Light and sound installation composed of three photographs printed on stained-glass and mounted on lightboxes, audio
Overall: 60 1/4 x 103 3/8 in (153 x 262.6 cm)
Left and right panels: 60 1/4 x 31 1/4 in (153 x 79.4 cm)
Center panel: 60 1/4 x 37 1/4 in (153 x 94.6 cm)
Duration: 10 min 34 sec
Spirit and Matter is a triptych of light boxes printed with photographs to mimic stained glass. The piece incorporates a soundtrack of frantic Lagos, complete with the echoing voices of...
Spirit and Matter is a triptych of light boxes printed with photographs to mimic stained glass. The piece incorporates a soundtrack of frantic Lagos, complete with the echoing voices of bus drivers calling out routes to their passengers. The work takes as a starting point a photograph of the under-bridge area of Ojuelegba in Lagos, Nigeria. An extremely busy bus terminal, Ojuelegba is a point of convergence and passage for the West African coast. It also used to be the site of a shrine for the Yoruba deity Eshu, who is understood as a benevolent emissary between heaven and earth. The photograph printed onto the light boxes is manipulated to look like a prism in yellow tones, emphasizing the lens through which the artist (or the viewer) perceives the city, and his position in Lagos, Berlin, or elsewhere. Ogboh mixes the spiritual and religious Yoruba undertones with that of Christian Europe, resulting in a piece resembling the colorful windows found in churches across the West. The artist distinguishes between the physical and spiritual, but also between his own physical wandering in the world and his mental imaginings, which transport him back home to the Nigerian megalopolis.
Multiple Transmissions: Art in the Afropolitan Age, WIELS, Brussels, May 5–August 18, 2019 No Condition is Permanent, Imane Fares, Paris, September 13–November 24, 2018