diallosimonponte

Delighted to announce the opening of the Limbo Museum, a project based exhibition space in Accra. Founded by architecture firm @limboaccra the museum takes up residence in an unfinished concrete neo-brutalist estate in the Labone neighborhood. In conversation with the land and through a series of exhibitions, programs, and performances @limbomuseum will explore ruins as praxis. Very excited to be working on this project and as the head of curatorial each exhibition will be turned into a curriculum for our AA Visiting School. A massive thank you to @ibrahimmahama3 for joining Dominique and I in dialogue around radical notions of space making. Thank you to @hansulrichobrist, @bettinakorek, and the @serpentineuk trustees for stopping by to engage with our vision. To all the artist, writers, thinkers, and friends that poured into the inauguration you have my deepest gratitude. This space is ours. 📍❤️‍🔥 Programming will officially kickoff in the spring of 2025!

Also commissioned sculptor, hairstylist, creative director, and in my opinion historian @sexyscalps to meditate on the cultural significance of Black hair and beauty practices in the work of exhibiting artists Lauren Halsey and Allana Clarke for our Social Abstraction exhibition zine. Published in the Gagosian Quarterly her response entitled “The Gospel According to Beauty Supply” includes illustrative prose, poetry, staged images, and collage. Thank you forever Ryuan. Photography by @sagagoh With love to @summaeverythang @allanaclarkestudios

Interviewed artist @devinbjohnson for our Social Abstraction exhibition zine published in the Gagosian Quarterly. We spoke about his formative exposure to the @theundergroundmuseum, the influence of Torkwase Dyson as his teacher during his MFA, the inner workings of his painting practice, and all da rest of the stuff it says in the above image. Full interview in print, on the @gagosian website, and in my bio. Thank you @sirsargent as always.

on the wings of dust we flew

Spent this past weekend in Toronto speaking with @isabelokoro and @yanickhunter on being artists in a metropolis, Black artistic production as a way of mapping Black geographies, intellectual development outside of the institution, and their 2021 collaboration with @demonicground & @lizikiriko “Black Dots and B-sides” Thank you to @newcurrency @kazeemkuteyi & @bunsized for the invitation to speak at Renditions and the attentive level of programming on display. If you are not hip Toronto has a plethora of genius emanating from the city in the shape of artists, writers, DJ’s, parties, publications, curators and more. Much love to @javid.dones for your voice notes on diasporic migration!

Paris — Althea McNish inspired patterns at the Wales Bonner show, Nala Sinephro synths at the Niemeyer communist center, bespoke button exploration at Dauphine market courtesy of tender aunties and the dearest of friends, street thievery, baldwin & soulja boy were equally as celebrated, wine drunk in the sun for fete de la musique, and getting to the bottom cesaire’s universalism. A city that rewarded my curiosities and for that, you have my heart.

When you open the Spring/Summer edition of Studio Museum Magazine you will see my words Invited to be the first writer in the museum’s new series entitled Reframed, I revisited the 1993 exhibition “The Theater of Refusal: Black Art and Mainstream Criticism” curated by Charles Gaines. Thank you to the good folk over at Studio for their support throughout the process @hab_hop, @isataelizabeth, Meg Whiteford, and @thelmagolden

This Friday May 10th at 7pm please join us at 99 Canal Street for “effigy: a shifting landscape” a performance piece by @raymondpinto A continuation of research Raymond conducted in Nigeria, this piece will prioritize soil and the earth for its intrinsic qualities of holding memory to think about displaced communities and narrative tremors of the terrain. Holding New York as a geographic focal point, the seizure of land in 1853 from the prominent Black community, Seneca Village by the state to build Central Park has been a key point of departure for us here. We look forward to your eyes and your presence this Friday. Referential Texts: The Cartographer Tries to Map his Way to Zion by Kei Miller What the sands remember by Vanessa Agard Jones Curated by: Diallo Simon-Ponte Excited to be presenting work alongside these other performers and curators! Thank you to @__baldassarre_ for bringing this all together. Please see further dates and shows on the flier. Design by @pacific_pacific

Log: April 24.2024 NYC Valerie Cassel Oliver type of archiving remix needed for my trip to Venice. An absolute pleasure to have worked with this team on the @rickloweofficial exhibition at Museo di Palazzo Grimani and @summaeverythang inclusion in the 2024 Biennale. Much learned and so amazing to see the international presence of work at that scale. Attended Black Portraitures conference and watched Ben Okri turn his panel into an arena of wit. Two things I’ll never forget: The theater room in Julie Mehretu’s Palazzo Grassi exhibition playing Promises by Floating Points and Pharoah Sanders with her work projected on to the wall. And the second is Lyle Ashton Harris walking up to Malick, Devin, and I sitting at a restaurant and saying “this looks like the ektachrome archives.” Big shoutout to @bam_bii for spinning for us at Lauren’s afterparty 🪄🤲🏾❤️‍🔥

What a gift it is to come from multiple islands. Cabo Verde is a volcanic archipelago made up of 10 of them. For much of my life, the landscape of the country my Grandmother emigrated from was her house in Brooklyn where bottomless pots of cachupa flowed and Cesaria Evora’s “Sodade” moved a young boy to tears before he could figure out where they were coming from. Now I’ve laid eyes on another homeland of mine where passionfruit rum reigns supreme, color is used to punctuate, arid mountains decorate, and Amilcar Cabral the man who forged our independence struggle is widely celebrated. It is still also my grandmothers home in Brownsville but now it is accompanied by the intrinsic knowledge one re-inherits when you swim on the African side of the Atlantic for the first time.

For the inaugural issue of @jupiter.magazine I wrote an exhibition review of the @walesbonner Moma presentation and held a Guinean guitarist’s dance floor in Park Slope as the centrifugal point of experience and critique. At this bar on this dance floor a tranquil yet powerful musician once a part of Bembeya Jazz National has been playing for the past 15 years. What flows from a man named Mamady Kouyate is the preservation of late 20th century Guinean sonic aesthetics, very full of the socio-political landscape of the numerous West African countries gaining independence during these decades. In speaking about her exhibition Wales Bonner expressed delight in the way sound/spirit can be captured, vesselized in different forms. Through the course of a night at Barbes where sound, instrument, body, and shadow wade to the center of the dancefloor is exactly where “Spirit Movers” breathes long and articulated life. To be given the space where the deep basins of my curiosities were able to traipse around in delight unfettered and unequivocally supported was something I have not known until the hands of @camillegbacon & @dariasimoneharper. What they have built is a lighthouse for us all to gaze towards. It is an honor to be celebrated by Jupiter Magazine along with fellow inimitable contributors Akwaeke Emezi, J Wortham, Joshua Segun Lean, and Rianna Jade Parker. Thank you Jupiter Magazine! Essay in bio. Image W. Eugene Smith. Rahsaan Roland Kirk. 1964 courtesy of the Museum of Modern Art

Thank you @justsmilemagazine for allowing me to take over the art spread in Issue 3! Last summer, I asked Daria Simone Harper @dariasimoneharper to think through a series of pairings with me. We thought about how unique artistic practices belonging to perceived disparate mediums and disciplines might actually ring at a beautiful frequency in conversation together, particularly when provoked with a distinct set of questions. Utilizing Just Smile’s art spread we explored the overlap in the practices of a chef & an architect as well as a filmmaker & saxophonist. 1: Nathanael Cox & Dominique Petit Frere written by Diallo Simon-Ponte @n8.cox put together a narrative diasporic recipe and @dominiquepetit_ of Limbo Accra along with Annelise Agossa thought about the socio historical relationship of the ingredients and wove pulled aesthetics into the architectural designs of a restaurant meant to house the dish. Photography by @luuuuush Designs by @annelise.ag 2: Immanuel Wilkins & Ja’Tovia Gary written by Daria Simone Harper @immanuel.wilkins handwrote and annotated sheet music in response to one of @j_______g_______ installations. Inspired by the scene in Birth of The Cool where Miles Davis scores an entire film in one take. Reach out to me for the article pdf !!