WANGECHI MUTU INTERTWINED - New Museum

Intertwined presents a comprehensive collection of Wangechi Mutu’s work throughout her career. Using, and often combining, mediums such as drawing, painting, performance, sculpture, and video, Mutu’s work speaks to the legacies of colonialism and stylistically references historical issues in a uniquely folkloric voice. Intertwined calls these current realities into question and using her work presents models for the future, as it is largely informed by feminism, Afro-futurism, and representation of African and diasporic culture. This show itself is named after one of its featured collages, which encompasses many of the artist's consistent and characteristic themes including hybridity and transmutation.

This show was very successful in depicting and questioning the impacts of historical violence on women, the way we are connected, and how that itself connects us to other life forms. Perhaps one of Mutu’s most successful endeavors presented in this show was her method of collaging, and her flawless execution of effective composition. Mutu elevates this medium, by placing these objects that are originally foreign to each other, whether that be literally and/or conceptually, as interconnected on the space and “working together” to create one complex figure or setting. Moreover, many of these pieces read as paintings from far away and as the viewer approaches, they begin to slowly discover collaged pieces, further strengthening her mission of conveying symbiosis and relationships between separate bodies.

- Heather Ortiz