Tonights opening in Rotterdam! #hiphophuis #lakwenamaciver #lakwena #vigogallery #markchalmers #stayingpower #basketball #hiphop #lakwena STAYING POWER HIPHOPHUIS INVITES LAKWENA SEPT. 24, 2022 – JAN. 15, 2023 HAL 3 SHARE In collaboration with hiphophuis, Kunsthal Rotterdam is presenting the exhibition ‘Staying Power. Hiphophuis invites Lakwena’. Following earlier collaborations – including the successful exhibition ‘Street Dreams’ –, these two Rotterdam-based cultural tastemakers will now reconnect on the occasion of the twentieth anniversary of the hiphophuis and the thirtieth anniversary of the Kunsthal. The artist Lakwena Maciver (1986, United Kingdom) has been invited to create new work as part of her series Jump Paintings. From this autumn, this series of abstract portraits – inspired by world-famous basketball players – will be shown in the Kunsthal’s HALL 3. Lakwena’s Jump Paintings pay tribute to the most inspiring basketball players from past and present, including Shaquille O'Neil, Kyrie Irving en Kevin Durant. For the abstract portraits, Lakwena uses the basketball court as a canvas on which she symbolically represents the players in kaleidoscopic patterns and neon colours. She takes the physical characteristics of the basketball players as her starting point: each painting is the same height as the player. Lakwena’s work is characterised by bold graphics and profound messages. In her Jump Paintings she uses texts relating to the players and references to themes like decolonisation, redemption, and paradise.