Martin Barlow, curator of the exhibition Moving Into Space at the National Football Museum talks about the exhibition.
Art
Abraham Oghobase
Abraham Oghobase, Untitled 2012
Combining photography and performance, Abraham Oghobase investigates the purpose of existence by attempting to capture a wide range of human emotions through photography. Loneliness, fear, anxiety, solitude and freedom are some of the feelings he explores using his own body as subject matter. He aims to de-construct and even to de-contextualize in order to find a new, unique meaning for the individual who continuously has to negotiate his way through the world to find his place on this planet.
Oghobase’s secondary subject is the city and the relationship of the individual to the urban landscape. His home of Lagos is a metropolis of over ten million people and the commercial capital of Nigeria. Competition for space is a daily struggle and every available wall is indiscriminately plastered with hundreds of handbills and posters, scrawled with text advertising the many and diverse services offered by the city’s enterprising residents. His new series Untitled (2012) shows the artist’s body positioned in relation to one such graffitied wall, a site which was formerly a commercial area for shops. Oghobase is interested in how we consume and the way people have utilised the landscape to sell their goods and services. He remarks that ‘validating the authenticity of the information contained in these ads becomes quite a complex task for the consumer due to the disorganised mode of presentation and often incomplete details. My engagement with one such wall of “classifieds” serves to question the effectiveness of such guerilla marketing.’1
1 Abraham Oghobase in an email to the Natasha Howes 26 January 2012.
Biography
Born in 1979 in Lagos, Nigeria. Lives and works in Lagos, Nigeria.
Studied at the Yaba College of Technology – School of Art, Design and Printing, majoring in photography.
His work has been exhibited in his home country of Nigeria and across Africa and Europe including ARS II, KIASMA, Museum of Contemporary Art, Helsinki, Finland, 2011; Synchronicity II, Tiwani Contemporary, London, UK, 2012.
Work shown
Untitled 2012
C-Print mounted on aluminium
Courtesy of the artist
Latest
Barthélémy Toguo, Lucy Azubuike and Nnenna Okore, three of the exhibited artists, talk about their work and their interest in using materials which reflect the lifestyle and experience of the people of West Africa.
Twitter (#wefaceforward)
Reviews
Street life, dazzling dress, social commentary and a riot of sensuous colour interweave in a rich assembly of West African art, writes Charles Gore in the Times Higher Education
Nine countries show off their talent as five city venues link up for a summer celebration. Helen Nugent in the Guardian