Oroma Elewa

Last updated
Oroma Elewa
Born
Port Harcourt, Nigeria
NationalityNigerian
Known forPop'Africana
Website oromaelewa.com

Oroma Elewa is a Nigerian visual and performance artist, writer and creative director. [1] [2] [3]

Contents

In her art, Elewa examines social constructs and their impact on identity, thought, expression and behavior. Her work is fundamentally concerned with reflecting upon and interrogating personal experiences that hold social, cultural, political and racial import, contemporary womanhood and, in her own words, ‘facets of Black identity, including the transnational African mindset, the diasporic experience, and [her] possession of a “Black Body.”’ [1]

The artist first came to prominence as the founding Editor-in-Chief and publisher of Pop’Africana, a fashion and art magazine that amplified contemporary African fashion, style and aesthetics to international audiences. [2]

Work

Pop’Africana 2009-14

Oroma Elewa launched Pop’Africana, a landmark publication amplifying the cultures and styles of Africa to an international audience in 2009. The magazine offered a new vision of Africa and challenged aged clichés about the continent. [4]

Pop’Africana has been celebrated for delivering a ‘rejuvenated image of Africa’. [5] In an interview with Vogue Italia, Elewa elaborated on her intent in creating Pop’Africana, stating that she was inspired by ‘a vision of an Africa that shelters and respects individualism and for Africans, that the world's opinion of us is redirected.’ [6]

The magazine closed in 2014, with Elewa stating that the development of social media enabled individuals to tell their own stories, further stating that ‘being able to tell your own stories is more powerful than any magazine feature.' [2]

Crushed Guava Leaves (2017-today)

Oroma Elewa’s first book, Crushed Guava Leaves, was published in 2017. [7] The book draws on Elewa’s’ personal experiences and observations, compiling poems and stories that serve as ‘cultural snapshots primed for performance’. [8] The stories were written to be adapted for stage, film, movement or sound - no imagery is included. In 2018, a collection of paintings by the artist interpreting some of the stories in the book was exhibited at Oof Books. [9] The project as a whole has been described as a second creative project for the artist, in which she began to investigate the potential of ‘performance as a medium for cultural discourse’. [9]

Area Babes & Ashawo Superstars (2019-today)

Oroma Elewa began the performance project ‘Area Babes and Ashawo Superstars’ on social media in 2019. [10] For this work, the artist employs the ubiquitous meme format of modern-day digital discourse to put forward a critical dialogue on class, power, sexual politics and other matters concerning contemporary African womanhood and African feminism. [11] [12]

These characters are presented through both original and recreated stills from the golden age of Nollywood. [13]

Area Babes and Ashawo Superstars brings a dimension to cultural discourse often considered taboo and engages the viewer in dialogues that exists outside normative contours of feminism; in particular economic agency and liberatory politics of sex; transactional and otherwise. [14]

Frida Kahlo Misattribution Controversy

Oroma Elewa’s poem ‘I am my own muse. I am the subject I know best. The subject I want to better.’ has been repeatedly erroneously attributed to Frida Kahlo by major art institutions and publications. [15] [16]

Prizes

Exhibitions


Further reading

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daniel Buren</span> French artist

Daniel Buren is a French conceptual artist, painter, and sculptor. He has won numerous awards including the Golden Lion for best pavilion at the Venice Biennale (1986), the International Award for best artist in Stuttgart (1991) and the prestigious Premium Imperiale for painting in Tokyo in 2007. He has created several world-famous installations, including "Les Deux Plateaux"(1985) in the Cour d'honneur of the Palais-Royal, and the Observatory of the Light in Fondation Louis Vuitton. He is one of the most active and recognised artists on the international scene, and his work has been welcomed by the most important institutions and sites around the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Orlan</span> French contemporary artist (born 1947)

Orlan is a French multi-media artist. who uses sculpture, photography, performance, video, 3D, video games, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, and robotics as well as scientific and medical techniques such as surgery and biotechnology to question modern social phenomena. She has said that her art is not body art, but 'carnal art,' which lacks the suffering aspect of body art.

African Photography Encounters is a biennial exhibition in Bamako, Mali, held since 1994. The exhibition, featuring exhibits by contemporary African photographers, is spread over several Bamako cultural centers, including the National Museum, the National Library, the Modibo Keïta memorial, and the District Museum. The exhibition also features colloquia and film showings. The most recent biennial took place in 2017.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lisson Gallery</span>

Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery with locations in London and New York, founded by Nicholas Logsdail in 1967. The gallery represents over 50 artists such as Art & Language, Ryan Gander, Carmen Herrera, Richard Long, John Latham, Sol LeWitt, Robert Mangold, Jonathan Monk, Julian Opie, Richard Wentworth, Anish Kapoor, Richard Deacon and Ai Weiwei.

Lynne Cooke is an Australian-born art scholar. Since August 2014 she has been the Senior Curator, Special Projects in Modern Art, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC.

Air de Paris is a contemporary art gallery owned and directed by Florence Bonnefous and Edouard Merino, now located in Romainville, France.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev</span> Art historian, critic, and curator

Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev is an Italian-American writer, art historian and exhibition maker who has been serving as the Director of Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea and Fondazione Francesco Federico Cerruti in Turin since 2016. She was Edith Kreeger Wolf Distinguished Visiting Professor in Art Theory and Practice at Northwestern University (2013-2019). She is the recipient of the 2019 Audrey Irmas Award for Curatorial Excellence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lagos Photo</span>

LagosPhoto Festival is the first international art festival of photography in Nigeria, launched in October 2010. It is organised by the African Artists’ Foundation (AAF) as part of an ongoing project designed to use art in public spaces, as a medium for increasing societal awareness. The festival includes workshops and classes for professional artists, art fairs and indoor and outdoor exhibitions citywide. LagosPhoto is held annually and features emerging photographers alongside established photographers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Catherine Gfeller</span> Swiss artist

Catherine Gfeller is a Swiss artist. She currently lives and works in Paris and Southern France after having lived in New York from 1995 to 1999.

Briony Fer, FBA is a British art historian, critic, and curator; professor of history of art at University College London. She has written extensively on diverse topics of 20th century and contemporary art. She has written essays on numerous contemporary artists, such as Gabriel Orozco, Vija Celmins, Jean-Luc Moulène, Roni Horn, Ed Ruscha, and Rachel Whiteread. A focus of her research is on the art of American sculptor Eva Hesse, as when she wrote for the catalogue for the artist's 2002 retrospective curated by Elisabeth Sussman at San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art in 2002.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Otobong Nkanga</span> Nigerian artist (born 1974)

Otobong Nkanga (born 1974) is a Nigerian-born visual artist, tapestry maker and performance artist, based in Antwerp, Belgium. In 2015, she won the Yanghyun Prize.

Nairy Baghramian is an Armenian-Iranian born German visual artist. Since 1984, she has lived and worked in Berlin.

Anne Barlow is a curator and director in the field of international contemporary art, and is currently Director of Tate St Ives, Art Fund Museum of the Year 2018. There she directs and oversees the artistic vision and programme, including temporary exhibitions, collection displays, artist residencies, new commissions, and a learning and research programme. At Tate St Ives, Barlow has curated solo exhibitions of work by artists including Thảo Nguyên Phan (2022), Petrit Halilaj (2021), Haegue Yang (2020), Otobong Nkanga (2019), Huguette Caland (2019), Amie Siegel (2018) and Rana Begum (2018). She was also co-curator of "Naum Gabo: Constructions for Real Life" (2020) and collaborating curator with Castello di Rivoli, Turin for Anna Boghiguian at Tate St Ives (2019).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elvira Dyangani Ose</span> Spanish art curator (born 1974)

Elvira Dyangani Ose is a Spanish art curator who has been serving as the director of MACBA Contemporary Art Museum in Barcelona.

Pélagie Gbaguidi (1965-) is a Beninese artist who lives and works in Brussels. She is most well-known for her series of paintings and drawings titled “le Code noir” which evokes the violence of the slave trade and its effected trauma on the following generations of Western African cultures.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa</span> Art museum, design/textile museum, historic site in Cape Town, South Africa

Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa is a public non-profit museum in Cape Town, South Africa. Zeitz MOCAA opened on September 22, 2017 as the largest museum of contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. The museum is located in the Silo District at the Victoria & Alfred Waterfront in Cape Town. A retail and hospitality property, the Waterfront receives around 24 million local and international visitors per year.

Rashid Mahdi was a Sudanese photographer, active in Atbara from the 1950s to the 1970s. French photographer Claude Iverné, founder of a large archive of photographs dedicated to this "Golden Age" of photography in Sudan, called Mahdi "certainly the most sophisticated and one of the major African photographers of the 20th century."

Bill Kouélany is a Congolese artist, writer and set designer. In 2007, she participated in documenta 12 in Kassel with a multimedia art installation. She lives in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of the Congo.

Adéọlá Ọlágúnjú is a Nigerian visual artist working with photography, video, sound and installations.

References

  1. 1 2 "Project: Oroma Elewa". Art Forum. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 Street, Mikelle. "This Transnational African Editor Is Getting Into Performance Art". Observer. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  3. ↑ Wogan, John (2017-01-16). "T City Guides: Marrakesh". The New York Times. ISSN   0362-4331 . Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  4. ↑ Resneck, Jacob. "Pop'Africana". Cool Hunting.
  5. ↑ "Stylee Fridays: Pop'Africana". The Fader. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  6. ↑ Hardison, Bethann. "Oroma Elewa". Vogue. Archived from the original on 2015-06-07.
  7. ↑ Elewa, Oroma. "Crushed Guava Leaves". Rookie Mag.
  8. ↑ Elewa, Oroma (2017). Crushed Guava Leaves. Independently published by Oroma Elewa. p. Introduction. ISBN   978-0-692-04893-1.
  9. 1 2 "Oroma Elewa". Curate LA. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  10. ↑ "Area Babes & Ashawo Superstars". Instagram. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  11. ↑ O’tsemaye, Roli. "Protest Art by Black Women Who Won't be Silenced". TSA - Contemporary Art Magazine.
  12. ↑ Mtada, Chelsea. "Performance Artist Oroma Elewa Is Giving Us The Content We Deserve". Guap. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  13. ↑ Adeniji, Adedoyin. "How memes breathed new life into Nollywood". Gal-Dem. Retrieved 21 March 2022.
  14. ↑ "Visual artist and performer Otobong Nkanga presents "Togethering" with Oroma Elewa, Bill Kouélany, Obi Okigbo and Adéolá Olágúnjú at Galerie in City - Fabienne Leclerc". Onart.
  15. ↑ "How Artists Are Using The Selfie As A Radical Weapon For Change". HuffPost UK. 2015-09-03. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  16. ↑ "The Vacant Muse". Kinfolk. 2020-04-28. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  17. ↑ "ARTISSIMA PRIZES: 5 November" . Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  18. ↑ "CORPORATE ASHAWO - Oroma Elewa". www.insituparis.fr. Retrieved 2023-03-22.
  19. ↑ "Exhibition Artissima 2022 - artist, news & exhibitions - photography-now.com". photography-now.com. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  20. ↑ "Oroma Elewa" (in Italian). Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  21. ↑ "Exhibition CURRENCY: PHOTOGRAPHY BEYOND CAPTURE - artist, news & exhibitions - photography-now.com". photography-now.com. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
  22. ↑ Rédaction, La (2022-01-31). "Visual artist and performer Otobong Nkanga presents « Togethering » with Oroma Elewa, Bill Kouélany, Obi Okigbo and Adéọlá Ọlágúnjú at Galerie In Situ - Fabienne Leclerc". ON ART MEDIA. Retrieved 2022-11-07.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.