For Comme des Kinois, in Congo-Kinshasa, Henrike Naumann researched the phenomenon of the Sapeurs des Bandal, which are intrigued by Japanese fashion designer brands like Issey Miyake, Yohji Yamamoto, and Comme des Garçons. Using photographs and video, she traces how the fashion obsession started with a Papa Wemba concert in Tokyo-Shibuya in 1986, and how the style developed into a mass phenomenon in Congo in the 1990s and 2000s. In her video installation, Naumann examines how trauma and memory are transported in fashion through different cultural contexts; the work connects Hiroshima Chic in Japan and post-war Congo fashion.
Comme des Kinois, 2019
mixed media installation
Mixed media installation, installation view Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo, 2019
Text: Anna Voswinckel
Henrike Naumann
Henrike Naumann was born 1984 in Zwickau (GDR). Growing up in Eastern Germany, Naumann experienced extreme-right ideology as a predominant youth culture in the 90s. Her work reflects on the history of the right-wing terrorism in Germany as well as on today‘s broad acceptance of racist ideas. She looks at the mechanisms of radicalization and how they are linked to personal experience and youth culture. Naumann explores the friction of contrary political opinion through the ambivalence of personal aesthetic taste. In her immersive installations she combines video and sound with scenographic spaces. In recent years she widened her focus to the global connectivity of youth cultures and the reversion of cultural othering. Notable exhibitions include solo shows at the Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach and Galerie Wedding, Berlin, as well as participations at the Busan Biennale (2018), Riga Biennial (2018), Steirischer Herbst, Graz (2018), 4th Ghetto Biennale at Port-Au-Prince (2015), and the 3rd Herbstsalon at Maxim Gorki Theatre Berlin (2017).
Henrike Naumann lives and works in Berlin.
- Candice Breitz
- Marco A. Castillo
- CATPC
- Alice Creischer
- Chto Delat
- Clegg & Guttmann
- Eugenio Dittborn
- Heinrich Dunst
- Anna Ehrenstein
- Estate of León Ferrari
- Sophie Gogl
- Estate of Barbara Hammer
- The Cabinet of Ramon Haze
- Hiwa K
- Renzo Martens
- Chris Martin
- Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger
- Henrike Naumann
- Oswald Oberhuber
- Mario Pfeifer
- Dierk Schmidt
- Tina Schulz
- Santiago Sierra
- Michael E. Smith
- Franz Erhard Walther
- Clemens von Wedemeyer
- Tobias Zielony