New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival, critically acclaimed group exhibition curated by Julie Rodrigues Widholm featuring Wan Chuku’s Mystical Yam Mound, DePaul Art Museum, Chicago, April-August 2019.
Sculptures reflect Tiv yam mounds at base; totem-esque “branches” are activated with applied libations including
soil, breath, and blessed materials. Black-and-white stripe textile references the shape-shifting nature of dazzle camouflage, reclaiming its former use as tool of warfare by connecting the term broadside, poetic manifesto format, which also means the side of a ship from which the weapons are fired, linking this to the vocal fire of Black Arts Movement poetry (Sam Greenlee’s book titled Ammunition; Fela Kuti “Music is the weapon”), pattern as logistical and spiritual protection in visual similarity to Tiv traditional loom woven textile a’nger (pronounced “ahn-gair”).
Image features Michiko Itatani’s Brown Dwarf painting.
New Age, New Age: Strategies for Survival, featuring Wan Chuku’s Mystical Yam Mounds, curated by Julie Widholm Rodrigues, DePaul Art Museum, 2019 [Morgan, I don't know why this is uploading sideways...]