Press release

We are proud to present Coumba Samba’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Samba’s work comprises color and material to reflect the contemporary capitalist reality of trade, access and opportunity. She investigates the uneasy relationships between the durable and the temporary by frequently working with found objects and bold colors, referencing moments from her own life. Red Gas is looking into gas as one of the most widely traded commodities, shaping international politics and economy. With the sanctions on Russia, the West is looking for alternatives. Thinking about the industrialized use of natural resources and the dispossession that has come with it. Samba’s Red Gas is interested in this moment and what it exposes.

The room is filled with painted radiators, each a different color, carrying its own reference and agenda. Playing with the objecthood of the artwork on one hand and the politicization of colors on the other. When looking at works within the room, they could be reduced to pieces of metal covered in paint, minimalist and empty. Within replicating the aesthetic, there is a resistance; minimalism and the history of modern art in general lends from the rest and reduces it to whiteness.