Otobong Nkanga

Otobong Nkanga (born 1974 Kano, Nigéria) is a visual artist, and performance artist based in Paris and Antwerp. In 2015 she won the Yanghyun Prize.^[1][2]

Her work explores the notions of identity, the status of African women and the cultural peculiarities of Nigeria, a country where she originated. Her work has been featured in many institutions including the Tate Modern the KW Institute (Berlin), the Stedelijk Museum and the biennale of Sharjah.^[3] She will appear at the 20th Biennale of Sydney.^[4]

Life

Her first personal exhibition, CLASSICISM & BEYOND, took place in 2002 in the non-profit organization, Project Row Houses in Houston. In 2007 to 2008, in response to the work Baggage (1972 - 2007/2008) by American artist Allan Kaprow,^[5] Nkanga has designed a performance for the Kunsthalle Bern. The initial work that was based on issues of movement of goods from one point of the planet to another, Naylor introduces a post-colonial dimension. As evidenced the artist in an interview,^[6] the concepts of identity, cultural specificities are again at the centre of his artistic gesture of re-appropriation.

Also, in 2008, the project, Contained measures of Land, used soil both as a symbol of the territory and competition and conflict. A year later, during his residence at Pointe-Noir, in the Congo, it has collected 8 different colors of Earth. Pointe Noire was colonized by the Portuguese and the French. Philippe Pirote, art critic, wrote that Nkanga comes to create a kind of vehicle for the presentation and the transportation which does not define the use value in an era where everyone is obsessed with the transformation of natural tools resources which serve humanity.^[7]

Her project, Contained Measures of Tangible Memories that started in 2010, from her first trip to the Morocco, she explores the practices of dyeing. She essentially transform objects in circulation to objets d'art.^[8]

In 2012, she has created a device for a performance, or rather an installation entitled Contained Measures of Kolanut with two photos, one of a tree which is called kola and one with two girls imitating trees. Nkanga explained that the Kola tree is important for its culture and is a symbol of spirituality to its culture. After she suggested eating a Brown nut (Cola accuminata) either a cream (cola nitida). These elements existed for preparing a conversation. This type of performance can last for hours and requires a lot of concentration.^[8]

The same year, she proposed a performance at Tate programme performance Politics of Representation where she invited visitors to explore the concepts of identity, perception, and memory.^[9]

Expositions

• 2015 : Biennale d'art contemporain de Lyon

References

This article incorporates information from the equivalent article on the French Wikipedia.