Dawit L. Petros: The Stranger’s Notebook

In a new body of work that includes photography, video, and sound, Eritrean-born artist Dawit L. Petros explores the relationship between African histories and European modernism, tracing ideas about borders and narratives of migration, past and present.

Along with nine African artists from five countries (Egypt, Eritrea, Kenya, Nigeria & South Africa), Petros traveled by road from Lagos, Nigeria to Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Subsequent journeys to Italy and Morocco complete the remaining geographies explored.

The Stranger’s Notebook is the first museum exhibition for Dawit Petros in the midwest and a US premiere of recent work that chronicles the artist’s research on the timely topic of shifting identities and migration.

For more information about the artist Dawit L. Petros

Support is provided by the H&R Block Foundation and the Missouri Arts Council, a state agency. This project also received support from the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to audiences in Canada and beyond.

Installation view

Dawit L. Petros, "The Act of Recovery (Part 1), Nouakchott, Mauritania," 2016, archival color pigment print, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Dawit L. Petros, "Nearness and distance constitute a position, Nouakchott, Mauritania," 2016, archival color pigment prints, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Dawit L. Petros, "Historical Rupture," 2016, archival color pigment prints, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Dawit L. Petros, "A series of complicated ambivalences, Bamako, Mali," 2016, archival color pigment prints, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Dawit L. Petros, "Untitled (Prologues) Nouadibou," 2016, archival color pigment prints, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Dawit L. Petros, "Confrontation (The always incomplete construction of thresholds), Tangier, Morocco," 2016, archival color pigment print, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Dawit L. Petros, "Tra il dire e il far c'e in mizzo il mare, Lampedusa, Italy," 2016, archival color pigment prints, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

Dawit L. Petros, "The Green March (Beyond the conclusive logic of monumentality), Tamougrite, Morocoo," 2016, archival color pigment prints, Courtesy of the artist and Tiwani Contemporary, London

PRESS

INFORMALITY BLOG

Intimate Strangers: A Response to Dawit L. Petros and Emmanual Iduma’s conversation at the H&R Block Artspace
March 15, 2017

TEMPORARY ART REVIEW

Dawit Petros at Artspace
January 9, 2017

KCUR 89.3

Artist Dawit Petros, 1900s Sexual Revolution, Jorge Arana’s ‘Mammoth’
December 12, 2016