Ndoro Na Miti
January 27 — March 25, 2017
New York: 21st Street
Gladstone is pleased to present an exhibition of new work by Wangechi Mutu. The title for this exhibition comes from the Gikuyu words for mud and trees, the prima materia for this body of work. Expanding her sculptural practice, this installation proposes an alternative to the systemic modes of representation in both Western and Eastern traditions by reimagining and recontextualizing the relations between the body, the natural world, and social forces. Well known for collages of hybrid forms drawn from folklore, popular culture, and art history, this new work marks an evolution in Mutu’s critique of the construction of self-image. The complex texture and form that these figures offer prompt inquiry into the relationship between human existence and environment, producing interactions both intimate and challenging.
Installation
Work
About
Wangechi Mutu (b.1972, Nairobi, Kenya) lives and works between Brooklyn and Nairobi. She received her MFA from Yale University (2000) and BFA from Cooper Union (1996). In 2019, she inaugurated The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Facade Commission, with an exhibition entitled The NewOnes, will free Us. Her work has been the subject of numerous solo shows, including, Intertwined, at the New Museum, New York (2023) and traveled to the New Orleans Museum of Art, Louisiana (2024). Other solo exhibitions include: Storm King Art Center, New Windsor, New York; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Weatherspoon Art Museum at UNC Greenboro, North Carolina; Brooklyn Museum, New York; Nasher Museum of Art, Durham, North Carolina; Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami; Block Museum, Evanston, Illinois; Institute of Contemporary Art Boston; The Contemporary Austin, Texas; SITE, Santa Fe; Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney; Musée d’Art Contemporain de Montréal; Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin; Wiels Center for Contemporary Art, Brussels; Art Gallery of Ontario; Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; Kunsthalle Wien; and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Mutu is the recipient of Deutsche Bank’s “Artist of the Year” award, the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant, the Joan Mitchell Foundation Painters & Sculptors Award, and the American Federation of Arts’ Leadership Award.
