Contemporary Artist

Within the Museum of Contemporary Art, while there were several different featured artist, none stood out more than Otobong Nkanga and her exhibit To Dig A Hole That Collapses Again, which will be in the museum until September. According to the Chicago Tribune, the name of her exhibit is “the translation of Tsomsoub, the name given to a famed mining area in northern Namibia by the local Haillom people”. This exhibit takes on several different themes such as colonialism and the beauty of the environment buts overall it tells the story of the destruction of the earth through environmentally unfriendly mining practices. To tell this story she works with a variety of mediums from 3D sculptures to large series of tapestries.
Though her most recent work has made many headlines, Otobong has had her work in galleries and museums since 2002 according to the Artsy website. According to the website, Otobong works with several different mediums including performance art, poetry, photography, weaving, painting, works on paper, and installations. According to the Museum of Contemporary Art, she is a Nigerian artist and her work is often based on extensive research about modern issues that are being faced in today's Africa, including the effects of imperialism and colonialism. While she has a vast array of art to discuss, today I will focus on addressing her exhibition To Dig A Hole That Collapse Again.  
This first installation titled In Pursuit of Bling features several smaller works. The main part is a woven fabric with the image of a mineral on it, Mica, over a map that does not have the names of places but instead chemical symbols for different types of minerals. Surrounding this tapestry are images of dozens of representations of the use of the mineral, from the rocks themselves to images of mica-based cosmetics and videos and paintings of minerals other commercial uses. This entire structure is held together by very rigid metal structures that hold them up at different levels from the ground, potentially symbolizing their level of value.
The second piece we will look at of hers is called Steel to Rust - Slow Growth. This is a tapestry woven with several different types of materials with crystals growing straight on the finished tapestry and intertwining itself with the weave. This piece is exploring how man-made objects, such as steel, can be taken over again by nature and turned into rust. In this case, this is a human-made tapestry that has been made more beautiful by nature's reclamation of it.
The third and final sculpture by Nkanga is titled The Limits Of Mapping which portrays a table in which the surface is a map drawn with strong defined borders and rivers running through it. It should be noted that the borders are cut very straight and geometrically. While this map doesn’t represent anywhere in general, these straight borders are similar to the ones cut during the colonization of Africa. In places where people are allowed to determine their own borders countries are split up by the ethnic groups that relate to that country meaning that they would be curved whereas borders that were cut up and carved by imperialism were often done so without the thought to the peoples that lived on the actual land. Spears of wood are being driven straight through the map. The spears could potentially represent different European countries staking their claim into the land and violently hurting the native people in the process.
Throughout the entire exhibit, the artist utilizes art to comment on the issues that her country, Nigeria, has historically faced and the consequences they are facing today. Historically, Africa was divided up and ravaged by different European countries. Today, although there are no longer any official colonies that are controlled by European countries, the effects of imperialism are still being felt through colonialsm, or the exploitation of this countries for the benefit of the Western world. Countries like Nigeria are still being heavily mined for their precious minerals and are essentially being robbed by western companies that do not pay the African people anything close to fair wages.
Though Otobang uses several different mediums, she does have a very explicit style that runs through all of her work. Much of the work that she does includes some kind of tapestry which is extremely unique for modern art as it is often seen as a dying craft that few people practice anymore. While this is not entirely true, it is still very interesting to see a well received modern artist take on such nitche artform. Aside from her inclusion and main use of tapestries in her exhibit, most of the pieces take on colors that are almost entirely earthen colors, though some will also have vibrant pops of blue, purple, and yellow.
With her different series of art, Otobong Nkanga has received a lot of praise for her work. According to Moyi Magazine, Nkanga set of three tapestries and one sculpture titled Steel to Rust won the Belgian Art Prize in 2017, which the magazine cites as Belgians oldest and most important art prize. In both the Chicago Maroon and the Chicago Tribune, her work received critical praise. In the Chicago Maroon, the author noted that her work Carved to Flow did not act has a heavy handed critique of colonialism, she of course has other works that achieve that, but simply act as a reminder that even simple commodities can have global impacts.  
According to the Artsy website, though Nkanga has made several different sets of artwork with the central theme of environmentalism and colonialism, her methods have somewhat developed over the years. Though she previously worked almost exclusively with photography and performance art she slowly began introducing more sculptures and tapestries into her exhibits. The current exhibit in the Museum of Contemporary Art still has work that included photography, her work had mainly become sculptures and tapestries though performance art is still an integral part of her work.
Of everything within the Museum of Contemporary Art, I am extremely glad that I got the opportunity to view Otobong Nkanga’s work. Though I have a soft spot for any artist that uses textiles as a part of their work, I am overall attracted to her environmental awareness and critique of the world around her. Any artist that uses their art to help increase awareness of issues is extremely important. Though art may seem that is exists in one place, Nkanga’s work serves as an educational platform that could inform hundreds and thousand people to create real change in the world so that one day the environment could receive tangible help and improvement.



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