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Wangechi Mutu, Family Tree, 2012.
Suite of 13, mixed-media collage on paper, 16.25 x 12.25 inches (41.28 x 31.12
cm). Collection of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. Museum purchase
with additional funds provided by Trent Carmichael (T’88, P’17), Blake Byrne
(T'57), Marjorie and Michael Levine (T'84, P’16), Stefanie and Douglas Kahn
(P’11, P’13), and Christen and Derek Wilson (T'86, B'90, P'15). Image courtesy
of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects. © Wangechi Mutu. Photo by Robert
Wedemeyer.
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A
Fantastic Journey
March
21 – July 21, 2013
2001
Campus Drive
Durham,
NC
The
Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University has organized Wangechi Mutu’s first
survey in the United States, the most comprehensive and innovative show yet for
this internationally renowned, multidisciplinary artist. The touring
exhibition, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey, opens March 21.
Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey presents more than 50 works from the
mid-1990s to the present, including collage, drawing, sculpture, installation
and video. The exhibition features many of the artist’s most iconic collages
drawn from major international collections, rarely seen early works and new
creations. The exhibition also unveils the artist’s sketchbooks of intimate
drawings that reveal her creative process and inspirations, on public view for
the first time. Other new highlights include Mutu’s first-ever animated video,
created in collaboration with Santigold, commissioned by the Nasher Museum and
co-released by MOCAtv. Mutu also will transform the gallery into an
environmental installation, including a monumental wall drawing, which evokes
an enchanted forest and allows visitors to immerse themselves in the artist's
work.
The exhibition is curated by Trevor Schoonmaker, Patsy R. and Raymond D. Nasher
Curator of Contemporary Art at the Nasher Museum.
“We are very proud to present Wangechi Mutu’s most innovative and exhilarating
work,” Schoonmaker said. “Followers of Mutu’s work will be amazed by her new
ideas and creations, and will gain unprecedented insight into her artistic
process and evolution as an artist over the past 15 years. Her work is as
seductive and beautiful as it is critical and disturbing.”
The Nasher Museum is the first venue for the touring exhibition, which will be
on view at Duke through July 21, 2013. Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey will
travel to the Brooklyn Museum of Art in September 2013, the Museum of
Contemporary Art, North Miami in April 2014 and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum
of Art at Northwestern University in September 2014.
Mutu was born in Nairobi, Kenya, and lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She is
best known for her large-scale collages depicting female figures in lush,
otherworldly landscapes. Her work explores issues of gender, race, war,
globalization, colonialism and the eroticization of the black female body. She creates
mysterious cyborgian figures pieced together with human, animal, machine and
monster parts. She often combines found materials and magazine cutouts with
sculpture and painted imagery, sampling from sources as diverse as African
traditions, international politics, the fashion industry and science fiction.
Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic
Journey is accompanied by a 160-page, color-illustrated catalogue with
critical texts by Mutu, Schoonmaker, art historian Kristine Stiles and critic
and musician Greg Tate. The exhibition catalogue is published by the
Nasher Museum and distributed by Duke University Press.
At the Nasher Museum, Schoonmaker curated the nationally touring
exhibitions The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl (2010), Barkley
L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (2008) and Street Level: Mark
Bradford, William Cordova and Robin Rhode (2007). He is the editor
of Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway (Palgrave Macmillan,
2003).
The exhibition will be complemented by free programs and events, including an
opening talk by Mutu on March 20; student-organized Art for All brunch on April
7; screening of the film “The Triptych” and gallery talk by Stiles on May 2;
two Family Day events; film series; teacher workshops; catalogue launch party;
artist visit; and more.
For additional information visit nasher.duke.edu/mutu
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