![\"nastio](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/mosquito-sample.jpg\")
N\u00e1stio Mosquito, Com\u00e9dia da Trag\u00e9dia, 2012, film still, from the album Deixa Me Entrar, 2012, copyright the artist<\/p>\n N\u00e1stio Mosquito, Com\u00e9dia da Trag\u00e9dia, 2012, film still, from the album Deixa Me Entrar, 2012, copyright the artist<\/p>\n
NOW YOU SEE ME… Perspective is an important part of Mosquito\u2019s practice, which ranges from video and audiovisual installations to live performance. His videos focus on global political issues, but with the tongue-in-cheek delivery of a stand up comedian, zooming in and out of his subject without getting tangled in it. \u2026 NOW YOU DON\u2019T Mosquito\u2019s home nation has recently experienced an upturn, too. Since 2010 its GDP has increased nearly 30% \u2013 no mean feat considering the global downturn \u2013 and the country has become a centre for foreign investment, which has driven up the cost of property in the capital. Nonetheless, he doesn\u2019t agree that this economic surge has driven his popularity. \u201cI think all kinds of things are behind African artists receiving more recognition,\u201d he says. \u201cThe art world is driven by the financial markets; it also moves within a political sphere, too. But I can\u2019t give any accurate answers. There\u2019s a bunch of speculation about it but I think that, in general, it\u2019s ultimately good for artists.\u201d N\u00e1stio Mosquito, Com\u00e9dia da Trag\u00e9dia, 2012, film still, from the album Deixa Me Entrar, 2012, copyright the artist NOW YOU SEE ME… May 2015, Venice: It\u2019s the preview of the 56th Biennale and proceedings are in full swing. Critics, journalists, photographers and collectors are beginning to arrive, and people are gossiping about the hottest acts…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":27250,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[11856,139],"tags":[3808,1983,3809,1673,3810,3811,2379],"class_list":["post-27230","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sleek-art","category-art","tag-angola","tag-hendrik-schneider","tag-nastio-mosquito","tag-performance-art","tag-postcolonialism","tag-venice","tag-will-furtado"],"acf":{"main_category":null,"legacy":"1","exclude_from_ads":null,"hero_title":null,"subtitle":null,"hero":null,"teasers":null,"facebook_image":null,"related_articles":null,"next_article":null,"sleek_card_focus":null,"content":null},"yoast_head":"\n
\nMay 2015, Venice: It\u2019s the preview of the 56th Biennale and proceedings are in full swing. Critics, journalists, photographers and collectors are beginning to arrive, and people are gossiping about the hottest acts in town. One name keeps cropping up: N\u00e1stio Mosquito, an Angolan artist, musician and performer whose unique approach to the politics of representation is as refreshing as his frankness. This may be so, but it hasn\u2019t stopped the performer from giving Sleek the slip about an interview. For the few past weeks, attempts to contact him have received no response. It seems as if the hype has sent the 34-year old to ground. Yet amid all this there he is: emerging from a crowd of art goers, wearing sunglasses and dressed head to toe in black, posing like a member of the Velvet Underground.
\nThis Lou Reed-esque swagger is entirely intuitive: he began his career as a musician and writer. His early efforts, however, were not well received. \u201cI\u2019m very happy I\u2019ve found a place where what I do makes sense,\u201d he says. \u201cBefore this I was creating content for TV and radio that no one wanted. Now it\u2019s like, \u2018This shit makes sense here.\u2019 So I\u2019m contributing my perspective.\u201d
\nTaken from Sleek 48<\/a>, buy copy here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n![\"Nastio](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/Unbenannt.jpg\")
Portrait of N\u00e1stio Mosquito<\/p>\n
\nIn doing so, he proves that humour can bring transcendence to art even when addressing \u2018serious\u2019 issues such as identity, politics, post-\u00adcolonialism and contemporary culture. He\u2019s also not afraid to shock. As the Guardian\u2019s Mark Brown reported in February, his first solo show \u201cDaily Loving Making\u201d at Birmingham\u2019s Ikon gallery featured a work entitled \u201cFuck Africa\u201d opposite another which compared and contrasted the \u2018audacity\u2019 of Hitler and Mandela. Despite this he has continued to generate buzz, which last year culminated when he, along with Colombia\u2019s Carlos Motta, was named joint winner of the International Future Generation Art Prize for artists under 35. And it\u2019s easy to see why: his performances are oddly disarming, and it\u2019s hard to remain immune to the charisma he\u2019s cultivated on stage.
\nOne such beguiling instance from his oeuvre is his 2010 video \u201c3 Continents\u201d, in which he reads out a speech about Africa, Europe and America in the guise of an inebriated politician: \u201cI bought Europe in all it\u2019s various shades of white,\u201d his character says. \u201cI bought it. Do not worry, just like the previous owners I have no intention of making Europe\u2019s people less ignorant, less lazy… and no, Bill Gates is not an associate in this exciting new \u00adventure.\u201d Although the performance clearly has very serious intentions, it delivers them with a pinch of salt, pulling the rug out from under our feet just when his act threatens to become candid.
\nIn others, such as \u201cCusps: A Performance\u201d, staged at Minneapolis\u2019s Walker Art Center in 2013, Mosquito incorporated 3 Continents with boisterous live speeches, song recitals and recorded material. It\u2019s surreal, and demonstrative of the complexity of his work in which meaning is dispersed through the interplay of his physical performance, its presentation and its ambiguous verbal content. Multiple readings of his shows are therefore inevitable, and further the confusion that Mosquito thrives on. Discussing this, he admits that he\u2019s not interested in protecting how his art is interpreted, or even where it\u2019s displayed.
\n\u201cI have no particular restrictions on where to show or how to show,\u201d he says. \u201cI can\u2019t do everything, I can\u2019t do Britney Spears or Miley Cyrus. I\u2019m limited by my own sensibilities and abilities, and that\u2019s enough. Once I\u2019ve created something I want it to go everywhere it can. Why not?\u201d
\nThis no holds barred attitude extends throughout his work, too. In 2015\u2019s \u201cDemo da Garcia\u201d, Mosquito plays a singer who\u2019s having a nervous breakdown as he\u2019s trying to record a music video, which ends with him struggling to pull up his trousers. A meditation on the frailty of identity, it\u2019s a darkly comic piece which Mosquito uses to pose certain questions about Angolan pop music and culture in general. \u201cWhat is this \u2018Angola\u2019? Why is it, that when it comes to music, it is all about doing kizomba?\u201d, he asks, referring to a popular form of modern Angolan dance. And further: \u201cHow weird are you, if you don\u2019t do it? This is about an individual kind of having a breakdown in connection to what is expected of him.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Nastio](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/mosquito31.jpg\")
Flourishing Seeds, 2012, live performance at Tate Modern, London, copyright the artist, courtesy the artist<\/p>\n![\"nastio](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/mosquito1.jpg\")
3 Continents, 2010, copyright the artist, courtesy the artist<\/p>\n
\nMosquito\u2019s demeanour is no less impenetrable in person. On the one hand he\u2019s contemplative and laid back, yet on the other he fends off any probes into his life and work. Attempts to dig deeper by engaging him in Portuguese also end in failure as he swiftly switches the conversation back to English; there\u2019s no messing about with Mosquito. But it\u2019s also difficult to tell why he\u2019s so evasive. Is he trying to fuel speculation? Or is he just protecting the integrity of his work and his alter egos, such as \u201cN\u00e1stia Mosquito\u201d, a foul-mouthed Russian, and \u201cNastivicious\u201d, a collaboration with Spanish artist Vic Pereir\u00f3?
\nDirect answers are thin on the ground, but these references to pop music offer some clues. Today, he\u2019s still working as a musician, and in 2013 he released \u201cSe Eu Fosse Angolano\u201d (\u201cIf I Was Angolan\u201d), which blended synth-laden sounds with bossa nova and songs with narratives. The year before he\u2019d been developing this style with singles such as the semi-autobiographical \u201cBebi Beberei Bebendo\u201d (\u201cDrank Will Drink Drinking\u201d) and \u201cCom\u00e9dia da Trag\u00e9dia\u201d(\u201cComedy of the Tragedy\u201d), about a difficult relationship, the video to which Mosquito stars in as the submissive client to a dominatrix. As with many popstars, the line between Mosquito the performer and Mosquito the real person is unclear, and it seems as if he\u2019s projecting this ambiguity into his art, especially through the way in which he refuses to distinguish between his music videos and his art. \u201cMy music is as commercial as it can be,\u201d he concedes.
\nMoreover, his healthy disregard for the saleability of his records is reflected through his disdain for the boundaries between commercial and fine art. In fact, this is all part of his strategy. In other hands things could seriously backfire, but Mosquito has made it work.\u00a0 After group shows in London\u2019s Tate Modern and Berlin\u2019s Haus der Kulturen Welt in 2012 and 2013, this year he\u2019s shown at both the Venice and Gothenburg biennales, and in November he performed \u201cThe Age I Don\u2019t Remember\u201d commissioned by the Emdash Foundation at the ICA.
\n\u201cI\u2019ve been learning how to deal with physical space,\u201d he says discussing his recent London show. \u201cI keep listening to people around me, telling me to try a few things out. When it comes to audiences, me not leaving them alone is a sign that they matter to me.\u201d Despite this success, he swears he\u2019d rather be elsewhere: \u201cI feel very uncomfortable with the whole context of the biennale,\u201d he says. \u201cI have to come to grips with the fact that this is the tribe where me and my work make sense. The invitations confirm that in a way, but this is my work, not necessarily who I am.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"nastio](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/mosquito2.jpg\")
Demo da Garcia, 2013, copyright the artist, courtesy the artist<\/p>\n![\"Buehnenabend](\"https:\/\/www.sleek-mag.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/01\/mosquitolast.jpg\")
Buehnenabend in der Tischlerei der Deutschen Oper Berlin. 21.03.2013, photography by Marcus Lieberenz\/bildbuehne.de<\/p>\n
\nSpeaking via email several months later, Mosquito is even cagier than in Venice, and questions about the details of his forthcoming exhibitions in Spain and the Netherlands receive short shrift. \u201cIt\u2019s about authority,\u201d he says. \u201cWhomever or whatever you recognise as an authority, rules you… We all give it to someone, or something. If you think you don\u2019t, you\u2019re more fucked than you think.\u201d\u00a0 Speaking to him like this online it\u2019s impossible to know which N\u00e1stio is speaking \u2013 the artist, the musician, the writer, the performer, N\u00e1stia or Nastivicious. But this is probably the point. After all, the beauty of his work is its ability to defy easy categorisations \u2013 the reason why it keeps audiences coming back for.
\nText by Will Furtado
\n<\/a>Portraits by Hendrik Schneider<\/strong> \n\u201cMy Father Has No Surname\u201d, a solo show with works by N\u00e1stio Mosquito and Nastivicious is at, Espai d\u2019art contemporani de Castell\u00f3, Castell\u00f3n, Spain,\u00a0 until\u00a0February 2, 2016<\/strong> \nThe video installation: \u201cSer Humano, I Am Naked\u201d is at Possitions #2, Van Abbemuseum<\/a>, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, until April 3, 2016<\/strong> \nMore: Frances Stark Brings Hip Hop and Opera Together in L.A.<\/a><\/strong> \nMore: Print Features<\/a><\/strong> \n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"