Shazar Gallery unveils a transformative moment in contemporary art with The Silent Allegory of a Universal Chair, the first solo exhibition in Italy by Ghanaian artist Joshua Oheneba-Takyi. Opening with a private view on Thursday, September 11, 2025, from 6:00 PM to 8:30 PM, and running through November 8, 2025, this exhibition, curated by the esteemed Domenico de Chirico, marks a significant milestone in the career of the 28-year-old artist from Kumasi, now based in Accra. Oheneba has already exhibited at prestigious venues such as Saatchi Gallery (London), Gallery 1957 (Accra), Maruani Mercier Gallery (Belgium), Christie’s (Dubai), and the 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair (Paris). His works reside in prominent collections, including the Dean Collection (New York), Vanhaerents Collection (Brussels), Africa First Collection (Israel), Newman Collection (Paris | New York), Sir David Adjaye Collection (Accra | London), and the Olym Collection (Tel Aviv). With this exhibition, Oheneba cements his reputation as a visionary artist who transforms the ordinary into a profound allegory of human existence.
A Turning Point in Artistic Practice
The Silent Allegory of a Universal Chair presents 15 new canvases that signify a bold evolution in Joshua’s practice. Moving away from his earlier focus on the human figure, the artist turns his attention to a singular, archetypal object: the chair. Specifically, the white plastic chair—a ubiquitous symbol of globalized modernity—takes center stage, reimagined through innovative techniques like silkscreen printing. This shift allows Oheneba to explore the chair not as a mundane piece of furniture but as a threshold between body and space, gesture and memory, power and absence. As curator Domenico de Chirico writes, “In his paintings, the chair is no longer a simple functional support, but an active element: it appears isolated or multiplied, suspended or anchored to the painted surface, always endowed with a stubborn yet silent presence.”
The exhibition, housed in the intimate spaces of Shazar Gallery at Via Pasquale Scura 8, Naples, transforms the chair into a vessel of meaning. Joshua’s chairs dominate the compositions, sometimes enlarged to monumental proportions, other times grouped in ambiguous, never-quite-defined clusters. Rendered in subtle, almost ethereal lines, they shed their corporeality to become ghostly traces, evoking a sense of absence that resonates with human universality. Through strategies of enlargement, seriality, and composition, Oheneba liberates the chair from the “grim and monotonous everyday life,” restoring it as a “relic of the most varied experience” and a “silent guardian of countless stories that have sedimented in the inexorable flow of lived time,” as de Chirico eloquently notes.
A Philosophical and Phenomenological Inquiry
At its core, The Silent Allegory of a Universal Chair poses a profound question: What can an object reveal about who we are? Joshua’s exploration is deeply philosophical, drawing on the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl, who viewed the body as the foundation of experience and subjectivity, and Maurice Merleau-Ponty, who described it as the means of “having a world.” In Joshua’s paintings, the chair transcends its utilitarian function to become an extension of the body—a trace, an echo, a mental projection. Rendered with near-architectural precision, the chairs resemble technical drawings or structural memories, aligning with Platonic thought, where the chair is not merely an object to touch but an idea to contemplate. As de Chirico observes, “It is no longer a chair-object, but a chair-idea.”
This philosophical underpinning is evident in the exhibition’s visual language. The chairs, often depicted against richly textured backgrounds of arabesque patterns, satiny drapes, and fabric-like surfaces, evoke the opulence of European Baroque painting—think Peter Paul Rubens or Anthony van Dyck, where the act of sitting signified power and status. Yet Oheneba subverts this tradition by replacing the ornate thrones of the past with the molded plastic chairs of today. This juxtaposition highlights a temporal fracture: the chair, once a marker of elite identity, is now a democratized, mass-produced object, accessible to all yet destined to deteriorate. In this shift, Oheneba inscribes a critique of modern consumption and the erosion of individuality in an age of standardization.
A Dialogue with Art History and Modernity
Joshua’s engagement with art history is both reverential and subversive. His backgrounds, with their intricate patterns and sumptuous textures, recall the splendor of Baroque portraiture, where sitting was synonymous with dominance. However, the replacement of inlaid wooden thrones with disposable plastic chairs speaks to Walter Benjamin’s concept of mechanical reproducibility, where objects lose their unique “aura” in the age of mass production. Joshua, however, reclaims this aura through a pure, almost ascetic pictorial gesture. His chairs are not merely portrayed but revealed, inviting viewers to recognize their deeper significance rather than passively observe. As de Chirico notes, “He doesn’t portray, but reveals.”
This revelation extends to the chair’s symbolic versatility. The white plastic chair, found in homes, markets, churches, and street corners across the globe, is a paradox: universal yet ephemeral, enduring yet disposable. It is a throne and refuse, a nest and a wreck, a symbol of ceremony and waiting, dominance and subordination, justice and inequity. Each scratch, curve, or crack on its surface tells a story—a moment of use, abandonment, or transformation. Joshua’s chairs, inhabited by emptiness yet brimming with relationships, become placeholders for humanity itself, each one “a place reserved for each human being, without exclusion,” as de Chirico writes.
An Ecological and Social Critique
Beyond its philosophical depth, the exhibition carries a subtle yet powerful ecological resonance. The plastic chair, designed to be short-lived and difficult to dispose of, is a symbol of environmental impermanence. Oheneba draws on the ideas of Bruno Latour, whose relational ecology posits that objects are not passive but active participants in the world’s fate. The chair, omnipresent yet often invisible, becomes an index of our present and a symptom of our future, reflecting the fragility of our ecological systems and the consequences of unchecked consumption. This ecological critique is not overt but woven into the fabric of the exhibition, urging viewers to confront their role in an era of looming environmental crises.
Socially, the chair serves as a mirror of our convoluted present. Its global ubiquity transcends continents and social classes, yet it also embodies hierarchies of power and subordination. Joshua’s paintings capture this duality, presenting the chair as both a democratic object and a relic of inequality. The tension between visibility and fading, presence and absence, runs through the works, creating a dynamic interplay that challenges viewers to reconsider the objects that surround them.
A Visual and Technical Mastery
The visual richness of The Silent Allegory of a Universal Chair matches its conceptual depth. Joshua’s mastery of color, texture, and composition transforms the mundane into the profound. His use of silkscreen printing introduces a new dimension to his practice, allowing for layered, almost ghostly compositions that oscillate between tangibility and intangibility. The chairs, whether solitary or multiplied, command the canvas with a quiet intensity, their scratches and curves narrating stories of use and abandonment. The interplay of bold silhouettes and delicate lines creates a dynamic tension, drawing viewers into a dialogue with the objects before them.
The backgrounds, with their intricate patterns and fabric-like textures, add a layer of historical resonance, evoking the splendor of Baroque art while grounding the works in a contemporary context. The chairs themselves, rendered in shades of white, gray, or muted tones, appear almost spectral, their forms dissolving into the canvas or emerging with stark clarity. This interplay of presence and absence, solidity and ephemerality, underscores the exhibition’s central allegory: the chair as a silent witness to the human condition.
A Rising Star in Contemporary Art
Born in 1997 in Kumasi, Ghana, Joshua Oheneba-Takyi has rapidly emerged as a vital voice in contemporary African art. His international exhibitions and inclusion in prestigious collections underscore his growing influence. With The Silent Allegory of a Universal Chair, Oheneba solidifies his reputation as an artist who can transform the ordinary into a profound commentary on the human experience. His ability to weave together philosophy, art history, and social critique through the lens of a single object is a testament to his intellectual and artistic prowess.
Shazar Gallery, located in the heart of Naples, provides an intimate setting for this thought-provoking exhibition. Open Tuesday through Saturday from 2:30 PM to 7:30 PM, and by appointment, the show invites visitors to sit—metaphorically—on Joshua’s universal chair and listen to the stories it holds. As de Chirico aptly summarizes, this is an invitation to “contemplate the ordinary as if it were extraordinary,” to recognize ourselves in the silent archives of an object that is both everywhere and nowhere.
A Lyrical and Critical Atlas
The Silent Allegory of a Universal Chair is not just an exhibition but a visual meditation—a lyrical and critical atlas of our complex contemporary condition. Joshua’s chairs, with their silent presence and layered narratives, challenge us to reconsider the objects that surround us, to find meaning in their silence, and to confront the realities of our shared world. Each canvas is a call to pause, to reflect, and to listen to the stories embedded in the scratches and curves of these unassuming objects.
For those seeking a deeper engagement with contemporary art, this exhibition is a must-see. It is a testament to Joshua’s ability to transform the mundane into a profound allegory, inviting us to sit—ideally—on a chair that no longer exists, to listen to what objects have to say, and to recognize ourselves in their placid silences. Joshua Oheneba-Takyi’s chairs may be silent, but their allegory speaks volumes, resonating with the weight of history, philosophy, and the urgent questions of our time.
Exhibition Details:
- Title: The Silent Allegory of a Universal Chair
- Artist: Joshua Oheneba-Takyi
- Curator: Domenico de Chirico
- Venue: Shazar Gallery, Via Pasquale Scura 8, 80134 Naples, Italy
- Private View: Thursday, September 11, 2025, 6:00 PM–8:30 PM
- Duration: September 12–November 8, 2025
- Hours: Tuesday–Saturday, 2:30 PM–7:30 PM, and by appointment
- Contact: +39 081 1812 6773, info@shazargallery.com
- Press: Graziella Melania Geraci, press@shazargallery.com, +39 347 5999666
- Website: www.shazargallery.com
- Social Media: Instagram: @shazargallery, Facebook: shazargallery
