LOS ANGELES — Would you like to hear Nideka Akuniri Crosby talk about how much effort goes into studying the scientific taxonomy of the plants she paints in one of her paintings, Madagascar Jasmine? Safari Sunset? — It’s the Nigerian artist’s slow, rigorous approach, and why her new exhibition, opening May 23 at David Zwirner’s first gallery in Los Angeles, is an important event in the art world. It’s about starting to understand what it feels like.
“I had a very clear idea of what I wanted this plant to do,” said Akniili Crosby, 40, during a recent conversation at a studio in East Los Angeles, before posting a self-portrait “still blooming in this land.” talked about the process behind. No Gardens shows her in patterned trousers holding her youngest child on a porch surrounded by lush greenery.
“I needed a certain amount of cover-up. You can’t hide your pants so much that you can only see a small part of it,” she continued. “Some of the plants are very dense, and I had to look in my pants enough to understand that.
She spent hours looking at photos of the flora and fauna of Nigeria and Los Angeles, spending time in plant stores, and visiting. Huntington In the museum’s vast botanical garden, she wandered all day “looking for very special leaves.”
“Normally, I would say it takes about three months to complete one piece, but it is getting longer and longer,” she said. “It was too late to get what I needed.”
So it’s no wonder that while construction on the gallery was delayed by excessive rain and bureaucratic obstacles, Akunili Crosby welcomed the extra time to continue working.
Zwirner himself said Crosby’s work in the exhibition “Nideka Akuniiri Crosby: Back See-Through Again”, which includes new and recent paintings in an East Hollywood space designed by Selldorf Architects, was worth the wait. said.
“She was able to create a new language and a new iconography in contemporary visual culture,” he said. “She brought her own language to the art world.”
Its language includes a combination of drawing, painting, collage and printmaking. Crosby’s work is reminiscent of scrapbooks and patchwork her quilts that integrate her Nigerian and American cultures through layers of visual signifiers, historical references, and her personal memories. .
If you look closely at Crosby’s paintings, you will discover fragments of her past one after another, such as printed fabrics, furniture and fashion, family, book titles, and architectural elements.
With a penchant for rainbow crocs and a wide-throated grin, this artist makes a list of what he wants for his paintings before he begins. For example, in one of her recent works, she wanted to install lattices on her windows that reminded her of illustrations from her childhood home in Nigeria, wedding dresses, and elementary school textbooks.
Her paintings feature parts that are instantly recognizable to Nigerians: ‘Senator suits’, cabin biscuits, jerrycans, painted kettles, braided hairstyles and cronet dolls. She uses items that reflect remnants of the British Empire, American pop culture, and Roman Catholicism.
“Objects have peculiarities that tell stories of place and time,” said Akniiri-Crosby. “That’s why I like to paint still lifes.”
Thinking carefully about her painting is the artist’s favorite part of the process. “I always thought of my studio as a lab. she said.
Crosby also took time to choose a gallery in the United States and eventually settled on it. did in 2018Since 2014, Victoria Miró has been the representative in London. “I don’t do a lot of work, so I wasn’t in a rush to have a gallery,” she said.
“I’ve made it very clear to everyone I work with that my pace is slow and you can’t push me or force me to work faster.” she continued. “I’m not a machine, so I like to take my time, because for me, after I’m done with the work, my interest in the work is mostly gone. I don’t want to.”
The 2017 MacArthur ‘Genius’ Award winner was a huge achievement for Zwirner.Her work is already in major institutions such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Tate, and the Whitney Museum of American Art, and her prices are Over $4.7 million At an auction last fall.
Critic and curator Hilton Als introduced Crosby His series at Huntingtonis running until June 12th, and her work is currently featured on the following sites: sydney modern project in Australia.
“Her work has many riveting dimensions: a combination of personal narratives, larger cultural understandings, and the trans-Atlantic,” said Ian Altevier, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. . “It’s about intergenerational families, it’s about migration, it’s about moving from Africa to the United States, it’s about crossing both continents and always looking towards Africa.”
Akunili Crosby was born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1983 and was one of six Nigerian children. Chike Akuniri, a prominent surgeon who was the medical director of St. Leo Hospital in Enugu, and Dora Enkem Akuniri, a professor of pharmacology who was the Director General of the Nigerian National Food and Drug Administration.
Nijideka left his home country at the age of 16 to study at Swarthmore College and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before earning a master’s degree at Yale University.During his graduate school days, Akniiri Crosby saw the work of the painter Kelly James Marshall First Time at the Yale Museum: His Work 2009 Untitled work It depicts a woman wearing a high helmet and carrying a large palette. “I went in there and felt like my life had changed,” she said.
She was also fascinated by the paintings of Catherine Murphy. “There’s magic that happens when she’s in front of her work, and that’s what she wanted to bring into her work,” she said. “How do you create a piece like this where when you read from a distance, you feel everything in your body slow down when you are in front of it?”
In 2011, Akniiri Crosby became artist-in-resident at Harlem’s Studio Museum, a period she says was very important. “I’ve had this momentum since graduate school, but it could easily have been stopped or diminished if I had to take a day job to support myself. hmm,” she said. “The Studio Museum has kept that momentum going by giving us a huge studio space free of charge for a year with 24/7 access, including holidays.”
Thelma Golden, director and chief curator of the Studio Museum, said Crosby’s studio was directly below her office. “Nideka felt her deep intensity, but she was constantly working,” Golden said. “In thinking about stories, biographies and histories, she created a space for other artists.”
In 2018, the National Portrait Gallery in London exhibited works from Akniili Crosby’s series “The Beautiful Ones”. An intimate image of Nigerian youth and their families, it looks directly at the viewer from within their own homes. That same year, his MOCA in Los Angeles covered its facade with Akniiri his Crosby. mural Featuring scenes from Nigeria.
The title of the series refers to the 1968 novel Beautiful People Are Not Yet Born by Ghanaian author Ai Kwei Almar, which deals with issues of revolution, political corruption and hope.
“For me, it’s about resisting the way people feel they need to be American. It’s about denial,” said Akuniri-Crosby. “What I mean is, no, it’s not true. You can keep what you bring. I’m Nigerian, but I’m American. You can be both. To blend in.” , we don’t have to give up this history, this culture, this memory.It’s the differences that make a place richer.It’s the story that I’m digging up.”
Nideka Akuniiri Crosby: I’ll be back to see you again
David Zwirner Gallery, 616 North Western Avenue, Los Angeles, (310) 777-1993; zwirner.com. The exhibition will travel to Zwirner’s New York Gallery, which opens in September.
