Moma Museum: John Akomfrah

John Akomfrah is an artist like no other, because of his experience being black in a society that only accepts white men. His statement within the movie was “I don’t find myself apart of this society or world because of the unfair treatment human beings do to each other!” (John Akomfrah).  The film Unfinished Conversations is an autobiography of his life born in Jamaica, educated in Britain, and soon establishing himself back home after witnessing the suffering this earth does to humans. John talks about being educated as a black man and how even following the same footsteps as any white man, he still wouldn’t be treated fairly. The film had three screens, each one showing different images of John’s life. To place intensity to a message that the film was projecting, one screen would go red from the left, then the right one, then all that was left would be the middle screen showing an important message. The audio would be low in settings that brought up John’s family life but extremely loud in intense movements that he leads in America or Britian. Music was contrasted from nineteen twenty vibes to sevens anthems like funk or classical. Some of the movements was about defending black people from discrimination in London, at the time during world war 2. Black people were drafted even though the country drafting them didn’t even treat them fairly. “Governments need to know that the black community is more cultured and vibrate then they would think. Adapting to any conditions in order to reach success.” (John Akomfrah). What Mr. Akomfrah is stating is that governments need to do away with segregation and discrimination in order to keep control of the black communities. John Akomfrah shows in his art work about the individual self, how every human being is selfish to their own needs but never to the bigger picture.  The filming techniques ranged from extreme close up, to medium wide shot, to even crane shots of crowds. The video of John Akomfrah was amazing but compared to his artistic work, it doesn’t even compete. One image showed a portrait of lines and another one of the alphabet. Each character of the alphabet has a sexual act underneath it. By the time one puts his/her name down that would be the sexual acts one would do. John Akomfrah had a great way of grabbing people’s attention, and that was through sex.

During the exhibit one artist by the name of Paul Chan had a work of a riot in Europe of young men going into the streets about the ideals of Isis. The work is sketched out with bright colors and shows the intense moment of young men angered about the successful recruitments of happening in their country. This painting shows it happening in the Netherlands. This relates to John Akomfrah’s work because of the unfair turn events life has for man. The style of the work is modern with paint splattered onto strong outlines of men frustrated about the situation and their government.