WANGECHI MUTU WEAVES TALES, ENTHRALLS AUDIENCE, SHOWCASING HER VARIED APPROACH TO CREATING, AT ART INSTITUTE
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Photo credits — Art Institute of Chicago
Kenyan American artist Wangechi Mutu is internationally renowned for her sculptures, paintings, films, installations, and collages. Her Tree Woman, 2016 (National Museum of African Art) is one of the featured works in the Art Institute of Chicago’s (AIC) Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica on display until March 30th. Mutu delivered an artist talk on Thursday that included artwork, film, music, poetry and tributes to those who have inspired her.
Mixing the mythical with the futuristic, Mutu’s work grounds us in nature, while taking us to new and unimagined realms. She re-crafts narratives as she did in her work, YoMama, 2003, listed in Artnews as one of the 100 Best Artworks of the 21st Century. The collage, honoring Funmilayo Anikulapo-Kuti, whose son was the pioneering Nigerian musician Fela Kuti, is a reimagining of Eve in the Garden of Eden. In her version Eve vanquishes the snake that holds sway over two worlds, thereby setting the stage for realizing a new one.
Mutu is a conceptual artist who prioritizes her ideas and concepts but executes them combining multiple artistic disciplines. She is the whole package.
MORE FROM PROJECT A BLACK PLANET: THE ART AND CULTURE OF PANAFRICA
The Art Institute of Chicago’s (AIC) Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica assembles some 350 objects, spanning the 1920s to the present, made by artists on four continents: Africa, North and South America, and Europe. It is the first major exhibition to survey Pan-Africanism’s cultural manifestations.
Among the international artists featured in the exhibit are Hale Woodruff, Simone Leigh, Kerry James Marshall, Dr. Margaret Burroughs, Lubaina Himid, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Kadar Attia, Al Anatsui, Ebony G. Patterson, Marlene Dumas, Claudette Johnson, Bessie Harvey, Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller and Betye Saar. Literature includes work by Frantz Fanon and from Ebony and DRUM magazines
Pan-Africanism, first named and theorized around 1900, is commonly regarded as an umbrella term for political movements that have advanced the call for both individual self-determination and global solidarity among peoples of African descent. It has yet to be fully examined as a worldview that takes its force from art and culture.
Panafrica, the promised land named in the exhibition title, is presented as a conceptual place where arguments about decolonization, solidarity, and freedom are advanced and negotiated with the aim of an emancipatory future.
Gallery furniture was created by industrial designer Norman Teague.
BRONZEVILLE-BLACK METROPOLIS NATIONAL HERITAGE DISTRICT CELEBRATES CHICAGO ART HISTORY AT EXHIBITION HONORING PURVIS YOUNG
Congratulations to the Bronzeville-Black Metropolis National Heritage Area (BBMNHA) for hosting an artist talk celebrating the brilliance of ancestor Purvis Young, who was inspired by the mural movement in Chicago. The panel moderated by Brian Gilham of Zolla Liberman, included Romi Crawford of the School of the Art Institute, Steven Pitkin, Purvis Young photographer, art appraiser Diane DInkins Carr and Carrie Johnson, executive director of the Rockford Art Museum.
Held at Zolla Liberman Gallery, on February 27th, it was also the debut of “Messenger of Salvation and Liberation,” the artwork of Raymond Thomas. A discussion of the impact of Young’s work was part of the event. Young’s work “Untitled”, the purchase of which benefits BBMNHA, is still available as are scarves featuring the artist’s work.
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