For the global art world Michael Armitage appears like a blazing rising star. Born in 1984 in Kenya and educated in London, England, he is now featured by major art institutions and events like the 58th Venice Biennale (2019), MoMA in New York in Projects 110 (2019) and the Whitechapel Gallery in London in Radical Figures: Painting in the New Millennium (2020). The exhibition Paradise Edict at Haus der Kunst in Munich is Armitage's first solo exhibition in a major European art museum (Fig. 1).
Living and working in Nairobi as well as in London, Armitage praises each of the two cities as vital to his creative practice. He derives inspiration for his paintings from many different sources: from political events to personal memories and experiences, from mass media and pop culture to folklore, myths, and tales from East Africa and Europe (Fig. 2). These stories...