05/06/2026
The North Dakota Museum of Art Museum would like to congratulate artists Adebunmi Gbadebo (1) and María Magdalena Compos-Pons (2) on their participation in the main exhibition at the 61st Venice Biennale which opens this week.
Selected by the late curator Koyo Kouoh, the work of these two artists will be featured in the exhibition titled “Minor Keys.” Reflecting on this theme, Kouoh writes: “[T]hough often lost in the anxious cacophony of the present chaos raging through the world, the music continues. The songs of those producing beauty in spite of tragedy, the tunes of the fugitives recovering from the ruins, the harmonies of those repairing wounds and worlds.”
Many Museum visitors had a chance to see Gbadebo and Compos-Pons’ works in the Museum’s recent exhibition “Icons, Archetypes, and Portraits” which featured works from the Permanent Collection (3-5). Long time Museum visitors might also recall that Compos-Pons had a spectacular solo exhibition at the Museum in 2002 introducing her work to North American viewers.
In July of this year, the Museum is honored to feature another work by Gbadebo (6) in the exhibition “Material Abstractions” opening in July this year.
Images
1. Portrait of Gbadebo. Photograph by Neal Santos.
2. Portrait of Compos-Pons. Photograph, MacArthur Foundation.
3. Adebunmi Gbadebo, In Memory of K Smalls died 19??, 2021.
4. Adebunmi Gbadebo, True Blue Triptych, 2019 (detail)
5. María Magdalena Campos-Pons, The Seven Powers, 1992/2003 (detail).
6. Adebunmi Gbadebo,
In Memory of Henry Patterson, Born 1871, Died 8.30.1936, Someone I Have Loved Has Gone Away, And Left Me Lonley Day by Day. I Often Think of His Return, But I Knew That His Return, But I Know That His Stay Was Just Begun. At Rest, 2021.
