Otobong Nkanga

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Work: Taste of a Stone exhibited at Nottingham Contemporary Gallery

Otobong Nkanga (* 1974 in Kano ) is a Nigerian- born visual and performance artist who lives in Antwerp . In 2015 she won the Yanghyun Prize and in 2019 she was awarded the Peter Weiss Prize .

Her work examines the social and topographical changes in their environment, observes their inherent complexity and understands how resources such as soil and earth and their potential values ​​are subjected to regional and cultural analysis. Her work has been shown in many institutions, including the Tate Modern , the KW Institute (Berlin), the Stedelijk Museum and the Sharjah Biennale . She also took part in the 20th Sydney Biennale .

Life

Otobong Nkanga was born in Kano, Nigeria, in 1974.

Her first personal exhibition, CLASSICISM & BEYOND , was held in 2002 at the nonprofit Project Row Houses in Houston. As a reaction to the work Baggage (1972–2007/2008) by the American artist Allan Kaprow , Nkanga designed a performance for the Kunsthalle Bern from 2007 to 2008 . The first work based on issues of the movement of goods from one point on the planet to another, Naylor introduces a post-colonial dimension. As the artist proves in an interview, the concepts of identity and cultural peculiarities are again the focus of her artistic gesture of re-appropriation.

In 2008, the Contained Measures of Land project again used the land as a symbol for the territory as well as for competition and conflict. A year later, during her residence in Pointe-Noire , in the Republic of the Congo , she collected eight different colors of the earth. Pointe-Noire was colonized by the Portuguese and the French. Art critic Philippe Pirotte wrote that Nkanga is coming to create some kind of vehicle for presentation and transportation that does not define utility in an age when everyone is obsessed with the transformation of the natural tool resources that serve humanity.

In her project Contained Measures of Tangible Memories , which began in 2010, she examines the practices of dyeing from her first trip to Morocco. It essentially transforms objects that are in circulation into art objects.

In 2012 she created a device for a performance or rather an installation called Contained Measures of Kolanut with two photos, one of a tree called adekola and one of two girls imitating trees. Nkanga explained that the cola tree is important to their culture and is a symbol of spirituality for their culture. Then she suggested eating a brown nut ( Cola acuminata ) or a cream-colored nut ( Cola nitida ). This process is used to prepare for a conversation. This type of performance can take hours and requires a lot of concentration.

In the same year she proposed a performance for the Tate program Politics of Representation , in which she invited visitors to explore the concepts of identity, perception and memory.

Exhibitions

  • 2010: Kunsthal Charlottenborg Copenhagen. Taste of a Stone. Ikǫ
  • 2015: Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon
  • 2016: The Encounter That Took a Part of Me . Nottingham Contemporary
  • 2017: documenta 14 , Athens and Kassel
  • 2019: 58th Venice Biennale
  • 2020: Gropiusbau . "There'sNoSuchThingAsSolidGround"

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Lee Woo-young: Nigerian artist Otobong Nkanga wins Yanghyun art prize. In: koreaherald.com. November 12, 2015, accessed January 24, 2019 .
  2. ↑ Evelyn Okakwu: Nigerian artist emerges first African winner of Korean award. In: premiumtimesng.com. November 13, 2015, accessed January 24, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Otobong Nkanga receives the Peter Weiss Prize on deutschlandfunkkultur.de, published and accessed on 23 August 2019.
  4. ↑ Otobong Nkanga. In: contemporaryand.com. Retrieved January 24, 2019 .
  5. ↑ 20th Biennale of Sydney, Carriageworks. Retrieved January 24, 2019 .
  6. ↑ LOUISA ELDERTON: INTERVIEW WITH OTOBONG NKANGA. In: thewhitereview.org. October 2014, accessed January 24, 2019 .
  7. ^ A b Virginie Bobin: Participation: A Legacy of Allan Kaprow, P. Pirotte An Invention of Allan Kaprow for the Present Moment . ISBN 3-85780-150-6 , pp. 9-17 (English).
  8. ↑ ACROSS THE BOARD. In: tate.org.uk. Retrieved January 24, 2019 .
  9. ↑ WORLD: Otobong Nkanga in Gropius Bau . In: THE WORLD . July 9, 2020 ( welt.de [accessed July 11, 2020]).

Web links

Commons : Otobong Nkanga @ Nottingham Contemporary  - Collection of images, videos and audio files
personal data
SURNAME Nkanga, Otobong
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Nigerian painter
DATE OF BIRTH 1974
PLACE OF BIRTH Kano , Nigeria