[NoHo Arts District, CA] – This month’s LA Art blog features the works of Njideka Akunyili Crosby in Coming Back to See Through, Again at David Zwirner gallery.
Akunyili Crosby’s first solo exhibition launched as the inaugural show at David Zwirner’s Los Angeles location. Based in Los Angeles and originating from Nigeria, Akunyili Crosby’s first solo exhibition, Coming Back to See Through, Again, leverages both grandiose size and minute detail to create dialogue about the African diaspora.
Textured but without physical protrusions, Akunyili Crosby sources layered content from Nigerian magazines and other media origins. The public media provides texture and discourse, and welcomes an audience who has no touchstone to Nigerian life or the African diaspora itself; it engages and begs to be engaged with versus isolating. Simultaneously, the portraiture nods to both physical and psychological spaces inhabited and forced to be inhabited by contemporary people. Self determination and empowerment despite institutional obstacles are at the forefront of Akunyili Crosby’s work.
Where there is no portraiture, the space itself still reflects a deep tapestry of complex identity throughout various life stages and personal moments. Moments of waiting, moments of hiding, moments of transformation.
The discourse spoken through Akunyili Crosby’s work indicates that identity doesn’t need to be siloed and is indeed intractable; you can retain both personal and collective historical memory of a locality (all while you are living a different personal and collective historical memory of a separate locality). She is Nigerian, and she is American; like many around, before, and after her as well.
Artist:
Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Coming Back to See Through, Again
Gallery:
David Zwirner Gallery
Location:
616 North Western Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90004
Dates:
May 23 – July 29, 2023