Refuse to be invisible with Njideka Akunyili Crosby
To celebrate Black History month (in the US) I am writing this month about one of my favourite artist that I discovered only three years ago during a trip to San Francisco. It was inside the art gallery complex ‘Minnesota Street Projects’ where Christie’s was showing the preview of their next contemporary art sale. Amongst the lots, I noticed Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s large painting. It was presented by the specialist as ‘the most exciting new African American artist’. Njideka was not new to the auction market. The year before, in 2017, Sotheby’s included one of Njideka’s early work in an important contemporary art sale and as a result it reached a new record high (with a 3 million $ price tag). Despite all the excitement around the rising market prices, I was more intrigued to discover more about the artist and her ‘why’.
Njideka Akunyili Crosby photographed by Stefan Ruiz Styled by Deborah Afshani.
“You don’t exist if you’re not represented...I felt a need to claim my own social existence by making the representation happen.” - Njideka Akunyili Crosby”
Njideka’s work is deeply intimate and domestic, most of the scenes depicted in her paintings have either a family member or a subtle connection to her personal life back in Nigeria. The paintings have been created with a complex layering technique of transfers, photography, collages, textiles and detailed imagery. The artist has won several art prices and the below 2017 video of the MacArthur Fellow is fascinating and really captures the artist so well.
Njideka figures actively resist stereotypes, and offer complex and nuanced images of Black identity through an innovative approach to painting. Her work routinely fuses both Nigerian and American influences and source material, reflecting on contemporary African life along with her experience as an expatriate living in the U.S, and the inherent difficulty of navigating these two realms. The works simultaneously become intimate while more broadly exploring the cultural complications of the dual worlds that she inhabits.
“These are images necessarily complicated in order to counter generalisations about African or diasporic experience. ”
Remain, Thriving, 2018
by Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Commissioned by Art on the Underground
© Njideka Akunyili Crosby
Courtesy the Artist and Victoria Miro, London / Venice
Photo: GG Archard
Back to London, I truly enjoyed entering Brixton station going to work every day and admiring Njideka new commission for Art on the Underground. ‘Remain, Thriving’ was a celebration of inclusion, created after the artist spent time with the local community and wanted to portray a gathering of grandchildren and great grandchildren of the Windrush generation in a fictional home in Brixton. This artwork addresses the topic of the British diasporic experience with sourced images taken from the neighbour institution ‘Black Cultural Archives’. A good part of the community that was formed in Brixton over the years was the result of a major diaspora after the second world war when the UK needed workers for their booming manufacturing industries. During the same year of this commission, 2018, a broad debate about inclusion and acceptance has been part of several controversial policies in British politics (Windrush scandal).
The project I have just mentioned was not the first for the artist. I would like to show in the image below the large scale mural Njideka created in 2016 for one of the facade of the Whitney Museum of Art (New York). This work depicts three generation of women, the main figure sitting down is the artist’s younger sister who they all call Mamma, on the wall there is a portrait of her mother Mummy when she was a child, while Mama was Njideka’s grandmother, depicted on a large framed photograph casually laying on the table.
Installation view of Before Now After (Mama, Mummy and Mamma), 2015. Whitney Museum of American Art. Courtesy Victoria Miro, London - © Njideka Akunyili Crosby - Photograph by Ron Amstutz
I selected below two earlier works that I absolutely love. The first portrait of a young girl, titled ‘The Beautiful Ones’, was recently shown at the National Portrait Gallery in London (2019) as part of a series depicting Nigerian youth, including some members of the artist’s family.
The second painting by Crosby pictured here on the left - I Refuse to Be Invisible (2010) - was selected to be part of the artists first major institutional show at the Norton Museum of Art in Florida in 2016.
The scene depicts a couple dancing in public. The woman is gazing directly at the viewer while the rest of the crowd seems too busy to notice as they are enjoying the party. The gaze is an invitation to join the scene and be part of it. On each painting there are subtle political references and personal images taken from the artist’s family album.
I understand the artist is now taking a long break to create new works and I can’t wait to see what Njideka will come up in her next exhibition.