Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  I'm not old enough to die for your mistakes  2016  ink on paper  95 x 107 cm

16 September - 14 October 2017
and 16 - 21 October by appointment only

curated by David Lillington

We are pleased to present Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed's first solo exhibition in London.

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed's drawings are at once a satire of her generation in Vienna and a study of the human condition, a painful moral comedy, with death as the anchoring motif. They are dense with incident and dense with allusion: to music, film, literature and art; to the Baroque and to Symbolism; to medicine, anatomy, the graphic arts and to contemporary popular culture. Vienna is between east and the west and genres meet there, a fact which further influences the work. Mohamed’s intelligence about the nature of drawing, and the apparent ease with which she draws, results in work that seems almost self-aware: this is an art of apperception, even while it is about other people’s lives, their ambiguous and unresolved stories.

- David Lillington (2017)

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed (b. 1993) lives and works in Vienna, Austria. She studied Romance Studies and then Graphics and Printmaking at the University of Applied Arts, Vienna. Shortlisted for eleven awards, she has won four of them. She is currently undertaking a commission for a public mural in Vienna. Her works are in private collections in Vienna, Barcelona, London, Berlin, Zürich and Lugano. Selected exhibitions include: Das Leben ist anderswo, Galerie Hilger NEXT, Vienna (solo, 2016); sechs xx sechs, Loft 8, Vienna (2016); Studenski Biennal, Belgrade (2016); Us, them, you, Studio Place Arts Gallery, Barre, Vermont, USA (2016); Curiositas, Galerie Jahidi, Paris (2016); Art Night Venezia, Accademia di Belle Arti di Venezia, Venice (2015).

An accompanying essay by David Lillington is available as part of the exhibition.

David Lillington is a writer and curator based in London. He is a member of the International Association of Art Critics and of the Association for the Study of Death and Society. He met Mohamed when she submitted work for his exhibition Death and Dying at MAG3, Vienna in 2014. In May 2017 he presented her work at the conference Death and the Maiden, University of Social Sciences, Łódź, Poland. Recent writings include Death Ltd. for Art Monthly and catalogue essays for the Gallery of Everything (on the collages of Ion Barladeanu) and for Mercer and Chance (on Aude Hérail Jäger’s Sentinels). He presented a paper on Delmore Schwartz at the Death and the Maiden conference, University of Winchester, July 2017.

Supported by the Austrian Cultural Forum London.

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  Imposters  2017  ballpoint pen on paper  100 x 100cm and EXITUS  2017  set of 6 cups and saucers, 1 milk jug, 1 vase, tablecloth and illuminated sign  dimensions variable  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  Ex Libris VII (Version I & II)  2013  screen print on paper  14.8 x 21cm each  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  Ex Libris II, VI and IV  2017  2 colour screen print on paper  21 x 14.8cm each  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  EXITUS  2017  Set of 6 cups and saucers, 1 milk jug, 1 vase, tablecloth and illuminated sign  dimensions variable   photograph by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  EXITUS  2017  Set of 6 cups and saucers, 1 milk jug, 1 vase, tablecloth and illuminated sign  dimensions variable   photograph by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed They removed my spine 2 years ago  2017  ballpoint pen on paper  110 x 55cm  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  Having doubts  2015  ballpoint pen on paper  70 x 50cm and They removed my spine 2 years ago  2017  ballpoint pen on paper  110 x 55cm  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  Enjoying a healthy life  2016  ballpoint pen on paper  70 x 50cm  photograph by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  MRM (Mechanically reclaimed meat  2017  ink on on paper  100 x 80cm  photograph by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  MRM (Mechanically reclaimed meat  2017  ink on on paper and Evergreen  2017  ink on paper 100 x 80cm  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  The collector  2017  ink on paper 100 x 80cm  photograph by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  In(Complete) IV  2015  ballpoint pen on paper 40 x 60cm  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  In(Complete) IV, III, II and I  2015  ballpoint pen on paper 40 x 60cm each  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  Boshafte Blüten I  2016  ballpoint pen on paper 50 x 70cm  installation view by Oskar Proctor

Assunta Abdel Azim Mohamed  Boshafte Blüten III  2016  ballpoint pen on paper 100 x 400cm  photograph by Oskar Proctor