
2024-10-02
Abdulrazaq Awofeso: solo exhibition at Ed Cross, London, UK
Our fellow Abdulrazaq Awofeso will have a solo exhibition Akube Remix at Ed Cross Fine Art gallery at 19 Garrett Street, London UK. The exhibition will open on October 30th.
Developing a series first presented at 1-54 New York earlier this year, Awofeso’s latest Okrika pieces – depicting items of second-hand clothing shipped from the West to Africa, rendered in his characteristic repurposed wooden pallets – are peppered with new details: here, brand names and sartorial flourishes all draw attention to the contrast between the sculptures’ rough materiality and the supposed refinement of the objects they represent.
By using repurposed materials to invoke luxury symbols, Awofeso pokes fun at classist fears about counterfeit items and calls into question the relationship between identity, consumption and environmental degradation. Inviting viewers to consider what they themselves consume and discard, Akube Remix challenges the ways in which identities – both personal and cultural – are commodified through globalised fashion.
Presented with audio of traders recorded at Tejuosho market in Lagos, the exhibition reflects the works’ playful profundity, while still addressing serious concerns about environmental waste and the politics of migration. Awofeso juxtaposes the movement of discarded clothing with the displacement of people, drawing stark attention to the ways in which both are implicated in global supply chains.
You can see the exhibition until 20 November.
Photo: Abdulrazaq, Untitled (detail), 2024
More info here