A Chrysalis No. 2
2021 - Sculpture (Sculpture)
91.44 x 45.72 cm
Yétúndé Olagbaju
Yétúndé Olagbaju’s On becoming a star series recuperates the figure of ‘Mammy’, a stereotype rooted in American slavery that typically depicts a larger, dark skinned woman as a maternal presence, often within a domestic setting, and typically taking care of white children. After being referred to as a Mammy during their undergraduate degree, Olagbaju began exploring the figure in 2016 as a means of healing. Olagbaju’s first presentation on this topic was a book called Black Collectibles: Mammy and Friends (1997) that sells tchotchkes—like salt and pepper shakers or figurines—of the racist mammy image taking different forms, from which Olagbaju exorcised the Mammy images by carefully cutting them out of the book with a razor blade. With this act, and the many incarnations the gesture takes throughout the series, Olagbaju liberates Mammy from an exhausting existence as a culturally and racially charged entity, imagining the figure instead as a brilliant nebula reflecting across the cosmos. By revising Mammy’s origin story, the artist gives her, and themselves, a new agency that allows them to be obscured, unreadable, and vigorously independent. In A Chrysalis No. 2 , Olagbaju’s first public presentation of sculptural work, Mammy is transformed into a bust cast in bronze, providing a three-dimensional view of the many forms she might take collapsed into one. By casting Mammy in immutable bronze, but crafting a thumbprint in place of facial features, Olagbaju both firmly anchors her in the known physical world and permanently obstructs any traditional way of understanding or relating to her on a domestic human level.
Yétúndé Olagbaju is an artist, organizer, strategist, and educator. Their practice employs video, sculpture, photography, gesture, and performance as methods to critically address Black labor, legacy, and processes of healing. Their practice draws upon a desire to understand history, the people that made it, the myths and realities surrounding them, and how Olagbaju’s own identity is implicated in history’s timeline. Major themes that the artist engages with in their work include myths and how they are produced, notions of motherhood, expectations concerning this role, and how racism and settler colonialism affect the ways that maternal and domestic labor are valued. In that vein, the artist is also concerned with perceptions of labor, what it is and means, who conducts certain kinds of labor, and what kinds of labor go unnoticed or erased. They are also invested in exploring the kinds of stories that get erased, and whether erasure can be conceived of as a tool for liberation and transformation. Considering transformation, Olagbaju’s work meditates on how change occurs and how to hold space for change and honor transformation. Questions that the artist poses hinge on memorialization and how to memorialize transformation and unseen labor. Pressingly, Olagbaju asks: How does one memorialize the vastness of Blackness and Black legacy?
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » SLASH PARIS
Biennale de Lyon — 2024 — Usines Fagor — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Biennale de Lyon — 2024 — Usines Fagor — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Biennale de Lyon — 2024 Exhibition Mixed media Upcoming © Biennale de Lyon 2024 Biennale de Lyon 2024 In over 1 year: September 1, 2024 → January 1, 2025 (Dates provisoires) Créée en 1991, la Biennale de Lyon est l’une des plus importantes biennales d’art contemporain au plan international et la première manifestation artistique d’envergure au plan national...
© » SLASH PARIS
Camille Esayan, Lara Bouvet — Corps composé(s) — Hôpital européen Georges-Pompidou — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook Camille Esayan, Lara Bouvet — Corps composé(s) — Hôpital européen Georges-Pompidou — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour Précédent Suivant Camille Esayan, Lara Bouvet — Corps composé(s) Exposition Collage, photographie, techniques mixtes © Camille Esayan Camille Esayan, Lara Bouvet Corps composé(s) Encore 19 jours : 25 janvier → 1 mars 2024 Un projet de Camille Esayan et Lara Bouvet avec le Service de chirurgie cancérologique, gynécologique et du sein de l’Hôpital européen Georges-Pompidou, Paris...
© » HYPERALLERGIC
Required Reading Skip to content Everybody’s Bolos , a sumptuous display of historical and contemporary bolo ties exploring the traditionally Indigenous art form, just opened at the University of North Texas, with bolos on view including Wyatt Nestor-Pasicznyk's "A Wilder Blue" (left), Navajo/Hopi artist JJ Otero's "Land Back" (center), and Bee Reid's "Violet Body" (right)...
© » KADIST
Loris Gréaud
2004The acronym “CFL” stands for an existing light standard (Compact Fluorescent Light) as well as a standard nutrient (Cognitive Fooding Laboratory)...
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Weekly Picks: Malaysia (7–13 Jan 2019) | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Weekly To Do January 7, 2019 Merdekarya 6th Anniversary , at Merdekarya, 12 Jan, doors open 6pm This institution for indie music is celebrating its six anniversary with a whole host of performances, no cover charge, and free tuak mixes (until 8pm)...
© » SLASH PARIS
Biennale de Lyon — 2024 — Usines Fagor — Exposition — Slash Paris Connexion Newsletter Twitter Facebook Biennale de Lyon — 2024 — Usines Fagor — Exposition — Slash Paris Français English Accueil Événements Artistes Lieux Magazine Vidéos Retour Biennale de Lyon — 2024 Exposition Techniques mixtes À venir © Biennale de Lyon 2024 Biennale de Lyon 2024 Dans plus d’un an : 1 septembre 2024 → 1 janvier 2025 (Dates provisoires) Créée en 1991, la Biennale de Lyon est l’une des plus importantes biennales d’art contemporain au plan international et la première manifestation artistique d’envergure au plan national...
© » KADIST
Claudia Joskowicz
2015Some Dead Don’t Make a Sound (Hay muertos que no hacen ruido) is a single-channel video by Claudia Joskowicz that features the Mexican legend of the Weeping Woman (La Llorona) as its main protagonist...
