Olu Oguibe
Olu Oguibe also Olu Oluchukwu (born October 14, 1964 in Aba ( Nigeria ) is a Nigerian-American poet , cultural scientist , curator and conceptual artist . The documenta 14 participant was awarded the Arnold Bode Prize of the city of Kassel in 2017 .
Life
Oguibe spent his childhood in the Nigerian region of Biafra , where he witnessed the civil war in the late 1960s . His family was evicted and had to flee. His father is a preacher and makes religious wooden sculptures. Oguibe studied art at the University of Nigeria in Nsukka and graduated in 1986 with a bachelor's degree . Since 1987 he has written articles on contemporary and modern African art, writes poetry and is co-editor of the renowned magazine Nka - Journal of Contemporary African Art . He then studied at the School of Oriental and African Studies and received his doctorate in 1992 from the University of London. During his studies he was involved in the democratic movement in Nigeria. After several residencies as an artist in the 1980s and 1990s, including in Germany, Oguibe went into American political exile shortly after completing his dissertation in 1992 .
Since the mid-1980s he has taught art , art history , art theory and literature in Nigeria. Oguibe had taught at Goldsmiths College in London , Chicago , the University of South Florida and Connecticut from 1995 until 2015 when he turned entirely to conceptual art. He is also a curator for the London Tate Modern . In 2007 Oguibe curated the African Pavilion at the Venice Biennale with Okwui Enwezor .
Oguibe lives and works in the small town of Rockville, Connecticut / USA.
Awards
- 1986: National Council for Arts & Culture Prize, Lagos
- 1989: Foreign & Commonwealth Office Award, London
- 2013: Governor's Art Award, Hartford (Connecticut) (for his life's work)
- 2017: Arnold Bode Prize of the City of Kassel
Artistic work
Narrative understanding of art
Oguibe's conceptual works are inspired by often far-reaching autobiographical experiences that are, however, universally understandable. He is an artistic cultural provocateur of narrative art whose leitmotif is the human condition . He deals with the cycle of violence that is driven by nationalist dogmas . The Igbo way of thinking and existential principles play a large role in Oguibe's work and have an attitude towards conceptual art. The aim of Olu Oguibes is to give a stage to the world-wide scattered African artists. He experiments with different forms and media and wants to develop a global language of forms. The artist is interested in indigenous art, including a. from Mexico , Latin America and North America . His early graphics refer to the drawing tradition of the Nsukka School . However, his acrylic paintings and digital drawings and installations can be classified in the discourse of contemporary global art. Much of his work plays with questions about one's own identity, its representation, alienation and cultural memory. Current works show laid-out figures, characterized by the precarious nature of their last moments as active social objects and what they are - corpses. They are disaffected mirror images of an endless cycle of violence.
Olu Oguibe deals with human existence, nation, wanderlust and eternal damnation.
Cartographic work
With his cycle of works Ethnographia 2.0 from 1997 to 1999, he deals with information technology. For Olu Oguibe, the boundaries drawn by the cartography of cyberspace are first and foremost the old boundaries of class and wealth . They include the impoverished areas of the United States as well as Chad . The great advantage of the Internet for many users is the time and cost savings it saves. Then there is the integration effect . The web can free scientists at remote institutes from their isolation . He sees this as the main reason for talent drain from developing countries.
Artistic projects
The Present is a Dangerous Place to Live
The work The Present is a Dangerous Place to Live from 1987 shows two people in a watercolor painting in front of a large empty room.
Ashes
At the 2004 Busan Biennale in South Korea, he worked on the experiences and cultural changes caused by the terrorist attacks on September 11, 2001 in his installation Ashes . He created a gloomy room that was closed off on one side by a pane of glass and the interior of which was covered with thick smoke.
Buggy Memorial to the Unknown Child
The work Buggy Memorial to the Unknown Child dealt with the refugee experiences in Nigeria. In this work from 2008 in Hartford, Olu Oguibe processed his personal feelings during the flight in Nigeria. He presents his observations about death and loss of his 4 year old brother during the run of a measles artistic. A dark stroller stands on a platform under a large-scale Porträtnahaufnahme a small child, which in turn is surrounded by a heavy curtain. Specifically, Oguibe is referring to his own childhood during the Biafra War and to his brother who died early; At the same time, with this subjective experience, he links the horizon of the viewer, who knows loss, humanity and memory as universal experiences.
Biafra archive for documenta 14 in Athens
For documenta 14 in Athens , Oguibe compiled an archive on the human tragedy of the Biafra War, which he experienced as a child.
The Alien and Refugee Monument
In 2017 he created a classicistic monumental obelisk for the Kassel Königsplatz as part of documenta 14 . The 16 meter high obelisk is inscribed on each side with the biblical quote I was a stranger, and you accommodated me in German , English , Arabic and Turkish . These are the languages that are most widely spoken in Kassel. The work of art is intended to remember the 60 million refugees worldwide. Because of a dispute about the location, the city of Kassel dismantled the obelisk on October 3, 2018 at Königsplatz and set it up in April 2019 in stairs street.
Writing and art criticism
Oguibe's art critical and art theoretical work are key works. He wrote the Dictionary of Art , Art History and its Methods , Art in Theory 1900-2000 , The Visual Culture Reader , The Third Text Reader on Art and Culture , The Black British Culture and Society Reader and Theory in Contemporary Art: Von 1985 to the present . He has written articles for the art magazines Frieze , Flash Art International , Art Journal , texts on art , on the subject and Third Text and Criterios . His more recent books include research into contemporary African art. In 2000, African Art from Theory to the Marketplace was published by MIT Press and in 2014 The Culture Game published by the University of Minnesota Press.
Excerpt from the poem Conversation
Olu Oguibe writes in his poem Conversation :
“The mirror is like you
Window.
He gives us a look
on the place
From which we come
And we don't
can go back.
We are all travelers
On this path without end
condemned to roam
Without rest. "
Solo exhibitions
- Didi Museum, Lagos, 1988
- 1989 Syrian Club, Lagos, 1989
- Uli , Iwalewa House, Bayreuth, 1989
- Format his social self
- The present is a Dangerous Place to life, 1987
- Savannah Gallery, London, 1993/94
- Roslyn Oxley Gallery Sydney, 1994
- Busan Biennale's contemporary art exhibition, Busan, 2004
- University of Connecticut, Storrs, 2004
- Buggy Memorial to the Unknown Child . Hartford, 2008
- Close Your Eyes and Look as Far as You Can See, multimedia. Hartford Real Art Ways, 2008
- Yale University, Department of African American Studies, New Haven, 2013
- Real Art Ways, Hartford, 2014
Group exhibitions
- Art on the Street , University of Nigeria, Nsukka, 1988
- Art from Africa , Square Gallery, Contemporary, London: 1990
- Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa , Whitechapel Art Gallery 1995, London
- Johannesburg Biennale, Johannesburg 1997
- Havana Biennial, Havana 2000
- Niigata Prefecture: Echigo-Tsumari Public Art Triennale 2000
- Apex Art Insertion , New York, 2000
- Continental Shift , Bonnefantenmuseum , Maastricht 2000
- Making the Territory Irish Museum of Modern Art , 2001
- Family , Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, 2002
- The African Exile Museum , Migros Museum for Contemporary Art , Zurich, 2003
- International Biennale, Busan, 2004
- Triennial Luanda, Luanda, 2006
- Biennale di Venezia , Venice, 2007
- The Art of Translation , Newark Museum , Newark 2013
- I was a stranger and you hosted me , documenta 14 , Kassel, 2017
Publications
- A gathering fear , Bayreuth: Boomerang Press Aas, 1992
- A song from exile , Bayreuth: Boomerang Press Aas, 1990
- Uli : traditional wall painting and modern art in Nigeria catalog by Obiora Udechukwu with a contribution by Olu Oguibe, 1990
Curatorial activities
- Venice Biennale, African Pavilion 2007
literature
- Ugochuhukwu-Smooth Nzewi : Daybook Documenta 14 : Pestel Verlag, Munich, London New York, 2017
Web links
- Olu Oguibe at De Gruyter, accessed online on August 26, 2017 (registration required).
- Agence France Presse , accessed online on August 25, 2017 (subject to registration).
Individual evidence
- ↑ El Norte (Mexico) of April 25, 2005 - Article at Nexis, accessed on August 25, 2017 from El Norte
- ^ The Mercury (South Africa) April 12, 2007 - Nexis article, retrieved from the Mercury on August 26, 2017
- ↑ Luxemburger Wort from June 26, 2017 - Article at Nexis, accessed on August 25, 2017 from the Luxemburger Wort
- ↑ a b Arnold Bode Prize 2017 to OLU OGUIBE , art-in.de, July 5, 2017
- ↑ The Irish Times, June 24, 2006 - Article on Nexis, retrieved August 25, 2017 from the Irish Times Wort
- ↑ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, May 1, 2005 - Nexis article, accessed August 25, 2017 from The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
- ↑ Stuttgarter Zeitung of August 7, 2007 - Article at Nexis, accessed on August 26, 2017 from the Stuttgarter Zeitung
- ↑ THE KOREA HERALD of August 23, 2004 - Article at Nexis, accessed on August 26, 2017 from the KOREA HERALD
- ↑ The New York Times, January 6, 2008 - Article on Nexis, retrieved from The New York Times on August 26, 2017
- ↑ Stern from June 22, 2017 - Article at Nexis, retrieved from Stern on August 25, 2017
- ↑ Passauer Neue Presse from June 17, 2017 - Article at Nexis, accessed on August 25, 2017 from the Passauer Neue Presse
- ↑ Frankfurter Rundschau of June 22, 2017 - article at Nexis, accessed on August 25, 2017 from the Frankfurter Rundschau
- ↑ Dispute over the location: Kassel removes the “memorial for refugees” in a night and fog campaign. In: Die Welt , October 4, 2018, accessed on the same day.
- ^ Obelisk in Kassel: documenta artwork built in the city center. In: hna.de. April 18, 2019, accessed April 18, 2019 .
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Oguibe, Olu |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Oluchukwu, Olu |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Nigerian conceptual artist, poet, art critic |
| DATE OF BIRTH | October 14, 1964 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Aba, Nigeria |