Gladstone
Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Wangechi Mutu. The
title for this exhibition comes from the Gikuyu words for mud and trees, the
prima materia for this body of work. Expanding her sculptural practice, this
installation proposes an alternative to the systemic modes of representation in
both Western and Eastern traditions by reimagining and recontextualizing the
relations between the body, the natural world, and social forces. Well known
for collages of hybrid forms drawn from folklore, popular culture, and art
history, this new work marks an evolution in Mutu’s critique of the
construction of self-image. The complex texture and form that these figures
offer prompt inquiry into the relationship between human existence and environment,
producing interactions both intimate and challenging.
Mutu
transforms the gallery space into a terrestrial cosmology that spans the
microscopic to the mythic. Drawn from the dirt and brush in areas around her
studio, she conjures a world replete with chimerical paradox. Faces of women,
ornamental footwear, and patterned spheres evoking viruses emerge from natural
materials that elaborate on the traditions of makonde carving. Embracing the
raw physicality of her surroundings, she mobilizes the earth as a continuation
of her own complex intersectional identity and artistic query. Adding gravity
to these roughhewn totems, each invokes the psychic and social struggle for
control over bodies through capitalism, the fetish, and disease. Seating of grey
blankets grounds the installation, inviting audiences “to enter a place and
re-think themselves.”
This
environment sets the stage for two new cast bronze sculptures that directly
confront the myths of representation. A large-scale sculpture of an nguva, a
water-woman of East African folklore, is at once familiar and otherworldly.
Based on the transformation of the aquatic dugong, an herbivore closely related
to the manatee, into the siren of superstition, Mutu staves off the
disappearance of biological diversity and traditions of mythmaking by
coalescing what she calls “the cross-pollination of ideas” into objects of
desire. In another work, Second Dreamer (2016), she challenges the stasis of
the bust and the appropriation of African masks through a self-portrait that
captures the potential of psychic life. In this way, Mutu’s sculpture acts as a
corrective to a violent cultural consciousness, while offering an alternative
narrative of embodiment and being in the world.
Born in
Nairobi, Kenya, Wangechi Mutu received her MFA from Yale University. Her work
has been the subject of numerous solo shows, including, “Wangechi Mutu: A
Fantastic Journey”, which traveled to: Brooklyn Museum, New York; Nasher Museum
of Art, Durham, North Carolina; Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami; and
Block Museum, Evanston, Illinois. Other solo exhibitions include: SITE, Santa
Fe; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal;
Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; Wiels Center for Contemporary Art, Brussels; Art
Gallery of Ontario; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Kunsthalle Wien; and
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Mutu is the recipient of Deutsche Bank’s
“Artist of the Year” award, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, the
Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Award, and the American
Federation of Arts’ Leadership Award. In the coming year, Mutu will present
solo exhibitions at Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium and The
Contemporary Austin, Texas.
Venue name:
Gladstone Gallery
VENUE
Address: 530 W 21st St, New York , 10011
Cross
street: between Tenth and Eleventh Aves
Opening
hours: Tue–Sat 10am–6pm
Transport:
Subway: C, E to 23rd StEvent
website:
http://www.gladstonegallery.com/
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