The exhibition “N’gola Cine” is a sarcastic metaphor that Yonamine uses to analyse Angola’s most recent history with common sense and an emancipated gaze.

As the exhibition demonstrates, the artist reverses the creative syntax he has accustomed us to: where once he accumulated, he now empties; where once he organised in the form of grids, he now does so by uniting the irregularity of the shapes and forms of the words and phrases; where once he glued to the wall, he now hangs or extends as if he had already washed and purified everything, as if reality were no longer a corrupted and demented sheet.

“N’gola Cine” can also be seen as an exhibition/installation that represents the history of forty-three years (1975-2018) of estendida – in the colloquial sense used in Luanda to mean “endlessly criticised” – national independence with no deference except for that imposed by the limits of aesthetics and political and artistic reflection.

But what the observer must not lose sight of is that all of Yonamine’s artwork is proof of an engaged artistic, political and social citizenship that is conscious of the main concerns of his age, of the place of his identity and of their individual mythology, in Angola and the world.

Adriano Mixinge [Historian and Art Critic]

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