Artists

Arjan Martins

Press release

Curated by Alberto Salvadori Fondazione ICA Milano presents O Estrangeiro. 35º30'54" N, 12º34'48" E, a solo exhibition by Arjan Martins, Afro-Brazilian artist considered one of the most significant voices on the contemporary international scene, curated by Alberto Salvadori. Opening on Thursday, June 11, 2026, the exhibition introduces, for the first time in Italy, a significant collection of the artist's recent works. The exhibition brings together a corpus of paintings that depict a poetic and political crossing of the Atlantic, portraying it as a space of memory, conflict, and transformation. Arjan Martins' artistic research unfolds through a layered reflection on the African diaspora and the routes that, over time, have shaped the forced movement of bodies, images, and identities. In his paintings, the sea is never merely a backdrop; it is a living archive — a site where histories are deposited and reactivated, a field traversed by trajectories that continue to produce effects in the present. The coordinates in the title refer to a precise point in the Mediterranean Sea, near the island of Lampedusa — one of the most emblematic sites of contemporary migration and tragedy. This anchoring of geography to historical and political reality is central to Martins' practice, which uses painting as a medium for bearing witness and for imagining otherwise. The title O Estrangeiro — "The Foreigner" — evokes a condition of displacement and alterity that runs through both the works and the exhibition as a whole. It draws on a tradition of Black Atlantic thought, referencing writers, thinkers, and artists who have mapped the circulations of people, cultures, and knowledge across the ocean, from Paul Gilroy to Édouard Glissant, from Achille Mbembe to the rich visual culture of Afro-Brazilian communities.