Opening, October 20, 2026, 6 pm
Exhibition, October 21 – December 4, 2026
Works by Eric Gyamfi, Abbey IT-A, kąrî’ kạchä seid’ōu
Under the title [Ominous Music Playing], the artist-curator Abbey IT-A brings together works by artists who employ moving images as a tool to reflect on narratives, time, and cultural memory. The exhibition is conceived as a deliberate shift in perception: from the dominant medium of painting to a polyphonic meshwork of poetry, artificial intelligence, or photography; from (self) representation to self-preservation in the realm of digital image production and circulation; from Europe’s perceived status as an intellectual center to one of Africa’s many artistic hubs—Ghana; and last but not least, a shift away from the shallow seductions of one-dimensional rhetorics and portrayals. [Ominous Music Playing] summons voices and imagery to Kunstraum Lakeside found at the supposed peripheries—not at the edges per se, but beyond a limited purview—demonstrating that it is precisely there where new aesthetic and intellectual impulses [continue to] emerge. The script serves here as a waypost: it points to the cinematic screenplay but also musical notation and literary annotation, a score-like structure in which seeing, hearing, and thinking intersect. In this scope resides the potential and space to rewrite, overlap, and re-rhythmize history. The exhibition becomes a resonant space. Encounters of sound, image, and text give rise to a dialogue between disciplines, generations, and geographic spaces, a poetic and political rewriting of scripts that examines how we hear [listen to] and see [coexist in] the world—and asks how we want to remember it. Moreover, the show prompts reflection on the visibility of power structures and the associated narratives. What impact do economic, cultural, or technological forces have on forms of representation? In this multiplicity of voices unfolds a critical yet sensual experience that encourages visitors to actively participate in the construction of meaning and memory.
Abbey IT-A (b. 199X in Ghana) lives and works in Accra and Kumasi, Ghana.
www.itaabbey.com
