Wangechi Mutu

Mutu's work crosses a variety of mediums, including collage, bricolage, video, performance, and sculpture, and investigates themes of gender, race, and colonialism. These mediums, many of which involve the mixing of materials, sources, and imagery, are more than just formal choices—they hint towards foundational themes of resilience and regeneration that appears throughout her oeuvre. Mutu's work, in part, centers on the violence and misrepresentation experienced by Black women in contemporary society. A recurring theme of Mutu's work is her various depictions of femininity. Mutu uses the feminine subject in her art, even when the figures are more or less unrecognizable, whether by using the form itself or the texture and patterns the figure is made from. Sometimes she uses cliche images of archetypal women—mothers, virgins, goddesses—as source material, reconfiguring them to create potent, charged images that reflect her own emotional agency, as well as the agency, multitudes, and contradictions of womanhood in general. Her use of otherworldly depictions for women, many times shown in a seemingly sexual or sensual pose, brings about discussion of the objectification of women. Specifically, Mutu addresses the hyper-objectification of black female bodies and has used an otherworldly nature to reiterate the fictitious nature of society's depictions of black women. Mutu uses female subjectivity to examine other social and political issues as well; however, her aim is to always retain focus on female figures, identities, and experiences, in order to bring them to the forefront. Whether through delicate lined patterns or familiar feminine builds, Mutu's various ways of representing feminine qualities is said to enhance the strength of the images or the significance of the issues presented. Many of Mutu's artworks are known to be interpreted in contradictory ways, both seen as complicit to problematic society and as hopeful for future change in society. It's also been said that Mutu's use of such intentionally repulsive or otherworldly imagery may help women to step away from society's ideas of perfection and instead embrace their own imperfections and become more accepting of the flaws of others as well. Although her imagery of female figures has often been described as "grotesque", she claims they are instead "disabled", displaying a manifestation of historical and societal tensions present in black women's identities. In these mangled forms, the struggle of women forced to comply with social expectations and historical oppressions is given physical form, portraying distinct inner turmoil. Much of this is accomplished through her use of mixed media, which allows for her to unmake and reimagine bodies through modes of collage. In her Sentinel series which has been active from 2016 until now, she creates regal and fierce abstract female forms made from clay, wood and various found materials. In an interview with the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia curator, Rachel Kent, she states, "I try to stretch my own ideas about appropriate ways to depict women. Criticism, curiosity, and voyeurism lead me along, as I look at things I find hard to view – things that are sometimes distasteful or unethical". Mutu frequently uses "grotesque" textures in her artwork and has cited her mother's medical books on tropical diseases as an inspiration, stating that there is "nothing more insanely visually interesting and repulsive than a body infected with trop

Mutu's work has been called "firmly Africanfuturist and Afrofuturist", as exemplified in her work, including one of her pieces titled The End of Eating Everything (2013). In her 2013–2014 installation at the Brooklyn Museum, the curatorial placard accompanying her work A'gave described Afrofuturism as "an aesthetic that uses the imaginative strategies of science fiction to envision alternate realities for Africa and people of African descent". For critics, Mutu's imagined alternate realities for Africa through the medium of science fiction definitively situated Mutu in the genre of Afrofuturism. Specific elements of Mutu's art that situate her within this genre include her amalgamations of humans and machines, or cyborgs, within collages such as Family Tree as well as the film The End of Eating Everything. Additionally, Mutu's work consistently involves intentional re-imaginations of the African experience. In Misguided Little Unforgivable Hierarchies, she examines social hierarchy and power relationships through the medium of collage, for "rankings of peoples have historically been constructed around fabricated racial and ethnic categories". In Family Tree, as in many of her works, Mutu deliberately constructs both a past and a future within the single figure through displaying diagrams from antique medical journals as well as mechanical images. Mutu uses Afrofuturism to explore themes of alienation, which relates to feminism, colonialism, materiality, and disability. In this way, Afrofuturism acts as a lens for these subjects. The use of Afrofuturistic aesthetics also allows for creative freedom in rendering bodies and representations of identities and experiences, as can be seen with the presence of cyborgs and alien-like figures in her works. The presence of black women in a futuristic setting also acts as a pushback to ideas of evolutionism and cultural and social hierarchies. By contextualizing these women in such extreme modern spaces, Mutu makes a statement—that women of color are included in the idea of the idealistic "evolved" human. This rejects colonialist ideas about people of color being "less evolved", or modernist ideas about people of color being stuck in a less developed state. In the goal of creating distinct representations of struggles and tensions for female and African identities, the principles and aesthetics of Afrofuturism work well with Mutu's use of collage and mixed media art. These elements form a more holistic approach to examining fractured identities. Mutu gave a speech on TED in 2023.[1]

Aspects of feminine themes are used across Mutu's body of work. The majority of her artwork, whether in her collages, sculptures, photography, or performances; all of these highlights a female character. A handful of Mutu's works highlight the female figure and feminine features. Using references to a black woman's body, Mutu uses the silhouette or actual photographic imagery of a woman to create the characters in her works. A series of artworks that reflect the use of the female silhouette and elements of photographic images of black females is “The Ark Collection” from 2006. One of the artworks in this collection, titled “Highland Woman, shows a photographic image of a female body meshed with various college elements, helping create a scene as well as create the rest of the silhouette of a female figure, highlighting the photographic elements of a woman's nude breasts. The rest of these works have been discussed as using the female form to create “figurations of black women's corporeality in visual culture”. She also places a lot of emphasis on body language and the way the woman is situated within the work. Another feminine aspect that Mutu draws from is the idea of feminine power. She draws these ideas in her “The Seated series.” In an interview, Mutu claimed this artwork is inspired by “caryatids throughout history,” in which she uses a reference from women of color. Mutu shares that “in Greek architecture, you see these women in their beautiful robes, and then in African sculpture across the continent, you see these women wither kneeling or sitting, sometimes holding a child, as well as holding up the seat of the king.” Most African women in these historical sculptures show women of color in these contexts implemented on the bottom on the pedestal. She wanted to showcase the African American women as being on top of a pedestal to express a reclaim of black female power. She considers the black female experience in her pieces through her inspiration from female forms that showcase power in art history.

Mutu has exhibited sculptural installations. In 2006, Mutu and British architect David Adjaye collaborated on a project. They transformed the Upper East Side Salon 94 townhouse in New York into a subterranean dinner-party setting entitled Exhuming Gluttony: A Lover's Requiem. Furs and bullet holes adorned the walls while wine bottles dangled in a careless chandelier-like form above the stained table. The table's multiple legs resembled thick femurs with visibly delicate tibias, and the whole space had a pungent aroma. The artists strove to show a moment of gluttony as she stated, "I wanted to create a feast, a communing of minds and viewers Something has gone wrong, there is a tragedy or unfolding of evil". This vicious hunger was seen as a connection between images of The Last Supper, the climate of the current art-buying world, and the war in Iraq.

It is a performance video in which a woman uses a panga [a type of machete] to chop up a log but the wood is impossible to sever. The action serves to emphasize Africa's history of being cut up into portions by colonial forces. The work was shot in a town in Presidio, Texas, a town with racial tension and violence since it sits on the U.S./Mexican border, uprooting energy from the site

Another installation of Mutu, Suspended Playtime (2008) is a series of bundles of garbage bags, wrapped in gold twine as if suspended in spiders' webs, all suspended from the ceiling over the viewer. The installation makes reference to the common use of garbage bags as improvised balls and other playthings by African children.

Part of the Performa Commissions for the Performa Biennial, Stone Ihiga is a performance art piece created by Mutu in collaboration with Imani Uzuri.

As a visual artist, Mutu takes inspiration from fashion and travel magazines, pornography, ethnography, and mechanics. In 2013, at the Nasher Museum of Art, Mutu showed her sketchbook drawings for the first time ever in her retrospective exhibition, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey. The books consisted of strangely attractive, yet grotesque human figures fused with animals, plants, or machines.

In 2013, Wangechi Mutu's first-ever animated video, The End of Eating Everything, was created in collaboration with recording artist Santigold, commissioned by the Nasher Museum of Art. The video was animated by Awesome + Modest.

In 2014, Mutu's art was on display at an exhibition entitled Nguva na Nyoka, at Victoria Miro Gallery in London. At the exhibition's opening night, Mutu displayed a performance piece, wherein guests were encouraged to consume custom-made Wangechi Mutu chocolate mermaids. The guests could obtain a mermaid only by "snapping a photo of their first bite, lick, taste", operating as a commentary on "the public consumption of brown bodies".

Banana Stroke is Mutu's second Performa Commission following Stone Ihiga (2007). For Performa 17, Mutu designed a set that was part arena and part white cube gallery. Wearing a black velvet jumpsuit and large banana leaves on her arms, she created a site-specific live action painting within this space using black viscous matter. The performance took place in the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

In 2019, Mutu created bronze statues (titled individually as The Seated I, The Seated II, The Seated III, The Seated IV, collectively, The NewOnes, will free Us) for the exterior niches of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The statues seated women were displayed from September 9, 2019 through January 12, 2020.