Born in Kenya, based in New York, USA
watercolor with collage on paper
16 1/8 inches x 12 1/8 inches
Minneapolis Institute of Art
In a practice that spans painting, sculpture, collage, film, and installation, Wangechi Mutu explores the violence and misrepresentations that afflict contemporary women—Black women, in particular. The effects of globalization and consumerism are also frequent themes. Contorted feminine forms, which seem simultaneously futuristic and primordial, appear throughout Mutu’s mythical bronzes and bricolages of paint, ink, magazine cutouts, and found materials
Mutu received her MFA from Yale University and has exhibited in New York, Berlin, London, Tokyo, Miami, and Chicago. She participated in the 2019 Whitney Biennial and created the inaugural commission for the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Fifth Avenue façade. Her work belongs in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, the Studio Museum in Harlem, and Saatchi Gallery.
Intertwined is an invitation to get lost in Wangechi Mutu’s world. In her characteristic paintings and collages, androgynous creatures with sprawling wings, human-like figure with giant eyes and hyena ears and snake-patterned limbs, and nude women reposing languidly on tree trunks inhabit fantastic settings evocative of mystical roller discos. Her surfaces are built up of magazine cut-outs, glitter, shells, ink, and even soil, but these are almost impossible to identify; Mutu’s magic lies in her expert, seamless cohesion of disparate elements — and in her incisive criticism of the ways in which images of Black women are misrepresented and exploited.
jimmyeatworldofficial
titsay
2087
germansingergirl
kianamaiart
origamiaround
