"Proper Love"
Superstar Amoako Boafo at the Belvedere in Vienna!
Amoako Boafo, 40, from the West African country of Ghana, studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and is considered one of the most successful contemporary painters. The Lower Belvedere is now showing the impressive exhibition "Proper Love"!
His international rise was a lightning career: Amoako Boafo from the West African country of Ghana was a newcomer when he moved from his home town of Accra to Vienna in 2013 and studied painting here for five years at the Academy of Fine Arts. Nobody knew the charming young black man. But he immediately attracted everyone's attention. Partly because he painted with his fingers instead of brushes to give his black portraits dramatic expressiveness, his energetic paintings were awarded the Vienna Walter Koschatzky Prize in 2017 and then the STRABAG Prize. At Dorotheum, one painting fetched 120,000 euros. His work "The Lemon Bathing Suit" is acquired by a Londoner for €813,000 at a Phillips auction.
Today, Boafo lives in Accra, where he founded the Boafo Studio. But he feels very much at home in Vienna, where he became a superstar: "I experienced my formative years here and developed my painting style under the influence of Klimt and Schiele's works." And he remembers the early days when, as a black man, he was "stared at, often hostile". "But that led me to artistic recollection, to black self-confidence." His portrait subjects "face you with self-confidence, seek eye contact, show a self-image of their own culture. An act of resistance against racism!"
About the person Amoako Boafo
- born 1984 in Osu/Accra, Ghana (West Africa)
- 2004 to 2007 studied in Accra, from 2013 in Vienna, 2014 to 2019 at the Academy of Fine Arts
- 2019: "most sought-after artist" at Art Basel Miami - purchases in Vienna by the Albertina and Leopold Museum, in New York by the Guggenheim Museum 2020
- Designer Kim Jones uses Boafo's works for the Dior summer collection
- He lives and works in Vienna and Accra, where he opened a studio house in 2022
The Lower Belvedere is now showing Boafo's first major exhibition in Europe, "Proper Love": Self-Portraits and Portraits from 2016 to the Present. Curator Sergey Harutoonian groups the show based on the frequently asked question "Why do you only paint black pepole?", refers to the "reciprocating gaze" in the paintings, shows "Viennese women", "images of masculinity" and self-portraits.
And refers to works by Klimt and Schiele that inspired Boafo. For example, when he dresses his portrait subjects in collage-like clothes with printed ornamental details. Karlheinz RoschitzAmoako Boafo, "Proper Love": Lower Belvedere, until 12 January
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