Brendan Fernandes

From Hiz Hands

2010

This work explores the dissemination of Western notions of an exotic Africa through the symbolic economy of "African" masks sold on Canal Street and on the streets outside museums in New York (the Whitney and Metropolitan, for example), and their contrasting relationship to the masks on display in the museums themselves. The exhibition examines the objects themselves but also looks at the personal narratives of the mask sellers, drawing on the artist’s own migration from Kenya to Canada in a series of works that create a shared history of identity and origin.