Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo's Powerful Exhibition: Achievement & Black Women's Legacies

Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo's exhibition 'Achievement' presents new works including an installation, a performance, and an intervention on the building. The exhibition centers Black women's achievements and promotes healing through feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial perspectives.

For her exhibition 'Achievement' at the Secession, Susana Pilar Delahante Matienzo has developed a new installation, a performance, and an intervention on the building. All three works formulate feminist, anti-racist, and anti-colonial counter-proposals, centering the achievements of Black women and advocating for a form of healing. In the Graphic Cabinet, the artist presents seemingly historical black-and-white photographs within a staged archival space, evoking the atmosphere of a forgotten storage room. These small-format photographs are placed between shelves and in cabinets, inviting visitors to act as detectives, opening drawers and examining images of Black women who have achieved freedom, justice, development, joy, and much more. While the clothing places the depicted individuals in the 16th to 19th centuries, image captions reveal that these realistic subjects were generated using artificial intelligence. The artist's research into the reinvention of memory and critical engagement with archives is fundamental to regaining identity and history for those denied the right to record their own. As an artist from Cuba with African and Chinese roots, Delahante Matienzo draws from personal family history where oral traditions were the primary means of preserving history. 'Achievement' presents a fictional and speculative archive showcasing Black women as significant, wealthy, and valued members of society and as active, self-determined businesswomen. This approach not only critiques history but also moves towards a differentiated view, or re-programming, of seemingly unshakeable beliefs, countering the colonial gaze with confident counter-representations. The artist views AI as a tool that unlocks potential, suggesting the creation of AI-generated image archives for the future. Furthermore, the exhibition includes an intervention on the Secession's dome, transforming it into a black surface inspired by Bantu knots, a traditional Zulu hairstyle, honoring Black women. A spoken-word performance by the artist also took place on the opening night.

Ticket information is available and visitors can purchase tickets for the Secession. The page mentions 'Informationen & Tickets' and provides a link to a ticketing shop.