Hidden Pages, Stolen Bodies - António Ole
“Hidden Pages, Stolen Bodies (1996-2001) is one of the most significant and complex installations by António Ole (born Luanda, 1951), combining painting, assemblage, collage, video and objects rejected both by history (official documents of the Portuguese colonial state) and by the sea (objects found and gathered on the banks of the river Cuanza and the IIha de Luanda).
“In this work, António Ole raises, for the first time, the subject of slavery and of forced labour, associated with the colonial violence that transforms the bodies of the enslaved subjects into a saleable asset: they are stolen lives and bodies. The installation also evokes a silenced history that is exposed here through official documents from national archives, both Portuguese and Angolan. These are hidden or erased pages, which insist in not occupying the place of a collective memory or record. The sea, the boat, the maritime voyages and the meeting of the European and African cultures are, along with history, the central themes of this installation.”
[text from the Museu Calouste Gulbenkian installation information]
A catalogue was published when this work when exhibited in Beyreuth, Germany in 2009:
Vierke, U. and Hossfeld, J. 2009. António Ole - Hidden Pages. Beyreuth: Peter Hammer Verlag. (See Nadine Siegert’s chapter within)
Also of interest:
Siegert, N. 2010. From the border of the city to the shore of the island. The Angolan Artist António Ole Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art 26: 38-47.
Carlos, I. and Fabiana, R. 2016. António Ole. Lunanda, Los Angelese, Lisboa. Lisbon: Museu Calouste Gulbenkian.
You will find an interview with Ole at the Sotheby’s:
