Exhibition Opening: 26.6.2025
Ibrahim Mahama is known for his large-scale installations that explore themes of history, labour, migration and global capitalism challenging perceptions of value, space and the global economic systems that shape everyday life. Some of his most iconic works involve draping buildings and public spaces with repurposed jute sacks, once used to transport commodities like cocoa and coal. The exhibition at Kunsthalle Wien will present a series of new works that consider Ghana’s history via its material legacy. A large-scale installation takes up the sculptural question of mass via a series of readymades both large and small. The mechanisms, vessels and networks employed transporting goods and people are the starting point for sculpture, photographic and video works that consider the act of loading, carrying and unloading weight alongside a more abstract notion of the weight of history.
Biography
Ibrahim Mahama (b. 1987, Tamale, Ghana) has held solo exhibitions at Fruitmarket, Edinburgh (2024); Kunsthalle Osnabrück, Germany (2023); Oude Kerk, Amsterdam (2022); Frac des Pays de la Loire, Nantes (2022); University of Michigan Museum of Art (2020); The Whitworth, University of Manchester (2019); Norval Foundation, Cape Town (2019); Tel Aviv Art Museum (2016); and K.N.U.S.T Museum, Kumasi (2013).
His works for the public realm include commissions from The Barbican Centre (2024); the city of Osnabrück (2023) and The High Line, New York (2021); His work has also been presented within numerous group surveys including Sharjah Biennial 15 (2023); 18th Biennale Architettura, Venice (2023); the 35th Bienal de São Paulo (2023); Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2021); Centre Pompidou, Paris (2020); 22nd Biennale of Sydney (2020); Stellenbosch Triennale (2020); 6th Lubumbashi Biennale (2019); Ghana Pavilion, 58th Biennale Arte, Venice (2019); Documenta 14, Athens and Kassel (2017); Broad Art Museum, Michigan State University (2016); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen and Holbæk (2016); 56th Biennale Arte, Venice (2015); and Artist’s Rooms, K21, Düsseldorf (2015).
Mahama was also appointed Artistic Director of the 35th Ljubljana Biennale of Graphic Arts (2023). He is the recipient of the inaugural Sam Gilliam Award from the Dia Art Foundation. Mahama lives and works in Accra, Kumasi and Tamale where he has founded several artist-led community initiatives including Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art (SCCA) in 2019, Red Clay Studio in 2020 and, most recently, Nkrumah Volini.