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transcultural, global modernity or transmodernity, the potential for magazines at the locations of his exhibitions in order to work on
completely new readings of both history and present of artistic and them back in Benin. There he adds to these collections and uses
cultural achievements. them to create pictures and reliefs with a team of sign painters. He
The concept of transmodernity originates with the Argentine-Me- then brings all this back to the exhibition site for his floor and wall
xican philosopher Enrique Dussel, who developed it as a counter- installations. The sovereignty to interpret the global North remains
model to Western modernity. In contrast to modernity‘s previ- with the global South.
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ously criticised exploitative relationship between artists of the The year before, in preparation for ‘Inverted Space’, Adéagbo had
global North and South, transmodernity, in the transmission to art, already realised several of these characteristic installations at his-
emphasises alliances and reciprocal transformative processes of torically significant locations in Hamburg. One of them, for exam-
artistic and cultural creation. According to Leeb, transmodernity is ple, referred to the German East Africa War Memorial 1914-1918
„characterised by establishment of contacts, mutual invitations, the in the colonially revisionist Tanzania Park. With that, Adéagbo re-
founding of associations, publications and institutions. In contrast vealed not least a sheer hypocritical aspect of the White dominant
to Western modernity, its transnationalism transcends the geogra- society in the Hanseatic city (and in Germany in general), which
phical, cultural and ‚racial‘ boundaries of the colonial world order.” 15 since the Treaty of Versailles of 1918 has no doubt shrouded itself
Various artists whose works Dohmen collects, such as Hague Yang, in ignorance of its own colonial crimes, often stylising itself as a
Michael Rackovitz or Mariana Castillo Deball, are concerned with benevolent colonial power. ‘Inverted Space’ incorporated excerpts
such renegotiations of colonial power relations. One recent view- of this research in a glass display cabinet in order to conserve and
point in Dohmen‘s collection is the installation ‚Inverted Space‘ by historise them as in a time capsule. The transcription effort was of
Georges Adéagbo, a glass display case addressing Hamburg‘s colo- an aesthetic nature: what was previously ephemeral and transitory
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nial history. He designed it in 2015 for the Altonaer Balkon, where was now frozen in time. In a sense, Adéagbo thus drew a line un-
it was displayed in public space for almost half a year. der his preceding artistic and scientific research and recorded the
Adéagbo‘s works often revolve around political, religious or cultu- critical result in art history. Like that, future generations will also
ral conflicts. He systematically collects objects, photos, books or be able to sense the current, shameful German colonial amnesia

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