Fetiche

“This is a…I could call it a gem. It is a small object made out of one piece of wood, it comes from Nigeria, from Yorùbá. It is most certainly 19th century. It is a cup for divination purposes. If you look at this (inaudible) quite a few things are specific to him: First of all, he turned the head to the side which is a very unusual but very elegant gesture; Second, the way he carved the skull which is thinned out turned and sort of narrowed towards the back is almost like Nefertiti. See the arms here, how the hands merge in the cup and kind of disappear from being rubbed for so many decades. And I think it’s certainly, as an object, one of the finest divination cups from Yorùbá I know.”

-from Kayode Ojo’s A Very Unusual but Very Elegant Gesture, 2019

This exhibition takes its title from the Portuguese word for “Fetish” and takes its curatorial liberties from the arbitrarily inscribed value systems inherited from the era of post-enlightenment. Together, the works in this show reflect on the implication of having the terms of your identity projected onto you and then working within that very system which does not consider you. FETICHE is not just a conceptual Black body but also conceived Blackness.

Featuring works by: LaKela Brown, Raque Ford, Hugh Hayden, Tiona Nekkia McClodden, Ambrose Rhapsody Murray, Kayode Ojo, Shikeith, and Kandis Williams.

— Morán Morán