Hannah Black's 'HARSH MUTING' at zaza' in Naples features surrealist paintings critiquing human rights

Hannah Black presents her first solo exhibition at zaza' in Naples, titled 'HARSH MUTING', running until May 3, 2026. The show includes five circular oil paintings that distort text from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) into nonsense poetry through homophonic wordplay, referencing Marcel Duchamp's film 'Anemic Cinema'. Each work is pierced with nails and thread mapping astrological charts of historical revolutions, such as the First Intifada of 1987 linked to Article 15. The series continues Black's exploration from her 2025 show 'HUSH MR GIANT' at Arcadia Missa in London, both anagrams of 'human rights'. The exhibition critiques the declaration's unfulfilled liberal vision, noting its drafting by Allied powers post-World War II amid events like the colonization of Palestine. Black invokes surrealism, citing Suzanne Césaire's 1943 writing in 'Tropiques', as a response to fascism and colonial rationality. The paintings frame revolutions as symptoms of collective psychosis under universal humanism, highlighting shifting meanings of humanity through power struggles.