BRUSSELS.- Night in the Garden of Love,
Wiels, is an exhibition, 18 May – 13 August 2023, developed by Shezad Dawood and inspired by the creative output of African-American musician, composer, allamah/polymath Yusef Lateef. Titled after Lateef’s 1988 novella, the exhibition features music and a selection of drawings by Lateef together with five new, interconnected works by Dawood: a VR experience, a suite of painted textiles, a garden of algorithmic plants growing digitally in response to a series of live improvisational music sessions, costume-sculptures and live choreography.
Shezad Dawood (b.1974) is a British artist known for his exploration of non-Western traditions that inform and intersect with established canons, whether in the field of architecture or, as in this case, music. His playful, research-driven work encompasses many forms and media, breaking down the boundaries between the analogue and digital. Since 2013, he has explored the conceptual possibilities of VR as an integral part of his practice. This is his largest presentation of new work since 2019 and his first solo exhibition in Belgium. It is commissioned by WIELS together with the Aga Khan Museum, Toronto.
Yusef Lateef (1920-2013) pioneered the integration of world instruments to expand the boundaries of jazz traditions. Over time, he developed a methodology he called Autophysiopsychic music. “It is about heightened consciousness and aims to activate the physical, mental and spiritual senses simultaneously,” states Dawood. Aware of Lateef’s music since his own youth, Dawood became fascinated with Lateef’s ideas after seeing his drawings, which function as abstract musical notation, and present organic, plant-like forms.
Dawood sees this exhibition as a dialogue between his practice and Lateef’s, like the call-and-response exchanges in musical improvisation. Dawood considers Lateef’s Night in the Garden of Love novella to be a forerunner of much recent cli-fi: sci-fi exploring climate issues. “There are all sorts of portals within Lateef’s novella, which moves from a dystopian future Detroit, into radical ideas of ecology and recycling,” states Dawood. “It is meant to be an almost metaphysical space, but I read Lateef’s garden as a virtual space.” Dawood is interested in technology for its transformative potential to help us imagine new forms of togetherness.
Both Dawood and Lateef delve into the garden as an ancient and cross-cultural symbol. Dawood investigates the garden’s potential as a site of creation and optimism in the face of the climate crisis. He aims to write a poetics of environmentalism: seeing how art can awaken a new spiritual epiphany that can lead to change.
Curated by: Zoë Gray & Helena Kritis
Exhibition structure and contents
The first space of Night in the Garden of Love is filled with daylight and features a suite of new paintings by Dawood on repurposed vintage, patchworked textiles. These include organic forms that respond to Lateef’s drawings. In the centre of the gallery, a space is delineated to evoke the geometric forms of a Sufi garden. Here, two visitors at a time can wear VR head-sets to enter a virtual reality experience created by Dawood, riffing on scenes from Lateef’s novella. A key figure is the Mutant, who moves through the script like a dancer, guiding visitors through Lateef’s vision, as re-imagined by Dawood. The soundtrack features original recordings by Lateef released on his own label, YAL Records. This is the first time Dawood has created a dual-player VR experience, to underscore the idea of a garden as a space for intimacy and dialogue.
The second gallery is shrouded in darkness, evoking the night of the exhibition’s title. It features seven screens and corresponding audio stems which Dawood collectively terms Digital Seedbanks. Each screen presents an algorithmically generated plant, reminiscent of the painted forms of the textile pieces. The seedbanks grow before our eyes, ebbing and flowing through a fluctuating passage of time inspired by Lateef’s autophysiopsychic musical method. In January 2023, Dawood recorded a new improvisation session following Lateef’s Autophysiopsychic approach with several of his former collaborators and students; this was composed and arranged by Adam Rudolph and Alexis Marcelo, additional composition by Ralph Miles Jones, and featuring: Batya Sobel, Matt Waugh, Gwen Laster, Mia Theodoratus and Stephanie Griffin. The results are split between the different Seedbanks, creating individual soundtracks that overlap and intertwine to create a new musical composition. These are accompanied by a unique new scent, created especially for the occasion by Dawood in collaboration with Olivia Bransbourg of boutique perfume label Iconofly, Paris-based perfumer Nicolas Bonneville and fragrance house Firmenich, bringing to life the various plant notes of the Garden’s collectively imagined ecosystem. The perfume - with hints of jasmine and brugmansia - is housed in a specially designed ceramic vase developed in collaboration with Ofumum.
Ascending to the fourth-floor space, the visitor encounters drawings by Lateef selected by Dawood, together with Ayesha Lateef (Lateef’s widow) and Alhena Katsof (curatorial advisor for the Estate of Yusef Lateef) which function as the heart of the exhibition. These original works – exhibited for the first time outside the US – depict constellations of plants and tree-like forms that hover between figuration and abstraction.
Finally, also on the fourth floor are two costumes designed by London-based fashion label Ahluwalia, integrating fabrics from Dawood’s textile archive. These build on their previous collaborations focused on a mutual interest in repurposing and upcycling vintage textiles, and integrating costume into contemporary dance. The costumes are for the Mutant, a character from the novella, who appears in the VR and in real life at regular intervals throughout the exhibition: Dawood has created a choreography with Brussels-based dancer Wan-Lun Yu for this character. She will perform on several Sundays during the exhibition, offering a real-life counterpart to the digital, post-human mutant.
Performance dates
17, 27 & 28 May
4, 18 & 25 June
9 & 16 July
12 & 13 August
PARTNERS
The exhibition and its outreach programme are generously sponsored by GBL.
Thanks also to The Ekard Collection, Jhaveri Contemporary (Mumbai), Barakat Contemporary (Seoul) and Firmenich for their support.
The exhibition is produced in partnership with the Aga Khan Museum in Toronto.
Special thanks to The Estate of Yusef Lateef and Ayesha Lateef for their ongoing support and enthusiasm, and to Alhena Katsof whose initiative and guidance helped make this project possible.
EVENTS
Look Who’s Talking: Helena Kritis (NL)
Sun. 28.05, 14:30
Look Who’s Talking: Zoë Gray (FR)
Sat. 17.06, 15:30
Artist talk: Shezad Dawood (EN)
Tue. 20.06, 19:30
Shezad Dawood was born in 1974 in London, where he lives and works. He trained at Central St Martin’s and the Royal College of Art before undertaking a PhD at Leeds Metropolitan University. Dawood is a Senior Research Fellow in Experimental Media at the University of Westminster.
Selected solo exhibitions include: Barakat Contemporary, Seoul (2023); Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai (2021); Kai Art Center, Tallinn (2020); New Art Exchange, Nottingham (2020); The Bluecoat, Liverpool (2019); MOCA, Toronto (2019); FriezeLIVE, London (2019); Kunstverein, Munich (2019); Rubin Museum of Art, New York (2018); Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice (2017); Pioneer Works, Brooklyn (2015); Parasol Unit, London (2014). Selected group exhibitions include: Folkestone Triennial (2021); Guggenheim, New York (2021); Southbank Centre, London (2020-21); WIELS, Brussels (2020); Manifesta 13 (2020); Lahore Biennial (2020); Dhaka Art Summit (2020); Sharjah Biennial 14, (2019); Gwangju Biennale, (2018); Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2016); MOMA, New York (2015); Taipei Biennial (2014); Marrakech Biennial (2014); MACBA Barcelona (2014); Busan Biennale (2010); Tate Triennial, London (2009); Venice Biennale (2009).
