Chris Ofili is of Nigerian heritage but was born in Manchester, England in 1968. He is Roman Catholic. He received his BA in fine art from the Chelsea School of Art in London, and his MA in fine art from the Royal College of Art in London. He won the Turner prize in 1998, an annual prize presented to a British artist under 50 organized by the Tate Modern.
Radically different themes often cause divisions and conflict within individual paintings. He believes art should be unrestricted by cultural norms, and much of his work incorporates collage from pornographic magazines as well as elephant dung. Ofili's painting also references “blaxploitation” films and gangsta rap often to question racial and sexual stereotypes in a humorous way. His work among other themes, comments on British racism.
In 1992 he won a scholarship allowing him to travel to Zimbabwe where he studied cave paintings, from which he adopted the map-pinning technique. Ofili's use of elephant dung began in Africa when, dissatisfied with the paintings he was making there, he picked up some dried cow dung and stuck it onto one of his canvases. When he came back to Britain, he brought dung with him, and incorporated it in a performance art piece, in which he sat on the street with the dung on a sheet as if it were for sale.
His paintings are meant to be viewed both close up and far away, and he often incorporates pornographic collage that becomes evident as such only when the viewer comes near. The Holy Virgin Mary exemplifies this technique, placing female genitalia around the sacred figure. He wanted viewers to realize how sexually charged even the Western portrayals of the Virgin Mary are, especially in reference to a mother breastfeeding her child.
“Chris Ofili portrays the Virgin Mary as a rather exciting black with impressive eyes, a hint of breast upon which a piece of dung has been placed signifying nourishment, the color of darkness, a broad nose and a sensuousness not generally assumed when one sees the Eurocentirc version of Mother Mary” this review has been stated as “a product of sensitivity to black values and aesthetics” (from Amsterdam Magazine, a popular black magazine in New York).
In an interview, the artist asserts that his paintings are part of hip-hop culture, and states that his work operates on multiple levels and is open to interpretation. He explains his intention of transforming everyday `junk' and aspects of contemporary culture into thought-provoking images, noting the importance of his identity as a Londoner.
The Upper Room (2002)
The Upper Room is an installation of 13 paintings of rhesus macaque monkeys referencing the last supper. The room was built especially for this show. It was bought by the Tate Gallery in 2005 and caused controversy as Ofili was on the board of Tate trustees at the time of the purchase.
Each painting depicts a monkey based around a different color theme. The particular monkey represented is commonly used in medical testing because of its similarities in blood groups. Ofili has researched the traits of this an in many ways holds them higher than human beings, an ideal that clashes with scripture in Catholic tradition.
On Chris Ofili’s paintings:
“Their beauty is not about being one thing but about multiplicity—kitsch hangs out with sophistication, beauty plays with ugliness, and sacred clashes with the profane. Ofili deliberately spars with our prejudices and preconceptions to create extraordinary complex paintings that push past the point of excess.” (Stephen Snoddy, director of the Southampton Serpentine Gallery in London)
Good Interview!--Ofili's Glittering Icons - work of Chris Ofili at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, New York, New York from Art in America, Jan, 2000, by Lynn Macritchie.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1248/is_1_88/ai_58616908
In an interview, Chris Ofili once said that art can be constructed from anything and should be unrestricted by cultural norms. Do you agree/disagree and why?
How is Ofili’s use of racial stereotypes similar to that of Kara Walkers? Does the incorporation of religion make one more or less taboo than the other?
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4 comments:
Chris Ofili’s work is similar to Kara Walker’s because the exaggerated features on the faces of black men and women. The exaggeration in the painting style is a form of cultural critique that is ironic and effective. There is this common perception that as a society we have gotten past the worst part of racism and that it ‘does not exist’. Racism has not vanished, as we have all seen through the Denison forum, and work by artists like Ofili and Walker are important and pertain to issues that are still prevalent today. Art should transcend cultural norms because ‘norms’ tend to hold back expression, differing opinions, etc. Especially with the work of Ofili: he is transcending the ‘norms’ of art in the same way that he has gone beyond the typical boundaries of discussing race relations. Cultural norms are constantly changing, and I would hope that if artists are focusing on making cultural changes, cultural norms will shift to a better, more accepting place. For instance, as a Roman Catholic, he is questioning the portrayal of the Virgin by showing how sexually charged the figure is in Western tradition. The intentions of the artist seem to be about initiating conversations about religious images, and also to focus on the place of non-Caucasians in these representations.
I think I agree with Chris Ofili's statement that art can be constructed from anything and should be unrestricted by cultural norms. Cultural norms spur a categorization of what is "right" and "wrong" and that defeats the purpose of interpretation. I will check myself by saying that sometimes art can cross over into to the realm of indecency, but I would still never discount its validity as an artistic expression.
I also agree with his statement that art can be constructed from anything, though I think there have to be some restrictions and borders on what art can be and what it can come from. Otherwise everything can be considered art. Actually, nevermind. After giving it more thought, I've come to realize that anything made by humans is art. Even industrial assembly lines mass-producing equipment could still be considered art. So I guess Mr. Ofili and I have a pretty broad definition of art.
~ben
I know I am late on this post.. But I wanted to use what Alex S. said while discussing a more recent post regarding Adrian Piper's work. She talked about (as we have also done in class) what art is... yes, it is subjective and as Alex pointed out while playing devil's advocate, it can be anything the viewer considers to be art. I agree with that sentiment and to answer Mary's question, art can also be constructed from anything. I hate to say that art is subjective because it sounds petty and doesn't describe the vast mediums and contents in which art can have, but art truly is subjective, in both meaning and how it is created. It can be unrestricted by cultural norms, but it doesn't have to be. There is never a right nor wrong. Which is why we have this blog is to discuss the possibilities of art and its purpose and meaning.
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