Nkanga
Born in 1974, Kano, Nigeria
Lives and works in Antwerp, Belgium
A visual artist and performer, Nkanga began her art studies at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria and continued at the École Superieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. She was at the residency program at the Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
In 2008 she obtained her Masters in the Performing Arts at Dasarts, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Otobong Nkanga's drawings, installations, photographs and sculptures variously examine ideas around land and the value connected to natural resources.
In the work of Otobong Nkanga, activities and performance permeate all kinds of media and motivate photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and video, though all the different works are thematically connected through architecture and landscape. As a human trace that testifies of ways of living and environmental issues, architecture and landscape act as a sounding board for narration and "the performative". According to the artist herself, she uses her body and voice in live performances or in videos to become the protagonist in her work.
However, her presence serves mostly as a self-effacing catalyst, an invisible hand that sets the artistic process in motion. Nkanga negotiates the completion of the cycle of art between the aesthetic realm of display and a strategy of de-sublimation that repeatedly pushes the status of the artwork into contingency. In many of her works Nkanga reflects metonymically on the use and cultural value connected to natural resources, exploring how meaning and function are relative within cultures, and revealing different roles and histories for the same products, particularly within the context of the artist's autobiography and memories.
Nkanga's recent shows and performances include:
Martin-Gropius Bau, Berlin, (2020) ; From Where I Stand, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Middlesbrough (2020) ; From Where I Stand, Tate St Yves, Saint Yves (2019) ; Every Leaf Is an Eye, Goteborgs Konsthall, (2019) ; Homeless Souls, Louisiana Art Museum, Copenhague, (2019) ; May you live in intersting times, 58th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia, (2019) ; Sharjah Biennal 14: Leaving the Echo Chamber, Sharjah (2019) ; Artes Mundi 8, National Museum Cardiff, (2018) ; Otobong Nkanga: To Dig a Hole that Collapses Again, MCA - Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2018) ; Belgian Art Prize, Bozar, Belgique (2017) ; Carved To Flow, Documenta 14, Athènes - Kassel (2017) ; The Encounter That Took a Part of Me, Nottingham Contemporary (2016) ; MHKA Anvers « Bruise and Lustre » (2015) ;Kadist Foundation Paris Comot your Eyes Make I borrow you Mine (2015) ; Diaspore, 14 Rooms Basel, Switzerland, (2014) ; In Pursuit of Bling, 8th Berlin Biennale, Berlin, Germany (2014) ; Glimmer Fragments Symposium "Landing and confessions", Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (2014) ; Sharjah Biennial 11, Sharjah, United Arab Emirates, (2013) ; Across the Board: Politics of Representation, Tate Modern, The Tanks, London, United Kingdom (2012) ; Inventing world: The Artist as citizen, Biennale Benin, Cotonou, Benin (2012) ; Tropicomania: The Social life of Plants, Betonsalon, Center of art and research. Associated venue of La Triennale 2012 - Intense Proximity. Paris, France (2012) ; Object Atlas - Fieldwork in the Museum, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main, Germany (2012) ; ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contempoarary Art, Helsinki, Finland (2011).
EXHIBITION (SELECTION)
Solo exhibitions
2023
Otobong Nkanga. Craving for Southern Light. IVAM,Valencia, ES
Gently Basking in Debris, Frist Art Museum, Nashville, US
2022
Togethering, featuring Oroma Elewa, Bill Kouélany, Obi Okigbo, Adeola Olagunju, Galerie In Situ - fabienne leclerc, Grand Paris
Underneath the Shade We Lay Grounded, Sint-Janshospiltaal, Bruges, BE
2021
When Looking Across the Sea, Do You Dream?, La Villa Arson, Nice, FR
Of Cords Curling around Mountains, Castello di Rivoli, Turin, IT
Unearthed, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Bregenz, AT
Otobong Nkanga solo, Gallery Mendes Wood DM, São Paulo, BZ
Lingering on the Rim, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
2020
Uncertain Where the Next Wind Blows, Henie Onstad Kunstsenter, Høvikodden, NO
There's No Such Thing as Solid Ground, Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin, DE
From Where I Stand, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Middlesbrough, UK
2019
From Where I Stand, Tate St. Ives, Saint Ives, Unitied Kingdom
Acts at the Crossroads, Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA), Cape Town, SA
2018
A Lapse, A Stain, A Fall, AR/GE Kunst, Bolzano, IT
Artes Mundi 8, National Museum Cardiff, Cardiff, RU
Otobong Nkanga: To Dig a Hole that Collapses Again, MCA - Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, US
2017
The Breath From Fertile Grounds, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, IR
The encounter that took a part of me, Kunstal Aarhus, DK
2016
Cracks Around The Corner, In Situ - fabienne leclerc, Paris, FR
Landversation Beirut, Beirut Art Center, Beirtu, LB
Transhistory, Museum Arnhem, Arnhem, NL
The Encounter That Took a Part of Me, Nottingham Contemporary, Nottingham, UK
2015
Comot Your eyes make a borrow you mine, Fondation Kadist, Paris, FR
Crumbling Through Powdery Air, Portikus, Francfort, DE
Unisono 28 : Otobong Nkanga - Taste of a stone, Stedelijk Museum Schiedam, Schiedam, NL
Bruises and Lustre, M HKA, Anvers Museum, Anvers, BE
Tracing confessions, Museum Folkwang, Essen, DE
Fragments, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
2014
Glimmer: Fragments in Landings: Confrontation and Confession, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, Holland
Diaspore, Live performance at 14 Rooms, Basel, CH
2012
Across the Board: Politics of Representation, performance and installation piece Contained Measures of Shifting States, Tate Modern, The Tanks, London, UK
However Long the Night, The Dawn Will Break, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
Contained Measures of Tangible Memories: Indigo Regina, L'appartement 22, Rabat, MA
2011
The Western Syndrome, (with Pirkle Jones), La Bank Gallery, Paris, FR
2010
No Be Today Story O!, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
L'edition Populaire #1, Vitrine Gallery, Anvers, BE
2009
Pointe Noire Fragments, Centre Culturel Français, Pointe-Noire, CG
Diagonal Views, Nieuwe Vide, Haarlem, NL
2004
Smokescreen, Fokus 2, (avec Jens Haaning), Kunstverein Springhornhof, Neuenkirchen, DE
On Fragile Grounds, Window Gallery and Objectif_exhibitions "CLOSE READING #3", Anvers, BE
2002
Classicism & Beyond, Fotofest 2002, Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas, US
Group exhibitions
Crude Gratitude, Bienvenu Steinberg & J, New-York, USA
Soft Power, DAS MINSK Kunsthaus, Potsdam, GE
2023
The Mind's Eye. Images of Nature from Claude Monet to Otobong Nkanga, Fondation Beyeler, Riehen, SU
L'île intérieure, Fondation Carmignac, Île de Porquerolles, FR
In the footsteps of the Diek family - Stories of Black People in Tempelhof-Schöneberg, Schöneberg Museum, Berlin, GE
Beyond a Certain Point There is No Return, A Tale of A Tub, Rotterdam, PB
Prendre corps au monde, Passerelle - Centre d'art contemporain d'intérêt national, Brest, FR
Deep Horizons, Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA), Middlesbrough, UK
1,5 Grad - 1.5 Degrees, Kunsthalle Mannheim, GE
Matter as Actor, Lisson Gallery, Londres, UK
Mers, Terres & Corps traversées, La Traverse, Marseille, FR
Dear Earth - Art and Hope in a Time of Crisis, Hayward Gallery, Londres, UK
Screen Time - Photography and Video Art in the Internet Age, Tweed Museum of Art, University of Minnesota Duluth, Duluth, USA
2022
Finis Terrae, Gallery Geukens & De Vil, Antwerp, BE
Cosmogonies 2: Devenir fleur, Musée d'art moderne et d'art contemporain (MAMAC), Nice, France
Territories of Waste, Museum Tinguely, Basel, CH
Busan Biennale 2022 - We, on the Rising Wave, Museum of Contemporary Art, Busan, KR
Globalisto - Une philosophie en mouvement - A philosophy in flux, Musée d'art moderne et contemporain (MAMC), Saint-Priest-en-Jarez, FR
Black Melancholia, Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, US
Temporary Atlas - Mapping the Self in the Art of Today, MOSTYN, Llandudno, UK
Progetto Genesi - Art and Human Rights, Museo Archeologico Regionale ?Pietro Griffo? / Biblioteca Lucchesiana, Agrigento AG, IT
Botanischer Wahnsinn - Vegetaal denken in hedendaagse kunst, Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, NL
Currency: Photography Beyond Capture - 8. Triennial of Photography Hamburg, Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg, GE
In/stasis ? Whitney?s Independent Study program, Artists Space / icw Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, US
Novacène - Lille 3000 / Utopia, Gare Saint-Sauveur, Lille, FR
Screen Time - Photography and Video Art in the Internet Age, Art on Hulfish, Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, US
KUB in Venice, Scuola di San Pasquale, Castello, Venice, IT
Progetto Genesi - Art and Human Rights, Museo Nazionale di Matera ? Palazzo Lanfranchi / Casa Noha, Matera MT, IT
Moving Stories, Museum het Valkhof, Nijmegen, NL
The Art of Teaching and Learning. A School for Creators, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, FR
Temporary Atlas - Mapping the Self in the Art of Today, Gallerie delle Prigioni, Treviso, IT
AkzoNobel Art Foundation: All Eyes, AkzoNobel Art Foundation, Amsterdam, NL
Delinking and Relinking, Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, The Netherlands, NL
The Botanical Revolution - On the Necessity of Art and Gardening, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Utrecht, NL
Reclaiming Places, La Loge, Bruxelles, BE
2021
Experiences of Oil, Stavanger Art Museum, Stavanger, NO
We Are History, Somerset House, London, UK
Nothing is lost, GAMeC Bergamo, Bergamo, IT
Witch Hunt, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, US
The World As We Don't Know It, Droog, Amsterdam, NL
Frequently the woods are pink, Be-Part, Waregem, BE
Monts Analogues, FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims, FR
Is it Possible to Be a Revolutionary and Like Flowers?, Nest, The Hague, NL
Into Nature, Stichting Kunst & Cultuur, Assen, NL
Tomorrow is a Different Day, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL
Secrets of Making, TextielMuseum, Tilburg, NL
Un.e Air.e de Famille, Musée d'art et d'histoire Paul Eluard, Saint-Denis, FR
Van Coo naar Kunst, Mu.ZEE, Ostende, BE
Black Refractions, Frye Art Museum, Seattle, US
Reclaiming Places, La Loge, Brussels, BE
Hearts and Minds, Carriage Trade gallery, New York, US
Lipstick and Gas Masks, Museum of Contemporary Art Antwerp (M HKA), Antwerp, BE
Memoria: récits d'une autre Histoire, FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA, Bordeaux, FR
Black Refractions, Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA), Salt Lake City,US
Collector's Item: the contemporary art collection of Pieter and Marieke Sanders, Centraal Museum, Utrecht, NL
Nuit Blanche 2020, Paris, FR
Critical Zones, Zentrum fur Kunst und Medientechnologie (ZKM), Karlsruhe, DE
Coexistance, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, FI
Dhaka Art Summit, Bangladesh Shilpalaka Academy, Dhaka, BD
Amuse-bouche. The Taste of Art, Museum Tinguely, Basel, CH
Collectionner au XXIe siècle, Collection Lambert, Avignon, FR
Black Refractions, Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA), Salt Lake City, USA
Black Refractions, Smith College Museum of Art, Northampton, USA
K.I.P. Kunst in Puurs-Sint-Amands, cc Binder, Puurs-Sint-Amands, BE
Exposition Guerlain, Paris, FR
International Pavilion of the Arsenal, Giardini, Venice Biennal, IT
Hand Drawn Action Packed, Glynn Vivian Art Gallery, Swansea, UK
Hand Drawn Action Packed, The Hunterian Art Gallery, Glasgow, UK
2018
Hand Drawn Action Packed, Wolverhampton Art Gallery, Wolverhampton, UK
Hand Drawn Action Packed, St Albans Museum + Gallery, Londres, UK
GENERAL REHEARSAL, A show in three acts from the collections of V-A-C, MMOMA and KADIST, Moscow Museum of Modern Art, Moscow, RU
Blind Faith : Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art, Haus der Kunst, Munich, DE
Ouvert La Nuit, Villa Medicis, Rome, IT
Être pierre, Musée Zadkine, Paris, FR
I am a native foreigner, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Amsterdam, NE
The Tanks, Tate Modern, London, UK
Tous, des sang-mêlés, MAC VAL, FR
Manifesta Biennal, The European Biennal of Contemporary Art, Amsterdam, NE
The encounter that took a part of me, Kunstal Aarhus, DK
Carved To Flow, Documenta 14, Athens, GR
Carved To Flow, Documenta 14, Kassel, DE
Belgian Art Prize, Bozar, BE
Le musée absent, WIELS, Brussels, BE
En toute modestie - Archipel Dirosa, Musée International des Arts Modestes (MIAM), Sète, FR
Colori, Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art / GAM, Turin, IT
Beautiful Africa, La Galerie du 5e, Marseille, FR
En marge, In Situ - fabienne leclerc, Paris, FR
2016
Kaleidoscope: Its Me to the World, Modern Art Oxford, UK
Life Itself, Moderna Museet, Stockholm, SE
Gwangju Bienniale, KR
EVA International, Ireland's Biennial, IR
ON/OFF, Centre Pompidou, Paris, FR
Biennale de Sydney, AU
Streamlines, Oceans, Global Trades and Migration, Kulturstiftung-des-bundes, Hamburg, DE
El Iris de Lucy, MUSAC MUSEUM, Castilla y Léon, ES
2015
La vie moderne, 13e Biennale de Lyon, FR
Take me (I am Yours) La Monnaie de Paris, FR
Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum - Michigan State University, US
2014
Biennale de São Paulo, Brazil, BR
Diaspore, 14 Rooms, Basel, CH
8th Berlin Biennale, DE
Animism, Ashkal Alwan/Home Workspace, Beirut, LB
Foreign Exchange/Ware & Wissen (or the stories you wouldn't tell a stranger), Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main, DE
The Megacity and The Non-City, Lagos Photo Festival 2013, Lagos, NG
Play! Recapturing the Radical Imagination, Göteborg International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Goteborg, SE
Sharjah Biennial 11, Re: Emerge Towards a New Cultural Cartography, Sharjah, UAE
Art Dubai 2013, Dubai, UAE
Ja Natuurlijk, Gemeente Museum, Den Haag, NL
2012
Shuffling Cards - Mouvement Aléatoire des Cartes, Galerie des Grands Bains Douches de la Plaine, Marseille, FR
50 Days at Sea, Antwerp Pavilion, Shanghai Biennale, Shanghai, CN
Inventing World: The Artist as Citizen, Biennale Benin, Cotonou, BJ
Amsterdam Drawing, An Art Fair for Original Works on Paper, Amsterdam, NL
De Nederlandse Identiteit- Half Suiker, Half Zand, De recente geschiedenis door de ogen van mister Motley, Museum De Paviljoens, NL
Tropicomania: The Social Life of Plantes, Betonsalon, Center of art and research, Associated venue of La Triennale 2012 - Intense Proximity. Paris, FR
Object Atlas - Fieldwork in the Museum, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt-am-Main, DE
2011
Don't/Panic, Durban Art Gallery, Durban, ZA
Connect, exposition collective avec Rijksakademie Alumni, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
The Altered Landscape, Photographs of a Changing Environment, Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, Nevada, US
MarklinWorld, Kunsthalle KAdE, Amersfoort, NL
The Collectors Show, Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven, NL
L'inattendu du Tout Monde, Un Hommage a Goddy Leye, L'appartement 22, Rabat, invited by Art-O-Rama, Marseille, FR
All We Ever Wanted, Center of Contemporary Arts, Lagos, NG
Summer Show, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
Outre Mesures et Programmes Radio (Maps, Timelines, Radio Programmes), La Galerie Contemporary Art Center, Noisy-le-Sec, FR
Faites Comme Chez Vous, Raw Material Company, A center for art, knowledge and society, Dakar, SG
ARS 11, Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, FI
Africa, Objects and Subjects, Centro de Expositiones Fernan Gomez, Madrid, ES
Sentences on the Banks and Other Activities, Darat al Funun, Amman, JD
World Festival of Black Arts and Culture, Dakar, SG
Body Language, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
Make Yourself at Home, Kunsthal Charlottenbourg, Copenhagen, DK
CommonGround, Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam, NL
Animism, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, CH
Une Aiguille dans une Botte de Foin, Printemps des Poètes, Museédu Quai Branly, Paris, FR
Animism, Extra City Kunsthal and M HKA Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Anvers, BG
2010
Sentences on the Banks and Other Activities, Darat al Funun, Amman, JD
World Festival of Black Arts and Culture, Dakar, SG
Body Language, Lumen Travo Gallery, Amsterdam, NL
The Production of Space, The Studio Museum Harlem, New York, US
Unfixed, CBK (Center for Contemporary Arts Dordrecht), Dordrecht, The Netherlands.
There Is Always A Cup Of Sea To Sail In, 29th Biennial of Sao Paulo, Sao Paulo, BR
Make Yourself at Home, Kunsthal Charlottenbourg, Copenhagen, DK
Africa, Objects and Subjects, Palacio Revillagigedo, Gijon, ES
A Proposal For Articulating Works and Places (Part 2), Riso Museo d'Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo, IT
Whose Map Is It? INIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts), Rivington Place, London, UK
Common Ground, Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam, NL
Animism, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, CH
Une Aiguille dans une Botte de Foin, Printemps des Poètes, Museé du Quai Branly, Paris, FR
Animism, Extra City Kunsthal and M HKA Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp, BE
2009
A Delicate Touch, Watercolors from the Permanent Collection, The Studio Museum Harlem, New York, US
AIM International Biennale 3rd Edition, Marrakech, MA
Autres Mesures, Curator Cécile Bourne-Farrell, Centre Photographique Ile de France, Pontault-Combault, FR
This is Now 2, L'Appartement 22, Rabat, MR
2008
Re/Presentaciones: Ellas, Casa Africa, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Canary Island, ES
This is Now 1, L'appartement22, Rabat, invited to the 1st Johannesburg Art Fair, ZA
Delight, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, NL
Flow, The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, US
Snap Judgments, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL
Snap Judgments, Brooks Museum of Arts, Memphis, US
2007
Africa Remix, Contemporary Art of a Continent, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, ZA
Simmels Gelijk, Over het IJ Festival, Amsterdam, NL
Allan Kaprow, Kunst Als Leben, Kunsthalle Bern, CH
Snap Judgments, The National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, CA
Snap Judgments, Tamayo Museum, Mexico city, MX
2006
1st Architecture, Art & Landscape Biennial of the Canaries, Canary Islands, ES
Snap Judgments, Miami Art Central, Miami, US
De Grote Oversteek, Stedelijk Museum, Zwolle, NL
Shared History/Decolonising the Image, Arti et Amicitiae, Amsterdam, NL
Generique, Galerie 14, Paris, FR
There & Back, La Casa Encendida, Madrid, ES
One Game - Many Worlds, Football in inter-cultural comparison, Münchner Stadtmuseum. Munich, DE
Snap Judgments, International Center of Photography, New York, US
Africa Remix, Zeitgenössische Kunst eines Kontinents, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, JP
2005
Belonging, Sharjah International Biennial 7, Sharjah, AE
North /South Lab, Tanzquartier, Vienna, AT
Africa Remix, Zeitgenössische Kunst eines Kontinents, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, FR
Africa Remix, Zeitgenössische Kunst eines Kontinents, Hayward Gallery, London, UK
2004
Flying Circus Project, TheatreWorks Ltd, Singapore, CN
Do You Believe in Reality?, Taipei Biennial, TW
Free Territory, 26th Sao Paulo biennial, Sao Paulo, BR
Flash Right, Turn Left, Artwalk, Amsterdam, NL
Africa Remix, Zeitgenössische Kunst eines Kontinents Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, DE
Women Artist, No 4, Peter Hermann Gallery, Berlin, DE
Epifyten, De Klassieke Hortus als Voedingsbodem voor Hedendaagse Kunst, Hortus Botanicus, Amsterdam, NL
2003
El Arte Con La Vida, VIII Biennale de la Habana, Havana, CU
MIP, International Performance Manifestation, CEIA, Belo Horizonte, BR
Transferts, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels, BE
Shift and Wait, Collaborative work with Le Petit Jaunais Edition House. Maison de la Loire, Paris, FR
2002
Awaiting Pleasures, Open Ateliers, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, Amsterdam, NL
Classicism & Beyond, Fotofest, Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas, US
Observatorio # 3, Casa Camouflage, Bruxelles, BE
Dak-Art, 5th Biennale of African Contemporary Art, Dakar, SG
Rond Point, La Halle de Gombe, Kinshasa, CG
Observatorio # 1, Casa Camouflage, Brussels, BE
Made In Africa Fotografia, Biennale di Fotografia Africana/ Sparzio Oberdan, Milan, IT
En Direct De Bamako, Galerie Photo Fnac Etoile, Paris, FR
Dessins XXL, Le Lieu Unique, Nantes, FR
2001
Memoires Intimes D'un Nouveau Millenaire, IV Biennale de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako, ML
Infamous Labels No 10, Bateau Phare collaborating with The Research program, ENSBA, Paris, FR
Prize
Inaugural Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award, 2019
Peter Weiss, 2019
Special Mention, 58th Venice Biennal, 2019
Sharjah Biennial 14 Prize, 2019
Ultimas Prize, 2018
BelgianArtPrize, 2017
Yanghyun Prize, 2015
Collections
Studio Museum Harlem
Kiasma - Museum of Contemporary Art
Nevada Museum of Art (NMA)
Rabo Art Collection (Rabobank)
Weltkulturen Museum
FRAC Lorraine
Queensland Art Gallery - Gallery of Modern Art
Kadist Art Foundation
Mu.ZEE
Museum Folkwang
AkzoNobel Collection
Société Genérale Art Collection
Centre National des Arts Plastiques - CNAP
Centre Pompidou
FRAC Corse
Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA)
Robeco Art Collection
Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea
Fondation Sindika Dokolo
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Stedelijk Museum Zwolle
Stedelijk Museum Arnhem
Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum
Tate Modern
Sharjah Art Foundation
Performances
2015
Diaoptasia, BMW Tate Live : Performance Room, Tate Modern, Londres, UK
Take Me I'm Yours, Monnaie de Paris, Paris, FR
2014
Diaspore, 14 Rooms, Art Basel, Bâle, CH
Glimmer: Fragments, Landing Symposium: Confrontation and Confessions, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, NL
2013
Glimmer: Aurum. Das Jubiläumsfestival, 50 years of the Berliner Künstlerprogramm des DAAD, 1963 - 2013, Berlin, DE
Glimmer, Berliner Herbstsalon, Maxim Gorki theatre, Berlin, Germany.
Face me, I Face you, Berliner Herbstsalon, Maxim Gorki theatre, Berlin, DE
Where Gist you, (avec Eunhye Hwang), Berliner Herbstsalon, Maxim Gorki theatre, Berlin, DE
When all things flow, the bird sings, FF Temporary Autonomous Zone, Berlin, DE
Taste of a Stone: Itiat Esa Ufok, Sharjah Biennial 11, Sharjah, AE
2012
Contained Measures of Shifting States, Across the Board: Politics of Representation, Tate Modern, The Tanks, London, UK
Sing, I will tell you who we be, Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, NL
Contained Measures of a Kolanut, Tropicomania: The Social Life of Plants, Betonsalon, Center of Art and Research. Associated venue of La Triennale 2012 - Intense Proximity. Paris, FR
Baggage 1972 - 2007-08, Allan Kaprow/Otobong Nkanga, Partitions (Performances), Fondation d'entreprise Ricard, Paris, FR
2011
A Song for the Moment, Brussels living room Festival, Bruxelles, BR
2010
Baggage 1972 - 2007-08, Allan Kaprow/Otobong Nkanga, Festival Theatreformen, Braunschweig, DE
Tropicology, Nieuw Dakota, Amsterdam, NL
Things, Carla Mittersteig, Vienna, AT
2009
Baggage 1972 - 2007-08, Allan Kaprow/Otobong Nkanga, Arco Art Fair, Madrid, ES
2008
Baggage 1972 - 2007-08, Allan Kaprow/Otobong Nkanga, Kunsthalle Bern, CH
Baggage 1972 - 2007-08, Allan Kaprow/Otobong Nkanga, De Appel, Amsterdam, NL
2006
Arrested Moment before the State of Amnesia Crops in, 1st Architecture, Art & Landscape Biennial of the Canaries, ES
Unravelling, Arti et Amicitiae and the Muiderpoort Theatre, Amsterdam, NL
2005
Dream in One Meter Square, Belonging, Sharjah International Biennial 7, Sharjah, AE
Surgical Hits #03, (The Needle), Tanzquartier, Vienna, AT
2004
Surgical Hits #02, (The Needle), Theatre Works Ltd, Singapore, CN
Surgical Hits #01, (The Needle), Kunst Palast Museum, Düsseldorf, DE
On fragile grounds, Window Gallery and Objectif_Exhibitions as part of "Close Reading #3", Anvers, BG
2003
Fractured Gaps, Group performance involving 6 dancers, Open Ateliers, Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, NL
Shift and Wait, International Performance Manifestation, CEIA, Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
State of Amnesia, International Performance Manifestation, CEIA, Belo Horizonte, BR
Perfect Measures, Transferts, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Bruxelles, BG
2002
Sustained Suture, Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten, NL
The new acquisition of Jennifer McBright, Classicism & Beyond, Fotofest 2002, Project Row Houses, Houston, Texas, US
Bomboyi, Ecole des Beaux-Arts Kinshasa, Chooseone Organisation, Paris, Rond Point, La Halle de Gombe, Kinshasa, CG
1999
The Dual Match, (Footpitch), TOXIC, Chateau d'Oiron, Oiron, FR
Awards
Peter Weiss, 2019
Special Mention, 58th Venice Biennal, 2019
Sharjah Biennial 14 Prize, 2019
Ultimas Prize, 2018
BelgianArtPrize, 2017
Yanghyun Prize, 2015
Workshops/Seminars/Talks
Otobong Nkanga with Omar Kholeif, MCA Chicago, US
Rouse Visiting Artist Lecture: Otobong Nkanga, Harvard School of Design, Cambridge, Massachusetts, US
Otobong Nkanga in conversation with Caroline Hancock, Temple Bar Gallery + Studios, Dublin, IR
2017
Carriers - a conversation between Otobong Nkanga, Vis Olivae and Laouta on working together on Carved to Flow, documenta 14, Athens, GR
Artist talk: Otobong Nkanga, Kunstal Aarhus, DK
2014
Shifting States- Platforms for Experimentation, Dutch Art Institute, DAI, Master program of ArtEZ, Arnhem, NL
Voice - Creature of Transition, Lecture performance, Studium Generale Rietveld Academie, Amsterdam, NL
2013
Hans Ulrich Obrist in converstion with Otobong Nkanga, 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair, London, UK
Facing the Opponen, Fieldwork at the Weltkulturen Museum Frankfurt, DE Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max Planck Institut, Florence, IT
Artist Talk: with Otobong Nkanga, Institut für Raumexperimente, Universität der Künste Berlin, Berlin, DE
Art Basel Salon, The Global Artworld, Focus Africa, Basel, CH
Think-Tank II: Persecuted, Mourned, Pitied, Admired/Collected and Photographed, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt, DE
Art as a meeting point, with Andrea Buddensieg, Otobong Nkanga and Joanna Warsza, discussion organized by Antje Majewski, FF Temporary Autonomous Zone, Berlin, DE
Sharjah Biennial 11 panel discussion with Hoor-Al-Qasimi, Yuko Hasegawa and Otobong Nkanga, Sharjah, UAE.
Think-Tank I: The administration of people and goods, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt, DE
The Impossible Aesthetic: Situating Research in Arts and Social Sciences/Humanities, Artistic Research and Museum, Collections, Lessons from the Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt, Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin, DE
2012
Otobong Nkanga with Catherine Wood, Part of the series The Tanks: Art in Action, London, UK
Permeabilities, Presentation of works and workshop with participants at CEIA, 8th international event, Belo Horizonte, BR
When the stage hits you, workshop with the Dutch Art Institute students, DAI, Master program of ArtEZ, Arnhem, NL
2011
Art-iculate: A performative lecture by Otobong Nkanga, CCA, Lagos, NG
Tracks and traces of violences conferences, Lecture Performance by Otobong Nkanga, The University of Bayreuth, (BIGSAS), DE
Clark-Mellon Workshop: International Initiatives and Regional Collaboration, The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, Massachusetts, US
6000 Collectors, Experimental Talks with Objects, Lecture by Otobong Nkanga, Weltkulturen Museum, Frankfurt am Main, DE
Presentation of project at Outre Mesures et Programmes Radio (Maps, Timelines,Radio Programmes), La Galerie Contemporary Art Center, Noisy-le-Sec, FR
2010
Workshop and project, Intituto Buena Bista, Curacao Center for Contemporary Arts, Residency Program, Curacao, NL
Workshop Unfixed, Photography and postcolonial perspectives in contemporary art, CBK Dordrecht, NL
Memory as a photographic process, presentation at Unfixed Symposium, CBK Dordrecht, NL
Otobong Nkanga's works on Land and Mapping, presentation at Crossing Boundaries Symposium, Royal Geographical Society, London, UK
Presentation of works in Whose Map Is It?, INIVA (Institute of International Visual Arts), Rivington Place, London, UK
Artist talk at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam, NL
2009
Workshop and project with the students of Haute École d'Art et de Design, Geneva, CH
2008
Lecture and Workshop State of Bodies/ Suffering, Mieke van de Voort, Generale Staten and Game/Performance. Utrecht, NL
Discussion and round table at Foam Fotografie Museum, Amsterdam, NL
Studio Visits, Masters Programme, Dutch Art Institute (DAI), Enschede, NL
2006
Seminar on African literature, Casa Encendida, Madrid, ES
Bibliography
Catalogs
2014
Clementine Deliss et Yvette Mutumba. Foreign Exchange/Ware & Wissen (or the stories you wouldn't tell a stranger). Diaphanes, 2014. p. 101 - 102, 118, 133, 140, 150, 162 - 163, 290.
2013
Earth Matters: Land as Material and Metaphor in the Arts of Africa, National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian, 2013. p. 178 - 180.
Ja Natuurlijk/Yes Naturally : How art saves the world, Neit Normaal Foundation, Nai010 publishers, 2013. p. 88 -91
Play! Recapturing the Radical Imagination, Göteborg International Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2013. p. 90 - 91.
Sharjah Biennial 11. Re: Emerge Towards a New Cultural Cartography, 2013. p. 436 - 439.
Anselm Franke. Animism, 2013. p. 120 - 121.
2012
Tropicomania, La vie sociale des plantes. Centre d'Art et de Recherche, 2012. p. 15.
Clementine Deliss, Object Atlas-Fieldwork in the Museum, Weltkulturen Museum, Kerber Forum, p. 153-197.
2010
29th Biennial of Sao Paulo, 2010. p. 194-195.
Kunsthal Charlottenbourg Make Yourself at Home. 2010. p. 54-58, 98-99.
Africa. Objetos y Sujeto. Cajastur, 2010. p. 286-287.
Africa, Objects and Subjects. Palacio Revillagigedo, Gijon, Spain, 2010. p. 286-287.
Flow, The Studio Museum Harlem, 2008. p. 94-95.
2005
MIP, International performance manifestation CEIA, p. 132-133, 164-165.
Belonging, 7th Sharjah Biennial, p. 354-357.
2004
Território Livre, 26th Sao Paulo Biennial, national representations, 2004. p. 238-239.
2003
Transferts, Brussels, 2003. p. 138-143.
El arte con la vida. 8th Bienal de la Habana, 2003. p. 168, 329.
2002
Classicism & Beyond, Fotofest, 9th International Biennal of Photography, p. 176-179.
Dak'Art, V Biennale of African Contemporary Art, p. 50.
Michela Manservisi (curator).Made in Africa_fotografia. Epicentro, Italy, 2002. p. 78-79.
Dessins XXL. Filigranes, 2002.
2001
Akinbode Akinbiyi. Memoires Intimes d'un Nouveau Millenaire. IV Biennale de la Photographie Africaine, Bamako, Mali, 2001 p. 140-149.
Press & Books
2013
Zur Kunst. Susanne Leeb . Asynchronous Objects, Globalismus Globalism, Sep. 2013. p. 48, 52 - 53, 56.
Elvira Dyangani Ose." Across the Board: Otobong Nkanga and Nástio Mosquito". Atlántica #53. Journal of Art and Though, 2013. p. 142-149.
Jan-Philipp Possmann, "Jenseits der Vitrine/Beyond the Vitrine", Spike Art Magazine No 35, 2013. p. 50, 53.
2012
Dorina Hecht. "Mich interessiert das wo, was und warum". Artmap Antwerpen, Winter 2012/13. p. 28-29.
Dagmar Mundhenke. "Object Atlas - Feldforshung im Frankfurter Weltkulturen-Museum". Africa Positive N° 45, 2012. p. 42.
Catherine Wood. "Re-make, Re-model" Frieze Masters, No 1, 2012. p. 38-39.
Sara Blokland and Asmara Pelupessy. Unfixed, Photography and postcolonial perspectives in contemporary art. Unfixed projects Japsam books, 2013. p. 48-53 et p. 202-204.
MärklinWorld : A model of the world by 40 artists, exhibition catalogue, KA Series 14, Kunsthal KAdE, p.123.
Altered Landscape : Photographs of a changing environment. Collection of the Nevada Museum of Art, ed. Ann M. Wolfe, Skira Rizzoli publications Inc., p. 56-57.
2010
Social Consequences, de Philippe Pirotte, in: Art South Africa, Volume 09, Issue 01, Spring 2010, p. 66-69.
Okwui Enwezor & Chika Okeke-Agulu.Contemporary African Art since 1980. 2010. p. 280, 327.
Animism. Anselm Franke Volume I, 2010. p. 211-212.
2009
An intervention of Allan Kaprow for the moment, documentation of all Re-Interventions and Re-enactments of Happenings and Environments, Kunsthalle Bern.
Foam Album 08, 2nd Edition, p. 184.
Kunstbeeld.nl Magazine, Het tijdschrift voor beeldende kunst, Nr 9 2009, p. 16-17.
2008
Sean O'Toole. Frieze Magazine, Issue 116, Jun-Aug. 2008.
Le Monde Diplomatique,: 55e année - N° 653, Aug 2008 , p. 25.
Vincent Solomon. "Seeing Africa through African eyes". Amsterdam Weekly, 17-30th Jul. 2008. p. 10.
ZAM Magazine, Africa Magazine, no. 2, Summer 2008. p. 20-21.
"New Talents". Blend NL Magazine n°31, July. 2008. p. 55.
2006
1st Architecture, Art & Landscape Biennial of the Canaries, Canary Island, 2006. p. 256-257.
Okwui Enwezor. Snap Judgements, New positions in contemporary African Photography. 2006. p. 34, 160-165, 367.
2004
Zonder internationale uitwisseling geen kunst; De Stelling, een gesprek met Otobong Nkanga, by Saskia Monshouwer, in: Kunstbeeld, no. 9, p. 48-49.
Africa Remix, Zeitgenössische kunst eines kontinents, Museum Kunst Palast, p. 214-215.
Shifting Map, Artists' platform and strategies for cultural diversity, RAIN Artists' Initiatives Network, Nai publishers Rotterdam, p. 46.
Epifyten, de klassieke hortus als voedingsbodem voor hedendaagse kunst!, Hortus Botanicus Amsterdam, p. 19-21.
2003
Flash Art, Nov - Dec. 2003. p. 88.
Christine Vuegen. "Mondiale Maalstroom". Kunstbeeld, n° 6, 2003. p. 10-11.
Walter Sebastiao. "No Palco, Vitoria de Visibilade". Estada de Minas - Sexta Fiera, Brasil, 2003.
Lars Kwakkenbos. "Kunst met Afrikaanse roots". De Standard, Belgium, 2003.
2002
Flash Art International, Vol. XXXIV no. 225,July - Sep 2002. p. 49, 59.
Simon Njami. Blink, 100 Photographers 10 Curators 10 Writers. Phaidon Press, London, 2002, p. 276-279.
Robbert Roos. "PF fotographie (BLINK)" . Magazine voor fotographie en imaging, n° 6, 2002. p. 16-18.
2001
N'gone Fall. "Anthologie de l'Art African du vingtieme siècle". Revue Noire, 2001 , p. 396-397.
Telerama. n° 2702, 2001 p. 68-69.
Jean Loup Pivin. "Nigeria". Revue Noire. n° 30, Paris, 2001 . p. 38-39
PUBLIC COLLECTION
Fondation Sindika Dokolo
Australia
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art
Belgium
Collectie Vlaams Parlement
Collectie Vlaamse Gemeenschap
Mu.ZEE
Museum voor Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen (M HKA)
Finland
Finnish National Gallery / Kiasma Museum
France
Centre National des Arts Plastiques (CNAP)
Centre Pompidou
Collection Départementale d'Art Contemporain de la Seine-Saint-Denis
Emerige
FRAC Corse
FRAC des Pays de la Loire
FRAC Ile-de-France
FRAC Lorraine
FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MÉCA
FRAC Provence Alpes Côte d'Azur (PACA)
Kadist Art Foundation
SAM ART Projects
Société Générale Art Collection
Germany
Museum Folkwang
Weltkulturen Museum
Italy
Castello di Rivoli Museo d'Arte Contemporanea
Nigeria
American Embassy Abuja
Spain
Belgian Embassy Madrid
Collection Arte & Naturaleza
Switzerland
Jean Claude Bastos Foundation
The Netherlands
AkzoNobel Art Foundation
Bonnefantenmuseum
DasArts, Academy of Theatre and Dance
Federale Overheidsdienst Buitenlandse Zaken
Máxima Medisch Centrum
Museum Arnhem
Museum Hedendaagse Kunst De Domijnen (former Het Domein)
Rabo Art Collection (Rabobank)
Robeco Art Collection
Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam
Stedelijk Van Abbemuseum
Stichting Vrienden van het Hart
United Arab Emirates
Sharjah Art Foundation
United Kingdom
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art (MIMA)
Tate Modern
United States
Denver Art Museum
Hessel Museum of Art (BARD College)
Nevada Museum of Art (NMA)
Studio Museum Harlem
Swiss Institute / Contemporary Art
US State Department
Texts
Text by Philippe Pirotte
2010
Born in the northern Nigerian town of Kano and currently based in Antwerp, Otobong Nkanga's drawings, installations, photographs and sculptures variously examine ideas around land and the value connected to natural resources
In the work of Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga, activities and performance permeate all kinds of media and motivate photography, drawing, painting, sculpture, installation and video, though all the different works are thematically connected through architecture and landscape. As a human trace that testifies of ways of living and environmental issues, architecture and landscape act as a sounding board for narration and the performative. According to the artist herself, she uses her body and voice in live performances or in videos to become the protagonist in her work. However, her presence serves mostly as a self-effacing catalyst, an invisible hand that sets the artistic process in motion.
In this sense, the artist's presence is reminiscent of the self-portraits that Velazquez or Goya included in their bigger history paintings, which exposed the making of the artwork and created an image within an image.
Born in Nigeria and living in Antwerp, Belgium, Nkanga negotiates the completion of the cycle of art between the aesthetic realm of display and a strategy of desublimation that repeatedly pushes the status of the artwork into contingency. In his text about African conceptualism, Okwui Enwezor connected the latter strategy to African traditions.[1] Within a fluid system of exchanges and relationships between object, artist and au- dience, the object is important. When it comes to intention and meaning, however, the object paradoxically functions as an anti-perceptual entity, valuing or mobilising speech and oral communication.
An important project in relation to Nkangas ongoing examination of landscape and the value connected to natural resources beyond their marketability and immediate use was her "re-invention"[2] of "Baggage" (2007-08), a 1972 happening originated by the Ameri- can artist Allan Kaprow. In 1972, Kaprow, along with 20 students from Rice University in Houston, transported bags of sand from a campus construction site to a beach in Galveston, where they evacuated the bags contents and returned with sea sand. The action took place without an audience and the presentation of documentation was the only way in which the happening was translated to an art public. "Baggage" was one of many happenings conducted by Kaprow dealing with the displacement of goods from one place to another. In some of these happenings Kaprow paid attention to the differences in earth colour across America, and the strong contrast he observed when they met.
When Nkanga restaged "Baggage" (2007-08), the (art-historical) notion of "landscape" would take on an importance only vaguely understood in Kaprow's original version. packaged sand from the Netherlands was sent to Lagos and in return sand from Nigeria's Delta region was sent back to the Netherlands. By taking Dutch sand to the dramatically changing landscape of Nigeria, a country rich in oil, Nkanga strongly emphasises the notion of displacement between both continents. In the process, the artist re-politicised Kaprow's original happening. Although it is self- evident that the context of air travel, for both people and goods, has changed dramatically since 1972, the artist did not want to delve directly or too explicitly into the obvious political issues that are connected to the displacement of commodities today. She rather wanted to render a changing landscape hardly visible in a world today where products are transported from one continent to another and where the origins of products (raw materials) have gone through different transformations. As the artist explained in a conversation in August 2008, this work could be a metaphor of a situation where we see "displacement" in a broader context, as not only to the movement of goods, but also human displacement.
In many of her works Nkanga reflects metonymically on the use and cultural value connected to natural resources. Featured on the Studio museum's 2008 exhibition "Flow", her photographic diptych "Alterscapes" (2006) shows the artist as a demiurge, spilling an undefined blue liquid on a landscape. "Contained measures of Tangible memories" (2009), a more recent installation, features two duplicate mobile plinths on top of which the artist has placed five bowls containing mica, black soap, cassia fistula, indigo dye and alum, natural materials that are available in both morocco and Nigeria, but used in completely different ways. The work, shown on the 2009 Arts in marrakech biennial, explores how meaning and function are relative within cultures, and reveals different roles and histories for the same products, particularly within the context of the artist's autobiography and memories. Connected to the domain of art, perversity lingers in the idea that exploitation is fundamental to culture when culture is defined as the adaptation of natural resources towards human ends. Nkanga refrains from entering the realm of the perverse by only creating a vehicle for showing and transporting the resources, she does not make a new product out of them. (She repeated this strategy in her work "Contained measures of Fragments pointe Noire" (2009), which focuses on the specific colours of earth found in pointe Noire, Congo; bags of sand were pierced during the opening of the exhibi- tion and slowly spilled out to shape a new landscape within the installation.)
Nkanga's various photographic works evidence a more documentary approach to the interrogation of the implications of human acts and their effects on varied environments and contexts. In her series "Dolphin Estate" (2008), she photographed a Lagos housing estate that controversially employed prefabricated building techniques. Completed in 1992, Dolphin Estate has," explains the artist, "gradually fallen into a state of disrepair leaving the residents to take care for their daily needs such as water, electricity and deal with flooding problems". Nkanga's photographs show the results and conditions of a long lost dream. The American- sounding name of the housing estate, which comprises two-and three-bedroom flats and four-bedroom duplexes, suggests a suburban utopia, but in reality the buildings are often inadequately equipped. Dwellings are often improvised and added to. Nkanga's photographs show these makeshift alterations, which include large, vividly coloured water tanks precariously installed outside.
On a meta-level "Dolphin Estates" seems to tackle the moral questions connected to the aesthetics of non-architecture and the originality that animates parallel urbanity, as a source of inspiration for artists and archi-tects. Again, as in other works, it is a question that revolves around the paradoxes of exploitation.[3]
Nkanga's 2005 - 06 series of drawings, "Delta Stories", hover between a personal and a universal account of the resource-driven conflicts in the Niger Delta where the local population considers the exploitation of nature as a source of environmental problems and destruction. The positivistic classification of natural things, through observation, measurement and the application of purely quantitative methods, is considered to disrupt our rela- tionship to them and encourage the undesirable attitude that they are nothing more than things to be probed, consumed and dominated. The crisis in the Delta arose in the early 1990s over tensions between foreign oil corporations and a number of the region's minority ethnic groups. Competition for oil wealth, which forms part of an ongoing "scramble for Africa", has fuelled most of the violence, but the conflict is also symptomatic of a clash of opposing world-views. Some drawings resemble topographical maps punctuated by pins (standing for oil wells ?) indexing territorial occupation, although they also indirectly remind one of an animal skin, as a trophy to be taken. The level of abstraction brings to mind the legacy of colonial mapping; at the same time the distanced view invokes the positivism of science and technology, which not only removes our fear of nature, by promising limitless knowledge and power, but also destroys our sense of awe and wonder towards it.
Nkanga's "Delta Stories" (2005 / 06), and related drawing projects, like the "pointe Noire Fragments" (2009) or "Social Consequences I and II" (both 2009), form a meditation on the exploitation of natural resources in a mostly allegorical way. One of the most interesting principles in the artist's drawing method, which I would call a type of organic animation, is that she uses a part of the drawing or an entire sheet to test the colours to be used, these dots appear in a cluster in the top left corner and form a patchwork suffused with everything that comes out of it. It seems as if the drawings set themselves in motion, a characteristic which is most obvious
in "Social Consequences II", a six-page acrylic drawing where the patches give birth to a complete machinery ("The overload"), including corporate buildings with needles that threaten human silhouettes ("projectiles"), which in turn are occupied with an observation device ("piercing pressure"), directly connected to a mechanical apparatus ("hostage") moving disembodied arms extracting resources from the soil ("Wastescape"), and in the end piercing wells that spoil water ("The overflow"). Covering the wide range of changes from human value creation to corporate value extraction, the representations of actions in a narrative, equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself, hint "ex negativo" to the corporate world, which achieved monopoly control, prohibiting locals by law from competing against corporations in extracting resources or selling them goods. [4]
In his later work, German philosopher Theodor Adorno advocated an aesthetic attitude of "sensuous immediacy" towards nature. Adorno borrows the term, which he considers the defining characteristic of art, from Hegel's "Aesthetics" (1885). In his own "Aesthetic Theory"(2004) Adorno considers "the sensuous" as part of aesthetic understanding, which is considered a resistant quality against quantification or a quality that remains after the violence of naming and categorising. Aesthetic understanding makes note of the sensuous, the non-rational, that is
so often dismissed as merely irrational and that cannot be exhausted by rational codification. This means an acknowledgement of the possibilities to be directly and spontaneously acquainted with nature without interventions of our rational faculties. Adorno refers to the "excess" in works of art, something more than their mere materiality and exchange value, which is akin to natural things, and should therefore be able to re- enchant the world through aesthetic experience, which would at the same time be a re-enchantment of lives and purposes. [5]
Otobong Nkanga acknowledges this in her work, but at the same time expresses scepticism. In her recent sculpture, "The Operation" (2008), which Nkanga showed as a part of her "Contained Measures" installation in Las Palmas, she suspended the root of an orange tree from a wall in the Casa Africa gallery. Decorated with Tillandsia plants, the severed root was pierced with long stainless steel needles. A key gesture in Nkanga's work, the piercing was done with scientific precision.
Notes
1. Okwui Enwezor, "Where, What, Who, When: A Few Notes on African Conceptualism", in: Global Conceptualism: points of origin, 1950s - 1980s, (New York: Queens museum of Art, 1999), p.110.
2. It is in the nature of the time- and performance-related work of American artist Allan Kaprow that, in principle, a happening - or an "activity" as he called his work later on - cannot be repeated. Nevertheless, Kaprow himself re-enacted a large number of pieces on several occasions. In the 1980s he made the first "re-inventions", often with surprisingly changed ingredients and outcome. According to Kaprow activities and happenings do not grow old over the years; it is not nostalgic to repeat works but rather a challenge to adapt them to the moment, to the issues and themes, maybe even the fashion of today - as long as the "central metaphor", as he called it, was maintained. By this the works stay contemporary, comparable to the transmissions of content in oral history. See: philippe pirotte, - participation. A Legacy of Allan Kaprow -, in An Invention of Allan Kaprow for the moment, philippe pirotte (Kunsthalle Bern, 2009), p.9.
3. See paola Berenstein Jacques, Esthetique des Favelas, L'harmattan, paris, 2002
4. The corporation, as a virtual entity, mediates all lateral contact between people or small companies and businesses, and it redirects all created value to a select group of investors. According to artist Walead Beshty, corporations are a multitude of voices congealed into a singular entity, a transcription of an ephemeral set of compromises and competing agendas given a unified voice. Beshty further notes Gilles Deleuze's characterisation of the corporation as a spirit and wonders what it means for that ghost to speak. Like most innovations of the colonial era persisting in postcolonial times, that ghost extracts value from the so-called periphery and brings
it back to the so-called centre. See Walead Beshty, "American Ingenuity (And the Failure of the Readymade)", in Afterall magazine No. 17 (Antwerp, London, Los Angeles, 2008), p.23.
5. Some students of Adorno's work have recently argued that his account of the role of "sensuous immediacy" can be understood as an attempt to defend a "legitimate anthropomorphism" that comes close to a weak form of animism. See Jay Bernstein, Adorno: Disenchantment and Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University press, 2001), p.196.
-
2022.01 / 2022.02.12
Otobong Nkanga
Solo show : Togethering / 12.02.22
-
2018.02 / 2018.02.04
Group show
Artgenève Salon d'Art
-
2017.10 / 2017.10.22
Group show
FIAC PARIS
-
2016.06 / 2016.06.30
Otobong Nkanga
Cracks Around The Corner
-
2015.10 / 2015.10.25
Group show
Fiac 2015
-
2015.10 / 2015.10.18
Group show
1:54
-
2015.05 / 2015.05.17
Otobong Nkanga
FRIEZE NEW-YORK
-
2015.03 / 2015.03.21
Group show
ARTDUBAI
-
2015.02 / 2015.03.01
Group show
ARCO MADRID
-
2014.10 / 2014.10.26
Group show
FIAC
-
2014.10 / 2014.10.19
Group show
1:54
-
2014.05 / 2014.05.12
Group show
Frieze New York
-
2014.03 / 2014.03.23
Group show
ART DUBAI
-
07.13.2023 - 01.07.2024
Otobong Nkanga
IVAM - Valencia
Otobong Nkanga. Craving for Southern Light -
06.10.2023 - 08.27.2023
Otobong Nkanga
Fondation Beyeler
The mind's eye. Images of nature from Claude Monnet to Otobong Nkanga -
06.25.2022 - 09.25.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Sint-Janshospitaal
Otobong Nkanga - Underneath the Shade We Lay Grounded -
05.20.2022 - 09.18.2022
Otobong Nkanga
8th edition of the Triennial of Photography Hamburg
Otobong Nkanga | Currency: Photography Beyond Capture -
05.14.2022 - 10.02.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Utopia - 6th thematic edition of lille3000
Otobong Nkanga - Novacène -
04.20.2022 - 07.04.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Biennale Arte 2022 : 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice
Otobong Nkanga, Anna Boghiguian - KUB in Venice -
02.05.2022 - 02.05.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Artist Talk with Otobong Nkanga and Martin Rauch -
10.23.2021 - 03.06.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Kunsthaus Bregenz
Otobong Nkanga -
10.16.2021 - 02.06.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Somerset House
We Are History - Otobong Nkanga -
10.15.2021 - 02.13.2022
Otobong Nkanga
GAMeC - Bergamo
Nothing is lost - Otobong Nkanga -
10.10.2021 - 01.09.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Hammer Museum - LA
Witch Hunt - Otobong Nkanga -
09.29.2021 - 01.30.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Castello di Rivoli
Otobong Nkanga - Of Cords Curling around Mountains -
07.10.2021
Otobong Nkanga
Stedelijk Museum
Tomorrow is a Different Day - Otobong Nkanga -
06.12.2021 - 09.19.2021
Otobong Nkanga
La Villa Arson
Otobong Nkanga - When Looking Across the Sea, Do You Dream? -
05.22.2021 - 08.15.2021
Otobong Nkanga
Frye Art Museum
Black Refractions - Otobong Nkanga -
02.05.2021 - 05.29.2021
Otobong Nkanga
FRAC Nouvelle-Aquitaine MECA
Otobong Nkanga / Memoria : récits d'une autre Histoire -
11.13.2020 - 01.13.2022
Otobong Nkanga
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter
Otobong Nkanga: Uncertain Where the Next Wind Blows -
10.03.2020 - 10.03.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Paris - Esplanade Gaston-Monnerville
Otobong Nkanga - Nuit Blanche 2020 -
07.25.2020 - 08.14.2020
Mark Dion, Bruno Perramant, Otobong Nkanga
Galerie PERROTIN
Grands soirs et petits matins - Restons Unis -
07.10.2020 - 12.13.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Gropius BAU
Otobong Nkanga: There's No Such Thing as Solid Ground -
03.14.2020 - 06.28.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art
Otobong Nkanga : From Where I Stand -
02.07.2020 - 02.15.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Dhaka Art Summit - Bangladesh
Otobong Nkanga - Seismic Movements -
12.07.2019 - 03.22.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Göteborgs Konsthall - Sweden
Every Leaf Is an Eye -
11.21.2019 - 02.19.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Zeitz Museum of Contemporary Art Africa (Zeitz MOCAA) - South Africa
Otobong Nkanga - Acts at the Crossroads -
11.16.2019 - 11.16.2019
Otobong Nkanga
Lafayette Anticipations
Otobong Nkanga - Parlement éphémère - Visible Award 2019 -
10.14.2019 - 11.01.2019
Renaud Auguste-Dormeuil, Patrick Corillon, Damien Deroubaix, Mark Dion, Gary Hill, Florence Paradeis, Bruno Perramant, Patrick Van Caeckenbergh, Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Patrick Tosani, Laurent Tixador, Martin Dammann, Meschac Gaba, Marcel Van Eeden, Otobong Nkanga, Vivien Roubaud, Lars Fredrikson / Estate, Constance Nouvel, Amir Nave, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Hesam Rahmanian, Daniele Genadry, WE ARE THE PAINTERS
October 14th until December 1st. 2019
STOP - Collective exhibition of the artists represented by the Gallery -
10.01.2019 - 10.01.2019
Otobong Nkanga
Otobong Nkanga Wins Inaugural Lise Wilhelmsen Art Award -
09.21.2019 - 01.05.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Tate St. Ives
Otobong Nkanga From Where I Stand -
06.27.2019 - 09.22.2019
Otobong Nkanga, Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, Hesam Rahmanian
Louisiana - Museum of Modern Art
Homeless souls -
05.11.2019 - 11.24.2019
Otobong Nkanga
International Pavilion of the Arsenal, Giardini
Otobong Nkanga - 58 th Venice Biennal -
04.26.2019 - 03.01.2020
Otobong Nkanga
Museum of Contemporary Art, Kiasma
Otobong Nkanga - Coexistence -
03.07.2019 - 03.07.2019
Otobong Nkanga
Leaving the Echo Chamber - Making New Time
Otobong Nkanga - Sharjah Biennial 14 Prize -
03.05.2019 - 05.11.2019
Otobong Nkanga
Perillous Bodies
Otobong Nkanga / Ford Foundation Gallery, NY -
02.05.2019 - 02.05.2019
Otobong Nkanga
Otobong Nkanga : Ultimas Prize 2018 -
11.23.2018 - 02.09.2018
Otobong Nkanga
Otobong Nkanga, ar/ge kunst, Bolzano, IT
A LAPSE, A STAIN, A FALL -
10.26.2018 - 02.24.2019
Otobong Nkanga
National Museum Cardiff
ARTES MUNDI 8: Otobong Nkanga Nomination -
10.17.2018 - 10.20.2018
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Otobong Nkanga
Grand Palais
Cinéphémère at FIAC -
06.09.2018 - 09.16.2018
Otobong Nkanga, Vivien Roubaud
Cosmogonies, au gré des éléments -
03.31.2018 - 12.16.2018
Otobong Nkanga
MCA - Chicago
Otobong Nkanga: To Dig a Hole that Collapses Again -
02.02.2018 - 08.19.2018
Otobong Nkanga
Haus der Kunst, Munich
Blind Faith: Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art -
12.16.2017 - 01.28.2018
Otobong Nkanga
VILLA MEDICIS : Festival of Lights
OPEN AT NIGHT -
12.08.2017 - 02.10.2018
Otobong Nkanga
Temple Bar Gallery + Studios
The Breath From Fertile Grounds -
10.18.2017 - 02.19.2018
Otobong Nkanga, Athi-Patra Ruga
Musée de l'Orangerie
Dada Africa -
09.28.2017 - 02.11.2018
Otobong Nkanga
Musée Zadkine - Paris
ÊTRE PIERRE -
04.26.2017 - 04.27.2017
Otobong Nkanga
Beaux-Arts de Paris
Colloque La Valeur de l'Art -
04.24.2017
Otobong Nkanga
Tate Modern - Londres
The Tanks -
04.22.2017 - 09.03.2017
Joana Hadjithomas & Khalil Joreige, Otobong Nkanga, Athi-Patra Ruga
MAC VAL
« Tous, des sang-mêlés » -
04.20.2017 - 08.13.2017
Otobong Nkanga
WIELS - Bruxelles
The Absent Museum -
04.08.2017 - 06.10.2017
Otobong Nkanga
Beautiful Africa -
04.08.2017 - 09.17.2017
Otobong Nkanga
-
03.17.2017 - 05.28.2017
Otobong Nkanga
BOZAR - Bruxelles
LAURÉATE / BelgianArtPrize 2017 -
06.04.2016 - 09.18.2016
Otobong Nkanga
transHISTORY -
04.13.2016 - 06.13.2016
Meschac Gaba, Otobong Nkanga
Museum ON/OFF
Publications
-
Annabelle Gugnon : Otobong Nkanga - TOGETHERING (Featuring Oroma Elewa, Bill Kouélany, Obi Okigbo & Adéolá Olágúnjú) -
IN SITU EDITIONS
February 2022 -
Henie Onstad Kunstsenter : Uncertain Where the Next Wind Blows
Walther und Franz Konig
May 2021 -
From Where I Stand
Tate Publishing
February 2020 -
To Dig a Hole That Collapses Again
Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago and DelMonico Prestel
February 2018 -
Luster and Lucre
Portikus Sternberg Press
June 2017 -
Otobong Nkanga & Kunstverein & Stiftung Springhornhof : SMOKESCREEN
January 2004 -
Otobong Nkanga - No Be Today Story O
Critical text
Press
-
The Art Newspaper
Otobong Nkanga et la lumière du sud à Valence 12.12.2023 -
ART BASEL.COM
Otobong Nkanga chooses lifeby Tom Morton
25.08.2023 -
La Provence
La nature et l'humain par le prisme de Van Gogh 11.11.2022 -
De Standaard
27.08.2022 -
The Art Newspaper Daily
À Bruges, les paysages personnels d'Otobong Nkanga 05.07.2022 -
Ocula Magazine
Parallel Projects in Venice: Exhibition Highlights 02.05.2022 -
The Art News Paper France
Otobong Nkanga - Grand Entretien 01.01.2022 -
Le Monde diplomatique
Quand le numérique détruit la planète 05.10.2021 -
Art in America
The Paradox of Plenty 16.02.2021 -
Frieze
Otobong Nkanga Excavates Material Histories 30.10.2020 -
Berlin Art Link
On Extraction and Regeneration: An Interview withOtobong Nkanga 24.07.2020 -
The low countries
Otobong Nkanga Operates Like a Political Seismograph 03.07.2020 -
Art of Change 21
Conversation avec l'artiste Otobong Nkanga 01.04.2020 -
Le Quotidien de l'Art
Otobong Nkanga première lauréate du Wilhelmsen 01.10.2019 -
Flash Art
To Follow or To Fall. A conversation with Otobong Nkanga 24.05.2019 -
Quotidien de l'Art
Sharjah, triple réflexion de notre temps 11.03.2019 -
Art in America
Otobong Nkanga 01.10.2018 -
Ocula
A conversation with Otobong Nkanga 01.06.2018 -
Artpress
Otobong Nkanga, éthique de la coopération 01.02.2017 -
Le Monde
La geste sensible d'Otobong Nkanga 21.06.2016 -
Le Journal des Arts
Cracks Around The Corner 15.06.2016 -
Museum Tijdschrift
De wereld als ecosysteem - OTOBONG NKANGA 01.12.2015 -
Afterall 37
Exchange and Some Change : The Imaginative Economies of Otobong Nkanga ( by Monika Szewczyk ) 01.11.2014 -
MOUSSE 44
We Don't Exist Alone - by Hans Ulrich Obrist 01.07.2014 -
.docs // M. geopoliticArt Edition N°1
07.04.2010
