Hako Hankson: The urgency of thought - 60th Venice Biennale

 

 

 

His works have an intrinsic narrativity, in fact, although the viewer sees well-defined elements, plots and fantasies develop on the canvas enriching the aesthetic beauty of the masks. One often comes across human figures, convivial scenes depicted as if they were small visions within the works themselves. This indicates a link that Hako Hankson has always wanted to express: animism uses elements, such as masks, to converse with the afterlife and thus take on a spiritual, as well as an earthly character, acting as a bridge between soul and body. 

In the artist's canvases there appear flashes of humanity, encounters, human figures in their own right, or other elements, even animals, which always strictly maintain an almost rupestrian line of representation.

In fact, Hako Hankson's works also turn their attention to the past, underlying which is an important creative study of ancient African graphic descriptions. Not far removed from what are, for us, rupestrian paintings. In this way, the artist expresses a strong attachment to his own land, communicating it to Africans, showing their shortcomings and problems, almost in a codified language that, only thanks to a strong globalisation, becomes familiar to us too, reminding us of American or European artists who, appropriating a very similar imagery, revolutionised western aesthetics. In his works, the artist describes what has always surrounded him, through a universal language that is as clear as it is intricate.

He goes back to his origins, narrating different situations and characters, as humanity once did, but he evolves his language, enriches it and complicates it to make it futuristic. So as to attract the interest of the viewer, who loses himself in the immensity of the details.

Hako Hankson's painting addresses his homeland, but at the same time he wants to export what he sees as contemporary Africa to the world, narrating it through elements of what Africa once was, while maintaining its tribal nature. It is a message of hope, a new language that can lead the African continent to a better future.