Lisson Gallery

John Akomfrah

John Akomfrah is a hugely respected artist and filmmaker, whose works are characterised by their investigations into memory, post-colonialism, temporality and aesthetics and often explore the experiences of migrant diasporas globally. Akomfrah was a founding member of the influential Black Audio Film Collective, which started in London in 1982 alongside artists David Lawson and Lina Gopaul, who he still collaborates with today. Their first film, Handsworth Songs (1986) explored events surrounding the 1985 riots in Birmingham and London through a charged combination of archive footage, still photos, newly shot material and newsreel. The film won several international prizes and established a multi-layered visual style that has become a recognisable motif of Akomfrah’s practice. Other works include the three-screen installation The Unfinished Conversation (2012), a moving portrait of the cultural theorist Stuart Hall’s life and work; Peripeteia (2012), an imagined drama visualising the lives of individuals included in two 16th century portraits by Albrecht Dürer and Mnemosyne (2010) which exposes experiences of migrants in the UK, questioning the notion of Britain as a promised land by revealing the realities of economic hardship and casual racism.

In 2015, Akomfrah premiered his three-screen film installation Vertigo Sea (2015), which explores what Ralph Waldo Emerson calls ‘the sublime seas’. Fusing archival material, readings from classical sources and newly shot footage, Akomfrah’s piece focuses on the disorder and cruelty of the whaling industry and juxtaposes it with scenes of many generations of migrants making epic crossings of the ocean for a better life. In 2017, Akomfrah presented his largest film installation to date, Purple (2017), at the Barbican in London, co-commissioned by Bildmuseet Umeå, Sweden, TBA21—Academy, The Institute of Contemporary Art/ Boston, Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon and Garage Museum of Contemporary Art, Moscow. The six-channel video installation addresses climate change, human communities and wilderness. More recently, Akomfrah debuted Precarity (2017) at Prospect 4 New Orleans, following the life of forgotten New Orleans jazz trumpeter Charles 'Buddy' Bolden. In 2018, Akomfrah participated in the UK wide World War One arts programme 14-18 Now, with his multiscreen installation Mimesis: African Soldier (2018), which commemorated African and colonial participants who fought, served and perished during The Great War. In 2019, on the occasion of his participation at the first Ghana Pavilion at the 58th Venice Biennale, John Akomfrah presented Four Nocturnes (2019), a three-channel piece that reflects on the complex intertwined relationship between humanity’s destruction of the natural world and our destruction of ourselves.

Akomfrah (born 1957) lives and works in London. His solo exhibitions include Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington D.C., USA (2022); Midlands Art Centre, Birmingham, UK (2022); E-WERK, Freiburg, Germany (2022); Remai Modern, Saskatoon, Canada (2022); Towner Eastbourne, Eastbourne, UK (2021); Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona, Spain (2021); Centro Andaluz de Arte Contemporáneo, Sevilla, Spain (2020); Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, WA, USA (2020); Secession, Vienna, Austria (2020); BALTIC, Gateshead, UK (2019); ICA Boston, MA, USA (2019); Museu Coleção Berardo, Lisbon, Portugal (2018); New Museum, New York, NY, USA (2018); Bildmuseet, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden (2015, 2018); SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA, USA (2018); Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid, Spain (2018); Barbican, London, UK (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester, UK (2017); Centro Cultural Banco do Brasil, São Paulo, Brazil (2017); Perth International Arts Festival, John Curtin Gallery, Curtin University, Perth, Australia (2017); The Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Australia (2017); Centre of Contemporary Art, Christchurch, New Zealand (2016); Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK (2016); Nikolaj Kunsthal, Copenhagen, Denmark (2016); STUK Kunstcentrum, Leuven, Belgium (2016);  Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, Michigan, USA (2014); Tate Britain, London, UK (2013-14) and a week long series of screenings at MoMA, New York, USA (2011). His participation in international group shows includes: ‘Sharjah Biennial 15: Thinking Historically in the Present', Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2023); ‘Global Ghana’, The Africa Institute, Sharjah, UAE and Accra, Ghana (2022); 'Fault Lines', North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, USA (2022); ‘Posteriority’, Museum of Contemporary Art Busan, Busan, South Korea (2021); ‘Family – Visions of a shared humanity’, Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia (2021); ‘Am I Human To You?’, Art Museum KUBE, Alesund, Norway (2021); ‘Affect Machine: Self-healing in the Post-Capitalist Era’, Taipaei Fine Arts Museum, Taipei, Taiwan (2021); ‘Terminal’, City Gallery, Wellington, New Zealand (2020); Ghana Pavilion, 58th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2019); 'Strange Days: Memories of the Future', New Museum x The Store, London, UK (2018); ‘Histórias Afro-Atlânticas’, Museu de Arte de São Paulo Assis Chateaubriand, São Paulo, Brazil (2018); ‘From where I stand, my eye will send a light to you in the North’, Te Tuhi Museum, Auckland, New Zealand (2018); Prospect 4, New Orleans, LA, USA (2017); 'Restless Earth', La Triennale di Milano, Milan, Italy (2017); 'Unfinished Conversations', Museum of Modern Art, New York City, NY, USA (2017); 'British Art Show 8’ (2015-17); ‘All the World’s Futures’, 56th Venice Biennale, Venice, Italy (2015); ‘History is Now: 7 Artists Take On Britain’, Hayward Gallery, London, UK (2015); ‘Africa Now: Politcal Patterns’, SeMA, Seoul, South Korea (2014); Sharjah Biennial 11, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates (2013); Liverpool Biennial, UK (2012) and Taipei Biennial, Taiwan (2012). He has also been featured in many international film festivals, including Sundance Film Festival, Utah, USA (2013 and 2011) and Toronto International Film Festival, Canada (2012). He was awarded the Artes Mundi Prize in 2017. He was awarded a Knighthood for services to the Arts in the 2023 New Year Honours. 

Recent, current and forthcoming projects

 ‘John Akomfrah: Purple’, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden (23 November 2022 - 7 January 2024)

‘Rising Sun: Artists in an Uncertain America’, African American Museum in Philadelphia (23 March 2023 - 8 October 2023)

‘John Akomfrah: Five Murmurations’, National Museum of African Art (14 October 2023 - TBA) 

‘John Akomfrah. A Space of Empathy’, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt (9 November 2023 - 28 January 2024)

‘John Akomfrah: Arcadia’, The Box Plymouth (18 November 2023 - 2024)

The British Pavilion, 60th International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia in 2024

Purple, 2017

John Akomfrah
Purple, 2017

6 channel HD colour video installation with 15.1 surround sound
62 minutes
Courtesy Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
Photographer Ron Blunt

Becoming Wind, 2023

John Akomfrah
Becoming Wind, 2023

Five channel HD video, colour, black & white, 7.1 surround sound
31 minutes 45 seconds
Courtesy Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt 2023
Photographer: Norbert Miguletz

Arcadia, 2023

John Akomfrah
Arcadia, 2023

Five channel HD Video, colour, black and white, 15.1 surround sound
58 minutes 38 seconds
Commissioned by The Box Plymouth, UK; co-commissioned by Sharjah Art Foundation and Hartwig Art Foundation, Amsterdam, with the generous support of Polygreen Culture and Art Initiative (PCAI), Piraeus, Greece. Installation view: Sharjah Biennial 15, Al Mureijah Art Spaces, Sharjah, 2023.
Courtesy of Sharjah Art Foundation
Photographer Shanavas Jamaluddin

Five Murmurations, 2021

John Akomfrah
Five Murmurations, 2021

Three channel HD black and white video installation, 7:1 sound. 54 min 39 secs. ed. of 5 + 2 APs

Triptych, 2020

John Akomfrah
Triptych, 2020

Three channel HD colour video, 7.1 sound. 10 mins.
Courtesy African American Museum in Philadelphia
Photographer Constance Mensh

Four Nocturnes, 2019

John Akomfrah
Four Nocturnes, 2019

Three channel HD colour video installation, 7.1 sound. 50 minutes. Ed. of 5 + 2 APs.

Vertigo Sea, 2015

John Akomfrah
Vertigo Sea, 2015

Three channel HD colour video installation, 7.1 sound (installation view) 48 minutes 30 seconds © Smoking Dogs Films; Courtesy Arnolfini, Bristol. Photo: Stuart Whipps

The Unfinished Conversation, 2012

John Akomfrah
The Unfinished Conversation, 2012

Three channel video installation, 7.1 sound
45 minutes 48 seconds
Courtesy Smoking Dogs Films and MAC Birmingham
Photographer Ilona Zielinska

Peripeteia, 2012

John Akomfrah
Peripeteia, 2012

Single channel HD colour video, 5.1 sound
17 minutes 28 seconds

Transfigured Night, 2013

John Akomfrah
Transfigured Night, 2013

Two channel HD colour video installation, 5.1 sound
26 minutes 31 seconds
Courtesy Galerie für Gegenwartskunst, E-WERK Freiburg
Photographer: Marc Doradzillo

Auto Da Fé, 2016

John Akomfrah
Auto Da Fé, 2016

Two channel HD colour video installation, 5.1 sound
40 minutes 30 seconds
AKOM160003-EXH

Untitled, 2016

John Akomfrah
Untitled, 2016

C-type print mounted on Dibond
Framed: 104.4 x 155.2 x 6 cm
41 3/4 x 62 x 2 3/8 in

Untitled, 2016

John Akomfrah
Untitled, 2016

C-type print mounted on Dibond
Framed: 104.4 x 155.2 x 6 cm
41 3/4 x 62 x 2 3/8 in
 

Preliminal Rites 4, 2017

John Akomfrah
Preliminal Rites 4, 2017

C-type print, mounted
Triptych: 155 x 206 x 4.5 cm each panel
Triptych: 61 x 81 1/8 x 1 3/4 in each panel
 

Preliminal Rites 8, 2017

John Akomfrah
Preliminal Rites 8, 2017

C-type print, mounted
Triptych: 152.4 x 203.2 cm (each panel)
Triptych: 60 x 80 in (each panel)
 

"The Monuments of Being” Series No.One, 2021

John Akomfrah
"The Monuments of Being” Series No.One, 2021

Giclee Print, Gold, Text
121.9 x 91.4 cm
48 x 36 in
 

"The Monuments of Being” Series No. Five, 2021

John Akomfrah
"The Monuments of Being” Series No. Five, 2021

Giclee Print, Gold, Text
121.9 x 91.4 cm
48 x 36 in
 

The Whiteness Was Not Consensual, 2021

John Akomfrah
The Whiteness Was Not Consensual, 2021

Inkjet print
Framed: 102.6 x 152.2 x 4.8 cm
Framed: 40 3/8 x 59 7/8 x 1 7/8 in
 

Our Skin Is The Monument, 2021

John Akomfrah
Our Skin Is The Monument, 2021

Giclee Print, Text
Framed: 103 x 153 x 5 cm
Framed: 40 1/2 x 60 1/4 x 2 in
 

We Are The Proof, 2021

John Akomfrah
We Are The Proof, 2021

Giclee Print, Text
152.4 x 101.6 cm
60 x 40 in
 

We Are The Proof, 2021

John Akomfrah
We Are The Proof, 2021

Giclee Print, Text
152.4 x 101.6 cm
60 x 40 in
 

The Wounding Light 1, 2023

John Akomfrah
The Wounding Light 1, 2023

Giclee print
Framed: 104 x 155 x 4.7 cm
Framed: 41 x 61 x 1 7/8 in
 

The Wounding Light 2, 2023

John Akomfrah
The Wounding Light 2, 2023

Giclee print
Framed: 104 x 155 x 4.7 cm
Framed: 41 x 61 x 1 7/8 in
 

The Wounding Light 4, 2023

John Akomfrah
The Wounding Light 4, 2023

Giclee print
Framed: 104 x 155 x 4.7 cm
41 x 61 x 1 7/8 in
 

The Wounding Light 4, 2023

John Akomfrah
The Wounding Light 4, 2023

Giclee print
Framed: 104 x 155 x 4.7 cm
41 x 61 x 1 7/8 in
 

Museum Exhibitions

Exhibitions

  1. John Akomfrah: The Airport

    John Akomfrah: The Airport

    27 May – 14 October 2023

  2. John Akomfrah: Five Murmurations

    John Akomfrah: Five Murmurations

    9 September – 16 October 2021

  3. John Akomfrah: The Unintended Beauty of Disaster

    John Akomfrah: The Unintended Beauty of Di...

    13 April – 10 July 2021

  4. Horizon

    Horizon

    6 October – 31 October 2020

  5. John Akomfrah

    John Akomfrah

    24 June – 12 August 2016

  6. John Akomfrah

    John Akomfrah

    22 January – 12 March 2016

Shop

  1. John Akomfrah

    John Akomfrah

We use cookies on our website to improve your experience. You can find out why by reading our privacy policy. By continuing to browse our site you agree to our use of cookies Privacy Policy