Otobong Nkanga

Last updated

Otobong Nkanga
Otobong Nkanga, Nottingham Contemporary 1907.JPG
Taste of a Stone. Ikǫ
Born1974 (age 49–50)
Kano, Nigeria
NationalityNigerian/Belgian
AwardsYanghyun Prize

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. [1] [2]

Contents

In her work she explores the social and topographical changes of her environment, observes their inherent complexities and understands how resources such as soil and earth, and their potential values, are subject to regional and cultural analysis. Her work has been featured in many institutions including the Tate Modern the KW Institute (Berlin), the Stedelijk Museum and the biennale of Sharjah. [3] She also took part in the 20th Biennale of Sydney. [4]

Early life and education

Otobong Nkanga was born in Kano, Nigeria, in 1974 and spent the majority of her childhood in Lagos. Her interest in art and the environment developed during her childhood when she would collect minerals and draw images with mica on the pavements of Lagos. [5] Her mother was a polytechnic teacher. Her father died when she was seven. Her mother then had to provide for Nkanga and her three siblings. [6] During her teenage years her family relocated to Paris, France, due to her mother's work. [7] Nkanga studied art at Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife and continued her studies at Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris. [7] Her mother died in a car accident just when she started her university studies. [6] She then went on to get a master's degree in Performing Arts at Dasarts, Amsterdam, in the Netherlands in 2008. [8] She currently lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium. [9]

Work and career

Themes and materials

Throughout her work, Nkanga explore themes of neocolonialism, ecological violence, and environmental protection. For example, in The Weight of Scars she depicts the scars of mineral extraction. [10] Also Nkanga's first US survey exhibition, To Dig a Hole That Collapses Again, sends a cautionary message about the world having an insatiable hunger for material resources and doing anything to obtain them. [11] In Pursuit of Bling relays the same message by drawing attention to extractivism and the world's desire to obtain rare minerals and metals. [12] In these ways, there is a site specificity to her work, as she states: "My work is interconnected with the places I've lived. What happens in one affects another. This is true for nature too." [13]

Nkanga uses many forms of media such as drawings, photographs, painting, textiles, videos, and sculptures, however she is mostly known for her installations. [14] As the writer and art critic Devon Van Houten Maldonado observes: "One foundation of her work involves breaking down and separating resources from the earth into piles, sculptures, and symbols – her focus is largely on the gross material." [15] Some signature elements found in her art include "material emotionality," which is the idea that objects can feel, think, and remember; she uses this idea to communicate the experiences of natural materials in her installations. [16] Body fragmentation – such as disembodied arms and legs – is another element that shows up in her works and it implies a lack of sense of a true whole. [11] Using objects from ethnographic collections such as the Weltkulturen Museum in Frankfurt am Main, Nkanga explores, according to the artist, curator and writer Yvette Mutumba, "the relationship between the present context of the artefacts in the museum's Africa collection and their original cultural setting." [17]

Career

Her first personal exhibition, Classicism & Beyond, took place in 2002 in the non-profit organization, Project Row Houses in Houston. In 2007 to 2008, in response to the work Baggage (1972 – 2007/2008) by American artist Allan Kaprow, [18] Nkanga has designed a performance for the Kunsthalle Bern. The initial work that was based on issues of movement of goods from one point of the planet to another, Nkanga introduces a post-colonial dimension. As evidenced the artist in an interview, [19] the concepts of identity, cultural specificities are again at the centre of her artistic gesture of re-appropriation.

Also, in 2008, the project Contained measures of Land used soil both as a symbol of the territory and competition and conflict. A year later, during her residence at Pointe-Noire, in the Congo, she has collected eight different colours of Earth. Pointe-Noire was colonized by the Portuguese and the French. Art critic Philippe Pirotte wrote that Nkanga comes to create a kind of vehicle for the presentation and the transportation which does not define the use value in an era where everyone is obsessed with the transformation of natural tools resources which serve humanity. [20]

Her project, Contained Measures of Tangible Memories that started in 2010, from her first trip to the Morocco, she explores the practices of dyeing. She essentially transform objects in circulation to objets d'art. [21]

In 2012, she has created a device for a performance, or rather an installation entitled Contained Measures of Kolanut with two photos, one of a tree called adekola and one with two girls imitating trees. Nkanga explained that the Kola tree is important for its culture and is a symbol of spirituality to its culture. After she suggested eating a brown nut ( Cola acuminata ) or a cream ( Cola nitida ). These elements existed for preparing a conversation. This type of performance can last for hours and requires a lot of concentration. [21]

The same year, she proposed a performance for the Tate programme "Politics of Representation" in which she invited visitors to explore the concepts of identity, perception, and memory. [22]

Exhibitions

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hans Ulrich Obrist</span> Swiss art curator, critic and historian (born 24/5/1968)

Hans Ulrich Obrist is a Swiss art curator, critic, and historian of art. He is artistic director at the Serpentine Galleries, London. Obrist is the author of The Interview Project, an extensive ongoing project of interviews. He is also co-editor of the Cahiers d'Art review. He lives and works in London.

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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lucas Samaras</span> Greek-American artist (born 1936)

Lucas Samaras is a Greek-American artist.

Charles Esche is a museum director, curator and writer. His focus is on art and how it reflects, provokes and influences changes in society. He lives between Edinburgh and Eindhoven.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Hou Hanru</span>

Hou Hanru is an international art curator and critic based in San Francisco, Paris and Rome. He was Artistic Director of the National Museum MAXXI in Rome, Italy, from 2013 to 2023.

Afterall is a nonprofit contemporary art research and publishing organisation. It is based in London, at Central St Martins College of Art & Design. It publishes the journal Afterall; the book series Readers,One Works and Exhibition Histories.

<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.

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">Koyo Kouoh</span> Cameroonian art curator

Koyo Kouoh is Cameroonian-born curator who has been serving as Executive Director and Chief Curator of the Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa in Cape Town since 2019. In 2015, the New York Times called her "one of Africa’s pre-eminent art curators and managers", and from 2014 to 2022, she was annually named one of the 100 most influential people in the contemporary art world by ArtReview.

Christine Y. Kim is an American curator of contemporary art. She is currently the Britton Family Curator-at-Large at Tate. Prior to this post, Kim held the position of Curator of Contemporary Art at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Before her appointment at LACMA in 2009, she was Associate Curator at The Studio Museum in Harlem in New York. She is best known for her exhibitions of and publications on artists of color, diasporic and marginalized discourses, and 21st-century technology and artistic practices.

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

Dineo Seshee Bopape is a South African multimedia artist. Using experimental video montages, sound, found objects, photographs and dense sculptural installations, her artwork "engages with powerful socio-political notions of memory, narration and representation." Among other venues, Bopape's work has been shown at the New Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, and the 12th Biennale de Lyon. Solo exhibitions of her work have been mounted at Mart House Gallery, Amsterdam; Kwazulu Natal Society of Arts, Durban; and Palais de Tokyo. Her work in the collection of the Tate.

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.

Peju Alatise is a Nigerian artist, poet, writer, and a fellow at the National Museum of African Art, part of the Smithsonian Institution. Alatise received formal training as an architect at Ladoke Akintola University in Oyo State, Nigeria. She then went on to work for 20 years as a studio artist.

Senam Okudzeto is an American and British artist and educator who lives and works in Basel, London, Ghana and New York City.

Yuko Hasegawa is the director of the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa and professor of curatorial and art theory at Tokyo University of the Arts.

Stefanie Hessler is a German-born contemporary art curator, an art writer, and the current director of Swiss Institute in New York. From 2019 to 2022 she was the director of Kunsthall Trondheim in Trondheim, Norway.

Oroma Elewa is a Nigerian visual and performance artist, writer and creative director.

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

References

  1. ↑ "Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga wins Yanghyun art prize". The Korea Herald. 12 November 2015.
  2. ↑ Evelyn Okakwu (13 November 2015). "Nigerian artist emerges first African winner of Korean award". Premium Times Nigeria.
  3. ↑ "Otobong Nkanga". contemporaryand.com. Retrieved 7 March 2015.
  4. ↑ "20th Biennale of Sydney, Carriageworks". The Guardian. 15 January 2016.
  5. ↑ Clarke, Chris (February 2018). "Otobong Nkanga: The Breath from Fertile Grounds". Art Monthly (413): 35.
  6. 1 2 Gipson, Ferren (2022). Women's work: from feminine arts to feminist art. London: Frances Lincoln. ISBN   978-0-7112-6465-6.
  7. 1 2 Pahl, Katrin (2021). "Improbable Intimacy: Otobong Nkanga's Grafts and Aggregates". Theory & Event. 24 (1): 240–267. doi:10.1353/tae.2021.0009. ISSN   1092-311X. S2CID   234243538.
  8. ↑ studio, Curator. "Otobong Nkanga". www.insituparis.fr (in French). Retrieved 15 November 2021.
  9. ↑ "Otobong Nkanga | Visual Artist". Otobong Nkanga. Retrieved 12 May 2021.
  10. ↑ Samudzi, Zoé (January–February 2021). "The Paradox of Plenty". Art in America. 109 (1): 18–20.
  11. 1 2 DeLand, Lauren (October 2018). "Otobong Nkanga". Art in America. 106 (9): 118–119.
  12. ↑ "Afterall - Blue, Bling: On Extractivism". Afterall. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  13. ↑ "Otobong Nkanga". ocula.com. 16 November 2021. Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  14. ↑ studio, Curator. "Otobong Nkanga". www.insituparis.fr (in French). Retrieved 16 November 2021.
  15. ↑ Van Houten Maldonado, Devon (20 July 2018). "Imagining a Reconciliatory Relationship with the Earth". Hyperallergic.
  16. ↑ Pahl, Katrin (2021). "Improbable Intimacy: Otobong Nkanga's Grafts and Aggregates". Theory & Event. 24 (1): 240–267. doi:10.1353/tae.2021.0009. ISSN   1092-311X. S2CID   234243538.
  17. ↑ Mutumba, Yvette (2014). "Otobong Nkanga: Nothing Is Like It Seems, Everything Is Evidence". Afterall.
  18. ↑ Meyer-Hermann, Eva (19..-....). (2008). Thames & Hudson (ed.). Allan Kaprow : art as life. Royaume-Uni. ISBN   9780892368907.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ Elderton, Louisa (October 2014). "Interview with Otobong Nkanga". The White Review.
  20. ↑ Virginie Bobin (2007), "Participation: A Legacy of Allan Kaprow, P. Pirotte", An Invention of Allan Kaprow for the Present Moment, Kunsthalle Bern, pp. 9–17, ISBN   978-3857801501
  21. 1 2 Monika Szewczyk (Autumn–Winter 2014). "Exchange and Some Change: The imaginative Economies of Otobong Nkanga". Afterall, A Journal of Art, Context and Enquiry (37): 41.
  22. ↑ "Across the Board". www.tate.org.uk.
  23. ↑ Bosah, Chukwuemeka (2017). The art of Nigerian women. Okediji, Moyosore B. (Moyosore Benjamin). New Albany, Ohio. p. 50. ISBN   978-0-9969084-5-0. OCLC   965603634.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  24. ↑ "Otobong Nkanga: From Where I Stand", Tate St. ives Exhibition.
  25. ↑ "Otobong Nkanga: There's No Such Thing as Solid Ground", Gropius Bau. Exhibition.
  26. ↑ "Otobong Nkanga. Corde che si arricciano attorno alle montagne". Castello di Rivoli. 2021.
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.