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The Renaissance Society presents Tendered, a solo exhibition by Karimah Ashadu, whose moving-image practice examines the conditions under which bodies are formed, disciplined, and rendered legible within contemporary systems of labor and value, especially within the cultural context of West Africa. Working across film and installation, Ashadu develops close, sustained encounters with people whose lives unfold within informal economies, attending to how aspirations are negotiated under material constraint. The exhibition marks the U.S. debut of MUSCLE, a new moving-image installation centered on bodybuilders training in the heart of Lagos’s slums. The work situates bodybuilding within a broader field of exertion: the body as site of labor, investment, and self-fashioning. MUSCLE was co-commissioned and co-produced by The Renaissance Society, Fondazione In Between Art Film, and Camden Art Centre, and is accompanied by a series of new sculptural works that draw directly from the film’s environments. Having grown up between Nigeria and the United Kingdom, the artist situates her point of view within a constant negotiation of distance. In MUSCLE, she works with a sympathetic—and sometimes visceral—proximity to the subjects of the film, eschewing the documentary point of view. As she gathers the stories of men in this film, she extends an ongoing inquiry present in earlier works, including Machine Boys (2024), Plateau (2022), and Red Gold (2016). Curated by Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi of Fondazione In Between Art Film with Myriam Ben Salah and Karsten Lund of The Renaissance Society. Karimah Ashadu: Tendered is presented in conjunction with the installation of the artist’s work Machine Boys (2024) at the Art Institute of Chicago, opening September 11, 2026. Additional events: September 10, 2026, 6pm
Conversations at the Edge: Screening and talk with Giampaolo Bianconi at the Siskel Film Center in collaboration with the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. September 12, 2026, 4pm
Artist Talk with the curators Myriam Ben Salah and Karsten Lund at The Renaissance Society, Swift Hall, 3rd floor. For more information, please visit The Renaissance Society website.
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