictatorship, religion, disappearance and death. The artist reappropriates historical imagery in the prism of mythology, as well as collective and historical memory, and visualises them through figurative painting. Anro’s works are in the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow (MOCAK), Poland, in the ART4 Museum in Moscow, in private collections in Lithuania, Sweden, Canada, Russia,and the USA. He has recently been exhibited at Sentiment, Zurich (2022); Gray Mandola Studio, Poznan (2021); KX space, Brest (2020); Third Place, Hrodna (2020, solo); Syntax gallery, Moscow (2019, solo), and National Center for Contemporary Arts, Minsk (2019).

DOZIE KANU (b. 1993, Houston, US) lives and works in Santarém, Portugal. Appropriating found objects and refashioning them to new aesthetics, Kanu creates sculptures and photographs that are inherently disobedient and stubbornly slippery. They resist classification and exist instead as communicative or performative objects. Kanu’s use of found, discarded objects honours and reanimates the people whose labour gave them function, and thus memorializes both the forsaken efforts and material casualties ofa culture’s emphasis on novelty and productivity. The artist’s ongoing investigation into the limits of form, functionality, materiality and usefulness are often filtered through a personal lens drawn from the artist’s lived experiences. Dozie Kanu’s first solo institutional exhibition was at the Studio Museum of Harlem in 2019. Recent exhibitions include Quinn Harrelson Gallery, Los Angeles (2023); Galerie Francesca Pia, Zurich (2022, solo); Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen (2022, solo); Project Native Informant, London (2022, solo); SFMoMA (2022); Public Art Fund, New York (2022), and Performance Space, New York (2021, solo).

MINA MASOUMI (b. 1985, Tehran, Iran) lives and works in Tehran. She is a graduate of Persian Literature from Zanjan University, and holds two Mumtaz-level excellence degrees in Nastaliq and Shekasteh- Nastaliq from the Society of Iranian Calligraphists. In her works, she derives inspiration from traditional Persian and Arabic schools and styles, illuminated manuscripts and classical Persian literature, Iranian and Islamic architecture, Persian Miniature and Middle-eastern culture. She is represented by Delgosha Gallery.

LIN MAY SAEED (b. 1973, Würzburg, Germany) lives and works in Berlin. Saeed makes sculptures, sculptural reliefs, drawings, works on paper and video. Known for her use of non-traditional materials, such as and especially styrofoam, Saeed’s work is directly linked to and thematically informed by her interest in animals and her commitment to animal activism. Her work deals with the exploitation of animals, their depiction, liberation, and potentially harmonious relationship with human beings, and the self-seeking meanness of the latter. Saeed’s iconographic frame of reference is rich and varied. It includes Egyptian statuary, Greco-Roman sculpture, and scientific and natural history museum displays. Saeed has recently exhibited at Chris Sharp Gallery, Los Angeles (2023, solo); Jacky Strenz, Frankfurt (2021, solo); Museo Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2021); IUCN World Conservation Congress, Marseille (2021); Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (2021); The Clark Art Institute, Williamstown (2020, solo); What Pipeline, Detroit (2019, solo). Upcoming exhibitions include Georg-Kolbe-Museum, Berlin (2023; solo) and Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden (2023).