Rachel Monosov and Admire Kamudzengerere's '1972', 2017. 23 Archival prints, 16 Text cards.
Artist Rachel Monosov works in performance, photography, video, and sculpture. By delving into cultural notions of alienation, territorial belonging, and identity, she reflects a rootless present rife with broader social implications. She constructs entire worlds around her subjects, which function according to their own set of laws. Her personal biography is weaved throughout, loading the work with social and political concepts echoing historical events. Monosov holds two MFAs from The Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK) in Ghent, Belgium, and a BA from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design, Jerusalem, Israel. Serge Tiroche's START incubator gave Rachel her first gallery exhibition - Hard Pop - in Israel in 2011.
We are pleased to have the collaborative work 1972 by Rachel Monosov and Admire Kamudzengerere in the Africa First Collection. 1972 was created in 2017 and is a 16-piece performance-based photographic work composed of 23 archival prints and 16 text cards. The images present Rachel Monosov and Admire Kamuzengerere living in Harare in the year 1972. At the time, interracial marriage was virtually impossible, and there were political attempts to make it illegal. The year 1972 was also marked the beginning of a 7-year long guerrilla war between nationalists and the Rhodesian security forces.
Select images from 1972
Rachel Monosov and Admire Kamudzengerere created real-life events as happenings in Zimbabwe. They threw a wedding and inviting the local community to witness the event. They placed themselves into different spaces creating convincing settings: from leisurely afternoons by the lake to constructing their first home. The work is documentary photography infused with fiction. It all happened, yet never was. The undocumented acts, reactions, and effects which lie beyond these photographs are as much a part of the work as the images themselves. The happenings were entire "real-life" events. The artists did not stage a pose holding a goat for the camera. Instead, the image captured is a documentation of Kamudzengerere presenting Monosov with a dowry. The work is a merger between the artists' lives and their art practice – to research the cultural boundaries and structures imposed upon them.
Rachel Monosov mounted her first museum solo exhibition "We Are Almost There" at Tarble Arts Center, Charleston, Illinois (October 26, 2019 - January 5, 2020), where she covered the 400 square meters main space of the building and included seven different projects, including 1972.
1972 is currently hanging in the permanent collection gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago. Additionally, Villa Massimo in Rome will show the complete edition of 1972, plus two additional works (Jan 2021). The full edition of 1972 will be on view at the Block Museum at Northwestern University (Sep 2021).
Rachel Monosov and Admire Kamudzengerere, 1972, 2017; 23 Archival prints, 16 Text cards. Ed. 7/15