Trade Routes, ArtEco - Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery

At Culture Whisper we’re big fans of the groundswell of contemporary artistic energy from beyond the traditional power regions of the US and EU. With a growing nexus of Eastern and African galleries and biennales attracting collectors and curating delegations from the upper echelons of the art world, this is one of the most exciting developments of this decade. 

As the title of the Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery’s new show suggests, the appearance of new artistic networks can seem to recall the old trade routes: bringing artistic spice to a Western audience hungry for new flavours. But what you see in shows like this is far more than a taste for the 'exotic'. These are works born of increased artistic patronage in non-Western countries, the opening up of museums to global content and frankly, the evergreen need for collectors and galleries to discover new talent. 

Oil-rich Azerbaijan, for example, is a relative newcomer to the international contemporary art world, but it’s making lots of noise. There’s a growth of galleries in capital Baku, the astounding Aliyev Centre by Zaha Hadid, and this year a new carpet museum opens in the shape of … well, a rolled up carpet . 

Out of this ferment is coming a new generation of artists including Faig Ahmed, whose work meditates on carpets as objects and who was a runner-up in the Victoria and Albert Museum's recent Jameel Prize. Here you'll see Ahmed's work, which responds to Azeri's great carpet tradition by mutating this national icon into a kind of expanded reality in which colours run from the boundary of the rugs and explode into hallucinatory 3D form. They turn into a kind of Op Art, and generally dazzle, baffle and delight the eye. It’s Ahmed's way of re-imagining a folkloric art in a globalised world.

Part two of this exhibition is the work of Ethiopian artist Dawit Abebe. His paintings depict angsty bodies beset by the detrimental effects of technology on human behaviour. In Ethopia, as in the wider continent of Africa, consumer technology in the form of mobile phones and computers is a great harbinger of progress to traditional societies, yet looms with portent as well as promise.

In part three, Phoebe Boswell – a London-based artist who was born in Kenya – investigates the cultural phenomena of Zanzibar, Tanzania, focussing on the Sufi tradition of rhythmic chanting known as Maulidi ya Homu. As with other notable facets of East African culture, it's a replanted Islamic tradition that came orginally from Arab traders in the Middle East, but which now only exists as a vestige in the Zanzibar archipelago: a lost sound from a sea-borne culture. 

Thus do all three artists attest to a sense of movement, of restlessness and rupture, making this a show of sprawlingly complex origins and unpredictable, far-reaching destinations. Wandsworth has not traditionally been a great gallery centre of London - perhaps Trade Roots will start to change this.

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The ArtEco Kristin Hjellegjerde gallery is open Tuesday - Saturday 11am - 6pm and 11am - 5pm on Sundays.