A Day in Ha(a)rlem

Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju and Ahmet Öğüt’s work A Day in Ha(a)rlem considers the colonial legacy of the Frans Hals Museum by drawing a parallel between the neighborhood of Harlem in New York, where the Studio Museum can be found, and the Dutch city of Haarlem, where the Frans Hals Museum is located. For their exploration of the museum in Haarlem, they visited the museum in Harlem and produced a series of drawings of their encounters there. Instead of returning to the glorified origins of seventeenth-century cultural production, Olayemi Ilupeju and Öğüt look to the culture that has resulted in part from the Dutch colonial endeavor: the culture and art of present-day Harlem.

Monilola Olayemi Ilupeju is a Nigerian-American artist and writer who studied Studio Art and Social and Cultural Analysis at New York University. Her transdisciplinary practice confronts the distortions of systemic structures while offering avenues toward emancipation and repair. Recent solo exhibitions include Hands Full of Air, Galerie im Turm, Berlin (2020) and Eve of Intuition, The Institute for Endotic Research (TIER), Berlin (2020). Recent publications include Earnestly (Archive Books, 2022). Olayemi Ilupeju lives and works in Berlin.

Ahmet Öğüt, born in 1981 in Diyarbakır, is a sociocultural initiator, artist, and lecturer. Working across a variety of media, including photography, video, and installation, Öğüt often uses humor and small gestures to offer his commentary on serious or pressing social and political issues. He has exhibited widely, with recent solo presentations at Kunstverein Dresden (2018–19); Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2017–18); Chisenhale Gallery, London (2015); and Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven (2015). He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions, including Asia Society Triennial: We Do Not Dream Alone, New York (2020–21); In the Presence of Absence, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2020); and Zero Gravity, SeMA (Nam-Seoul Museum of Art) (2019). Öğüt has taught at Institut für Kunst im Kontext at Universität der Künste Berlin; Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht; and Sandberg Institute, Amsterdam, among others. Awards include the Visible Award for the Silent University (2013) and the special prize of the Future Generation Art Prize, Pinchuk Art Centre, Ukraine (2012). He co-represented Turkey at the 53rd Venice Biennale (2009).