Fondazione ICA Milano presents O Estrangeiro. 35º30'54" N, 12º34’48” E, a solo exhibition by Arjan Martins, Afro-Brazilian artist considered one of the most significant voices on the contemporary international scene, curated by Alberto Salvadori. Opening on Thursday, June 11, 2026, the exhibition introduces, for the first time in Italy, a significant collection of the artist’s recent works.

The exhibition brings together a corpus of paintings that depict a poetic and political crossing of the Atlantic, portraying it as a space of memory, conflict, and transformation.

Arjan Martins’ artistic research unfolds through a layered reflection on the African diaspora and the routes that, over time, have shaped the forced movement of bodies, images, and identities. In his paintings, the sea is never merely a backdrop; it is a living archive — a site where histories are deposited and reactivated, a field traversed by trajectories that continue to produce effects in the present. As clearly demonstrated in his practice, the artist transforms “voices and sounds drawn from history books, written words, and spoken words” into images that take shape as imaginary and collective portraits.

The works on view articulate a pictorial language in which cartography and narrative, symbol and figure coexist. Boats, navigational instruments, bodies, and landscapes are arranged across the pictorial surface as elements of an unstable geography, where time is not linear but circular.
The images appear to emerge from an anachronistic dimension: they do not merely document the past but instead reactivate it, creating a tension between history and contemporaneity.

Within this visual system, the representation of diasporic bodies assumes a radical centrality. Martins creates scenes where everyday life coexists with a powerful symbolic charge, restoring a presence that is both individual and collective. His figures are never isolated; they are part of a broader constellation shaped by relationships, intersections, and cultural stratifications. In this sense, painting becomes a space of reclamation, where denied rights and ongoing forms of exclusion are made visible, often suggested through images of absence.

The exhibition at Fondazione ICA Milano serves as a device for interpreting the present, skillfully intertwining aesthetic expression with political urgency without relying on explanatory language. Martins’ work unfolds through accumulation and resonance: the images create a field of tension that invites viewers to engage with a collective and still unresolved memory. Through a practice that combines history, imagination, and lived experience, Arjan Martins proposes a form of painting that is both narrative and a political statement. Starting from the Atlantic, his work redefines the space of contemporary representation by interrogating how images contribute to constructing — or challenging — dominant narratives.

Arjan Martins previously collaborated with Fondazione ICA Milano in 2019 on the group exhibition Apologia della Storia, curated by Alberto Salvadori and Luigi Fassi, the institution’s inaugural exhibition project conceived as a crossroads for encounters and cultural exchange; and again in 2020, within the project conceived by Fondazione ICA Milano for the Massimo De Carlo Virtual Space, dedicated to one of the most significant reflections to emerge during the pandemic period.

Fondazione ICA Milano thanks Banca Intesa Sanpaolo, the Foundation’s official sponsor, Valsoia and Enel for their support of the institutional program and activities.