Tuesday, June 20, 2006
Photo Journal Seven - Oguibe Olu
Oguibe Olu is a Nigerian artist/theorist who I just discovered. I mean to say that I am learning of his work late in the game. It’s conceptual but not in the obvious way. It exists without explanation which is my biggest complaint with Conceptual art. Usually you look at a Conceptual piece and once you get it, once you understand the statement being made, you’re done. It does invite you back. It does need another look because you got the message. At best, you come back in five or ten years and ask yourself if it still seems like a relevant message. Conceptual art tends not to hold up so well as by it’s nature it’s topical.
Olu’s piece, Brothers IV is with any explanation as is his piece Buggy. They are images or moments that ask us to think about them by the simple act of their hanging or installation but then there is this other thing: they stir. There is something of in the boys, there is something funereal in the Buggy. There is innocence. He gives us enough image that we might start the process of thinking about the idea, the concept and then he stops.
He wants us paying reverence to the child, to see the child in Buggy as special but he doesn’t say why. He isn’t interested in that. May we don’t need it but maybe it allows us to bring our selves to the picture. It is the trick of all good art. The less I tell and the more I saw, the more you might see it as open. It’s the first good conceptual art I’ve seen and but good I mean it doesn’t fall intot the trap of the one time fits all meaning that is usually implied in this type of work.
Brothers is different. It’s open just like Buggy but without the construct. It’s the ties. I mean I see how haunting it is, these boys have an air about them that is daunting. They seem tougher and frailer at the same time than, they are so on the cusp of destruction, of danger. These Brothers seem to me to be apart from the world. They more alive and ghosts at the same time.
And then the pants and tie are green. It says, these things are special and I imagine if you were poor and you had those snazzy pants and yes I said snazzy pants, you might be pretty proud of your uniform. These are school boys. That’s something to be proud of but they are also frail and this good fortune might get stripped away at any moment.
Olu’s piece, Brothers IV is with any explanation as is his piece Buggy. They are images or moments that ask us to think about them by the simple act of their hanging or installation but then there is this other thing: they stir. There is something of in the boys, there is something funereal in the Buggy. There is innocence. He gives us enough image that we might start the process of thinking about the idea, the concept and then he stops.
He wants us paying reverence to the child, to see the child in Buggy as special but he doesn’t say why. He isn’t interested in that. May we don’t need it but maybe it allows us to bring our selves to the picture. It is the trick of all good art. The less I tell and the more I saw, the more you might see it as open. It’s the first good conceptual art I’ve seen and but good I mean it doesn’t fall intot the trap of the one time fits all meaning that is usually implied in this type of work.
Brothers is different. It’s open just like Buggy but without the construct. It’s the ties. I mean I see how haunting it is, these boys have an air about them that is daunting. They seem tougher and frailer at the same time than, they are so on the cusp of destruction, of danger. These Brothers seem to me to be apart from the world. They more alive and ghosts at the same time.
And then the pants and tie are green. It says, these things are special and I imagine if you were poor and you had those snazzy pants and yes I said snazzy pants, you might be pretty proud of your uniform. These are school boys. That’s something to be proud of but they are also frail and this good fortune might get stripped away at any moment.
# posted by Mike : 12:11 PM
