The Plantation Boy
2012 - Photography (Photography)
34 x 59 cm each
Uche Okpa-Iroha
In the fictional narrative Plantation Boy (2012), Irhoa places himself inside imagery from Francis Ford Coppola’s seminal The Godfather (1972). Inflected with humor, the series examines race in society. According to the artist, the 40 images collectively question structures of power and the hegemony of Western culture. This détournement of a cult film demonstrates the extent to which our collective imaginary is manipulated by image and representation. This specific piece marks a major conceptual pivot within the artist’s oeuvre, in terms of both composition and performative character. The work reveals that which was once hidden from view— inequalities of the past and the present. This allows the artist to question representative stereotypes of identity, placing them at the heart of the image. This symbolic presence gives way to a form of recognition. The magical quality of the photographic medium provides the means to confront both history and fiction through reconstruction and re-appropriation.
Uche Okpa Iroha documents the living conditions of those on the margins of society. Beginning his career as a photojournalist in 2005, his striking, double exposed and black and white images depict moving bodies overlaid with natural light, producing images with great depth. He creates atmospheric shots in which questions of body representation become a political paradigm for reading the image. If the omnipresent flux of images in our daily lives reinvents, influences and modifies our self perception as well as our perception of others, then Uche Okpa Irhoa re-appropriates such given identities as a means of critiquing the oversaturation of unnuanced images. He also uses the photographic medium as a means of proposing new performative or choreographed narratives. His work sits at the intersection between fiction and sociology, seeking to deconstruct often truncated visual references perpetuated by the media. He is the director of the experimental Njele Art Station in Harare Zimbabwe and is co-founder of the Invisible Borders collective.
Colors:
Related works sharing similar palette
© » ARTS EQUATOR
Migrant Ecologies Project: A Grain of Wheat Inside a Salt Water Crocodile | ArtsEquator Thinking and Talking about Arts and Culture in Southeast Asia Grain of Wheat July 8, 2019 Wheat Grain World Dreams , the centre section from the artist’s book contains a map that includes some of our research questions around, for example, histories of 19th century cash crops and the crimes of the British India Company; and the extension of China’s Belt and Road journey West...
© » KADIST
Rometti Costales
2013The three cut-outs are made of three aerial photographs coming from the archives of the Ecuadorian Military Geographic Institute...
© » SLASH PARIS
Gildas Le Reste — & Guests — Catherine Putman Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris Login Newsletter Twitter Facebook Gildas Le Reste — & Guests — Catherine Putman Gallery — Exhibition — Slash Paris English Français Home Events Artists Venues Magazine Videos Back Previous Next Gildas Le Reste — & Guests Exhibition Drawing, print, painting Gildas Le Reste, Notes de voyage #1, 2023 Ink on paper mounted on canvas Gildas Le Reste & Guests Ends in 27 days: January 27 → March 9, 2024 Galerie Catherine Putman has pleasure in making a double invitation to Gildas Le Reste as both artist and exhibition curator...
© » KADIST
Pooja Gurung and Bibhusan Basnet
2018DADYAA: The Woodpeckers of Rotha by Pooja Gurung and Bibhusan Basnet illuminates a unique and seldom seen international perspective on indigenous cultures and contemporary social issues in the Nepali context...
© » MODERN MET ART
Learn How to Draw Realistic Portraits in This Online Class Home / Classes / Academy Discover the Secrets of Drawing Realistic Portraits (Now on Pre-Sale!) By Jessica Stewart on December 5, 2023 Have you ever seen a realistic portrait and wished that you knew how to create something similar? Thanks to My Modern Met Academy's new course, Realistic Portrait Drawing Made Easy , you'll discover all the tips, tricks, and techniques to produce a portrait that looks incredibly real...
© » KADIST
Laure Prouvost
2018Monteverdi Ici – Deeply, Feeling Filling the World by Laure Prouvost is a tapestry that references a video by the artist entitled Monteverdi Ici (2018)...
© » KADIST
Werner Herzog
2012Commissioned for the 2012 Whitney Biennial, Hearsay of the Soul (2012) is Werner Herzog’s ode to the landscape paintings of the 17th-century Dutch artist Hercules Segers...
© » KADIST
Hamra Abbas
2010At first glance, Cityscapes (2010) seems to be a collection of panoramic photographs of the city of Istanbul—the kind that are found on postcards in souvenir shops...
© » EYE OF PHOTOGRAPHY
© 2023 All rights reserved - The Eye of Photography Olivier Culmann, URSSAF Normandie, site du Havre @ Olivier Culmann Le Havre, Seine-Maritime, Normandie, France 10/05/2023 © Olivier Culmann / Tendance Floue @ Thomas Jorion @ Sidonie Van Den @ Isabelle Scotta @ Carlo Lombardi S From October 21st to January 7th, 2024, for its 14th edition, 25 international photographers, both established and emerging, can be discovered in an open-air exhibition tour throughout the city, on the beach, and indoors at Point de Vue and Les Franciscaines...
© » KADIST
Shimabuku
2006For the two-channel work Asking the Repentistas – Peneira & Sonhador – to remix my octopus works Shimabuku asked two Brazilian street singers to compose a ballad about his previous works with octopi (in which he created traditional Japanese ceramic vessels to catch octopi, with a fisherman who took him on his boat to test them out as we can see on one of the channel)...
