Ramaya Tegegne “That you can’t fight City Hall is a rumor being spread by City Hall “

Ludlow 38 / The Goethe-Institut New York

This event has ended.

Goethe-Institut Curatorial Residencies Ludlow 38 is pleased to present That you can’t fight City Hall is a rumor being spread by City Hall, the first institutional solo exhibition of Geneva-based artist Ramaya Tegegne in the United States. Borrowing its title from the American poet, essayist, and civil rights activist Audre Lorde, this exhibition is an attempt to reconstruct the public art space as a space of dissident voices, where rules can be designed and followed collectively.

By quoting, borrowing, and reworking the practices of other artists, Tegegne’s installations, videos, performances, and publications confront the established narratives of art history to reflect on the various social, historical, and economic contexts that make and unmake it. Interested specifically in the often unseen power relations that constitute the structural field of art, Tegegne’s works test out new ways of collectively thinking through the dynamics of trust, intimacy, and sharing as resistance.

Ramaya Tegegne (Switzerland) has presented solo exhibitions at Istituto Svizzero, Milan (2019); Kevin Space, Vienna (2019); VIS, Hamburg (2018); Park View / Paul Soto, Brussels (2018); Galerie Maria Bernheim, Zurich (2018); First Continent, Baltimore (2017); Fri Art Kunsthalle Fribourg (2015); and Marbriers 4, Geneva (2014). Her performances have been presented at Kunsthalle Basel (2018), Kunsthalle Bern (2017), and the Swiss Institute, New York (2016) amongst others. She is co-founder of the bookshop La Dispersion in Geneva. In 2017, she launched the campaign Wages For Wages Against, for the remuneration of artists in Switzerland and beyond.