Image: Renaissance Society, London
The Renaissance Society at the University of Chicago will present ‘Karimah Ashadu: Tendered,’ a solo exhibition marking the U.S. debut of ‘MUSCLE,’ a new moving-image installation focused on bodybuilders training in the heart of Lagos’s slums. The exhibition will run from September 12 through November 1, 2026, in Cobb Hall, on the fourth floor of the Renaissance Society in Chicago.
‘MUSCLE’ was co-commissioned and co-produced by the Renaissance Society, Fondazione In Between Art Film and Camden Art Centre. The 2025 work is an HD digital film in colour with stereo sound, running 22 minutes and 20 seconds. It will be shown alongside a series of new sculptural works drawn directly from the environments depicted in the film.
Ashadu’s moving-image practice examines the ways bodies are formed, disciplined and made legible within systems of labour and value, particularly in the cultural context of West Africa. Her films and installations develop sustained encounters with people whose lives unfold within informal economies, considering how aspiration and self-fashioning are negotiated under material constraint.
In ‘MUSCLE,’ bodybuilding is presented as part of a wider field of exertion, with the body operating as a site of labour, investment and self-fashioning. The exhibition’s materials describe Ashadu’s approach as sympathetic and sometimes visceral, rather than conventionally documentary. The film extends concerns found in earlier works including ‘Machine Boys’ (2024), ‘Plateau’ (2022) and ‘Red Gold’ (2016).
Born in London and described by the Renaissance Society as a British-born Nigerian artist and film director, Ashadu lives and works between Hamburg and Lagos. Her work has been exhibited and screened at institutions including Camden Art Centre in London, Canal Projects in New York, MoMA PS1, Kunsthalle Bremen, Tate Modern, Secession in Vienna, Kunstverein in Hamburg, South London Gallery, the Museum of Modern Art in New York and Centre d’Art Contemporain Genève. At the 60th Venice Biennale, she received the Silver Lion for a Promising Young Participant in the International Exhibition.
‘Tendered’ is organized within ‘Unison,’ a biennial initiative established by Fondazione In Between Art Film to commission and produce moving-image exhibitions in collaboration with international institutions. Alessandro Rabottini and Leonardo Bigazzi of Fondazione In Between Art Film are curating the project with Myriam Ben Salah and Karsten Lund for its presentation at the Renaissance Society.
The exhibition will open on September 12 with an artist talk at 4 p.m. in Swift Hall, followed by an opening celebration from 4 to 7 p.m. The gallery will be open from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. that day. ‘Tendered’ is free and open to the public at 5811 South Ellis Avenue, Chicago. The presentation will coincide with the installation of Ashadu’s ‘Machine Boys’ at the Art Institute of Chicago, scheduled to open September 11, 2026.
