Kassel honours Ibrahim Mahama, the artist who once wrapped its city gate in jute sacks
Ghana’s best-known contemporary artist received the Arnold Bode Prize at a ceremony in the documenta city, days after opening a major show in Paris.
Ten years after he wrapped one of Kassel’s landmarks in patchworked jute sacks, the Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama was back in the city on October 29 to receive its Arnold Bode Prize. The ceremony took place at the Kasseler Kunstverein, according to the German art magazine Kunstforum.
The €10,000 prize was announced in April by his gallery White Cube and the city. Kassel’s board of trustees recommended Mahama, and the city’s magistrate approved the choice. Kunstforum reports that Naomi Beckwith, artistic director of documenta 16, gave the laudatory speech because she sits on the trustees’ board.
The jury said it was honouring an artist who seeks to shape both the art-historical canon and people’s lives. Mahama, 39, is remembered locally for his documenta 14 installation “Check Point Sekondi Loco. 1901–2030,” in which he covered the Torwache gatehouse in sacks stitched with parts of Henschel locomotives. His work traces the histories of global trade, colonial commerce and migration. The jury also pointed to his support for young people’s education and for studio space for artists. He founded Red Clay Studio, the Savannah Centre for Contemporary Art and Nkrumah Volini in Tamale. Kassel’s mayor, Sven Schoeller, said his works leave traces, “not least in our city.”
The prize, awarded since 1980, is named for documenta’s founder. Previous recipients include Iraqi-born Hiwa K in 2016 and Kenya’s Wajukuu Art Project in 2023. Kassel’s savings bank and the Sparkassen cultural foundation fund the prize money.
Mahama’s ceremony followed the October 22 opening of “The Harvest Season” at Fondation Cartier in Paris, which fills the institution’s entire new building on the Place du Palais-Royal. It runs to February 28, 2027, alongside nine other artists and collectives, including Dorothy Akpene Amenuke, James Barnor and Zohra Opoku. A centrepiece, “Things Fall Apart,” is built from materials of a disused Ghanaian factory he bought in 2024, dismantled and moved to Tamale. “It is in the past that we can excavate the potential of the future,” he says in the exhibition statement.
In remarks reported by Ghanaian media, Mahama thanked Kassel’s mayor and the award committee, along with the collaborators who have supported his work. He singled out the curator Bonaventure Ndikung, whom he called his “big brother.”
Source: CNR
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