David Zwirner is currently presenting Afro Margin, eight pencil drawings by the Tate Gallery's 1998 Turner Prize winner, Chris Ofili. While intricate and detailed, these pencil works are a departure from the artist's signature large, colorful, almost psychedelic canvases.
Ofili began working on Afro Margin in 2004 whilst still living in London and continued the series after moving to Trinidad (where he still lives) in 2005 and completed it two years later. According to the press release, "Ofili employs his distinguished 'afro heads,' a signature motif he began working with in the early 1990s. Here the 'margin' - created by darkened 'afro heads' piled vertically into columns and varying in size - suggests gothic towers and aboriginal totems." With each piece in the series, Ofili began by "consciously considering the width of the column, discovering and breaking the tension of the blank page. As the series progressed, conceptions of blackness also figured as a way to understand the margin." In an essay in the show's accompanying catalogue, Cameron Shaw states,"his [Ofili's] intention was to disappear into the action, while simply maintaining awareness of its natural direction." Through October 24th. See more at Davidzwirner.com.
You may remember Chris Ofili from the stir he caused back in 1999 during the Sensation exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum (and the Royal Academy of Arts in London in 1997) that featured Charles Saatchi's vast collection of works by the hot Young British Artists (YBAs) at the time. Ofili's The Holy Virgin Mary painting, which features an African Madonna partially made from elephant dung, got then mayor Rudolph Giuliani's panties into a twist and outraged religious groups. Born in Machester, England in 1968, Ofili is of Nigerian heritage. He says that his use of dung in his art (which he's been working with since 1992) references his African roots and traditional rituals that employ poop (my word, not his). The artist typically references African art, black exploitation movies, and rap/hip-hop in his work. Learn more about Ofili at cmoa.org and see more of his work at artnet.com.
Rizzoli has published the first major monograph on Ofili encompassing his entire career and including over 200 color images of his work. Learn more about it at Rizzoliusa.com.
Afro Margin Six, 2005
Afro Margin Two, 2004
Comments