The Path of Those Whom You Bestowed Favour, a solo exhibition by interdisciplinary artist Aderemi Adegbite, will open at the Centre for Contemporary Arts (CCA), Sabo, Yaba, Lagos on Saturday, March 5.
Ongoing till April 11, the show curated by Dr Lekan Balogun of the Creative Arts Department, University of Lagos, features five multimedia works that fascinate viewers.
Adegbite, the founder of the Vernacular Art-space Laboratory Foundation and the recently created Tutuola Institute – The Yoruba Cultural Institute, showcases his artistic focus, which questions individual realities and truth(s).
In his curatorial statement, Dr Balogun notes the richness and variety of the exhibits, adding that it cuts across different media and cultures.
He said, “‘Wónyòsi 1&2’ combines disparate materials that include jeans, a fabric produced in 1871 but became a popular fabric later incorporated into mainstream fashion and clothing culture in the 1970s. Along with it are the appropriation of popular music, street vernacular and portraiture, all of which combine to show its multimediality.
“In ‘Bólèkájà’, a street slang for “Come let’s fight” and also a descriptive word for a particular type of transportation in Lagos until the late 1980s, nuances of Lagos vibes and text that are synonymous with the hustle and bustle of transportation, billboard metaphors and the likes.
“‘Siraatal-lazeena an’amta alaihim’ from which the title of the exhibition was derived, makes creative use of the walaha, Arabic slate that symbolizes both knowledge and spiritual awareness. On this art/religious objects are attached “spiritual capsules” and images that foreground the metaphors inherent in this particular artwork.
“‘Ìrìnkèrindò’ speaks to migration, physical and ideological, as a channel and/or route that advances human connectivity and mobility that is represented in part by such objects as shoes and related objects. Guide Us to the Right Path completes the metaphor embedded in Siraatal-lazeena an’amta alaihim, as it stresses knowledge contained in literature, books, and other textual materials.
“Adegbite presents the artwork as a reminder of our increasingly interactive universe, one in which meanings overlap, and thoughts traverse space, linking technology with traditional resources of knowledge generation and acquisition.”
An artist-curator, Adegbite is interested in how past experiences of being part of a family reshape the individual’s present conditions and serve as catalysts for the surrealistic future. The psychological effect of the idea “one for all, all for one” is at the centre of his new interventions through social art, installation, multimedia, photography and video art.
