Wangechi Mutu ,2003
Provenienza : [Propriété non datée]
- Salon 94, New York
Exhibited : London, Royal Academy of Arts, USA Today, October 6 – November 4, 2006
Literature : Royal Academy of Arts, ed., USA Today, London, 2006, p. 293 (illustrated)
Note : Kenyan-born artist Wangechi Mutu’s collage works play with metamorphosis, touching on themes of transformation, excess, and desire. Mutu’s deconstructed female figures reflect the violence inherent in a universal pursuit of external perfection, affluence, and power. Meanwhile, the seductive beauty of her ethereal images entrances the viewer, engaging her audience in a dialogue about consumption and Western ideals. The present lot is an exciting example of Mutu’s oeuvre. Referencing surrealism and dada, the image appears to be an assemblage of individual body parts comprised of found objects. Conflicting textures and imagery reflect the disjuncture of modern Africa and a struggle to reconcile tradition with the future, and internal turmoil with the superficial preoccupations of globalism and commercial culture. [Mutu’s female forms] might be read as a commentary on sub-Saharan Africa as planetary site of the world’s most vivid juxtapositions of the sublime and the horrific, dousing caustic chemicals (or is that melted strawberry ice cream?) upon characters that recall the Africanized syncopations of Romare Bearden’s collaged bodies and ghettoscapes, the fantastical literary imaginings of Amos Tutuola, and the mutant ‘hood societies of Pedro Bell. These women appear at times conjured from a fantastical realm of nocturnal toadstool reveries and at other times, fabricated from the rotting remains of open sewers, garbage heaps of toxic waste. Alternately engaging in mutual frolic or ecstatic disfiguration, their glorified orifices bestow life-giving fluids and anoint the land with toxic elixirs. It is ironic and telling, however, that a good portion of the oozing in Wangechi’s art is not done via the usual body parts; rather, liquid pours as frequently from bodily punctures and ruptures. Which is to say, this is an ecstatic aesthetic of trauma. There is funky movement here for sure, but for the most part the movement and visages of these figures -alternately alluring or disconcerting- sublimate the screams from within the tortured web of history. M. Veal, Wangechi Mutu: A Shady Promise, Bologna, 2008, p. 10
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