Sculpture July/August 2017 75

TOP: KYLE KNODELL, COURTESY THE CERCLE D’ART DES TRAVAILLEURS DE PLANTATION CONGOLAISE; GALERIE FONS WELTERS, AMSTERDAM; AND KOW, BERLIN / BOTTOM: DAVID REGEN, © WANGECHI MUTU, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NY AND BRUSSELS

inspired by a tale about Leba’sgrandmother, who was bitten by achameleon—a creature favored bythe colonizers for its ability to changecolors and blend with the environ-ment. Once bitten, she was poisoned,but she eventually transformed intoflowers, so that her integrity wasrestored. While Leba’s fable lends arich narrative to the work, the fig-ure captures more generalized con-ditions of the laborers’ lives. Herarchetypal form, not characteristicof any one person, represents “everywoman” of her generation in theCongo. Her stooped figure attackedby the chameleon symbolizes cen-turies of suppression. Mbuku Kimpala’s Self Portrait with-

out Clothes (2014) also pays tributeto the strength of women. Althoughinspired by a self-portrait, a relativelyyoung, naked woman is emblematicof the residents in her village. Herease and comfort in her naked bodyconvey a sense of pride. (Kimpala’s

work, like Leba’s, comes from a placeof deep conviction.) The essence ofthe sculptures lies in how their nude,rudimentary forms channel theartists’ emotions. Even Djonga Bis -mar’s The Spirit of Palm Oil (2014),which shows a gesticulating nakedwoman, her body marred with wartsof some kind, underscores defiancethrough the defenselessness of the nude body. As in 12th-centuryIndian temple sculptures, theseworks use nakedness as a symbol

of purity. In stark contrast, JeremieMabiala and Djonga Bismar’s TheCollector (2014) showcases a vile-looking man in a suit—who pre-sumably collects materials from theplantations—seated on a plinthentwined by creepers and snakes.Perhaps CATPC’s most laudatory

project is the production of choco-late versions of these sculptures in Amsterdam. First made to circum-vent the logistics of transporting theclay sculptures overseas, the choco-late reproductions also reinforce thefact that Amsterdam is one of thelargest importers of cocoa fromCongolese plantations. Leba’s sculp-ture, along with the works by Kim -pala and Bismar, were displayed inthree shades of chocolate brown.The chocolate is worked to resemblethe texture of clay, and editions ofthese works have been displayed ingalleries all over Europe. By enter-ing Western commerce through thesales of their sculptures to white-cube galleries and institutions likeTate Modern, where Unilever oftensupports exhibitions, the artistshave found a way to gain accessto their exploiters’ wealth. Come -uppance for the oppressor, in thiscase, also translates into better livesand self-reliance for the oppressed.

—Bansie Vasvani

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Wangechi Mutu

Gladstone Gallery

The work in Wangechi Mutu’s recentexhibition—installed to create aloose circle inside a square space—was aesthetically sophisticated,empathic, and symbolic. On the sur-face, Mutu’s 23 new sculptures areformal and classical, a visual contrastto her sensorial mixed-media instal-lation, A Fantastic Journey, whichtraveled to four U.S. museums during2013–14. The elegant, finished sur-faces in burnt sienna, brown, gray,and black conjure the earth—itswounds and diseases, people, andspecies nearing extinction. Mutu’score message, which includes ahope that we might help the planetand each other, is stronger thanever.

Water Woman and This secondDreamer transform personal, mytho-logical, and ethnological elementsinto stunning bronzes. Similar to amermaid or a naiad, Water Womanis a water spirit, specifically an EastAfrican nguva, a combination of awoman and a dugong, a water mam-mal from the order Sirenia (and anendangered species). The literal, fig-urative, and abstract qualities ofthis sculpture—from the strong tailand webbed fins to the lithe, sensu-

Above: Thomas Leba, Poisonous

Miracle, 2015. Chocolate, 54.7

x 22.4 x 33.9 in. Right: Wangechi

Mutu, installation view of “Ndoro

Na Miti,” 2017.

76 Sculpture 36.6

TOP: DAVID REGEN, © WANGECHI MUTU, COURTESY THE ARTIST AND GLADSTONE GALLERY, NY AND BRUSSELS / BOTTOM: LISA RASTL, COURTESY THE ARTIST, HAUSER & WIRTH, AND LUHRING AUGUSTINE

ous body and human head, breasts,and arms—give it grace and power.Water Woman began life as an ediblechocolate form and later became a small-scale bronze and a ceramicsculpture before it became a life-size bronze.

This second Dreamer, a golden,Brancusi-like head with the artist’sface and hair, updates and personal-izes the African sculptures thatinspired so many early Modernists.Here, Mutu’s visage becomes part of the 21st-century canon. The styl-ized hair evokes contemporary lookswhile nodding to ancient Etruscan,Greek, and Roman heads, somehowconjoining African and Western tra-ditions.More than half of the sculptures

were made primarily from red soil

and paper pulp, while most of therest used tree roots and branches asa base. These materials reflected theshow’s title “Ndoro Na Miti,” theGikuyu words for mud and trees. Theworks, all created in 2016, combinehuman, mountain, and circularshapes. Iron-rich red soil comes from

volcanic and fertile regions, includingMutu’s birthplace in Kenya.

Prayer Beads, a giant curvingnecklace of large, rust-red spheres,sat on the floor at the center of theentrance, blessing the space. Theother sculptures circled around. Giverdepicts a kneeling female figurewith an outstretched open palm anda palm tree growing from the top of her head. The scarification on herbody turns her into an object of con-templation. On both sides of PrayerBeads, two sets of globe-like formscovered in emblematic patterns—Small Pox and Untitled (Virus)—stood on slender wooden plinths andstakes. Each pattern echoes a virus,such as influenza, polio, or Ebola.Two Untitled works show virus sphereson top of wrinkled gray mountainsmade of packing blankets. Themountain shapes, like everythingin this exhibition, invited the eyeto enter their curves and creases. Mutu’s globe symbols (one looks

like a cross) are also synecdochesand metaphors suggesting that dis-eases, perhaps like Africa’s preciousminerals and the world’s toxicwastes, present hidden dangers andcosts. These works draw on her stud-ies of everything from round formsin nature to the Makonde tradition

of carving interconnected, distortedforms out of ebony, to East Africanfolklore, to art histories from aroundthe world.

—Jan Garden Castro

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Pipilotti Rist

New Museum

These days, theater and spectaclerule public discourse—a perfectmoment for Pipilotti Rist’s startlinglyprescient critique. Sexy and seduc-tive, soothing and even therapeutic,this survey of Rist’s work from themid-1980s to the present sought todisrupt the normalizing effect oftoday’s mediated, digitalized stateof being and its accompanying desirefor pleasure and entertainment. The exhibition’s subversive purpose

was evident in the single-channelvideos that initiated Rist’s career.Hung at shoulder height from thewall, triangular boxes constructedfrom wood insisted that viewersstick their heads inside, where theydiscovered video and sound cham-bers filled with scenes of excess andabjection. In one, an out-of-focuswoman with exposed breasts dancesin dizzy fast-forward, while a high-pitched voice repeatedly sings, “I’m not the girl who misses much,”

Above: Wangechi Mutu, Black Pearl,

2016. Paper pulp, wood glue, wood,

and red soil, 27 x 14 x 17.5 in. Right:

Pipilotti Rist, Gnade Donau Gnade

(Mercy Danube Mercy), 2013/15.

Mixed media, installation view.