Wangechi Mutu (1972, Kenya/USA) Kenyan born artist Wangechi Mutu created a sensation in galleries on both coasts of the United States with her compelling and disturbing collages in the first years of the twenty-first century. Mutus works were portraits, in a way; she often began with a picture of a woman cut out from a magazine or coffee table book. But she distorted the image by cutting it into pieces, rearranging it, and adding other materials until the woman depicted looked freakish or surreal. The figures Mutu created seemed to tell a multitude of stories - of traditional African womanhood distorted by the influences of Western ideals of beauty, of exploitation and resistance, of human resilience in the face of dehumanizing forces. Los Angeles Times writer David Pagel called Mutus solo exhibition debut in that city among the best in recent memory. Mutu was born in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, and much of her work has involved Kenyan or African themes to some degree. Her upbringing was a modern and urban one, and she was puzzled by the Western tendency to think of Africa in terms of its rural, traditional cultures. Theres this constant movement toward historicizing Africa, turning it into this archaic place, Mutu explained in an interview on the Africana Web site. Being that I was raised there, and that I came from the city, it was really weird for me. I was like, Its actually a really modern place like everywhere else. It happened and is happening right now.
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 15:56:42 +0000
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