Olu Oguibe
Wall

Hear the Artist:
Olu on the elemental	[Download an audio clip of Olu Oguibe]
People ask why	[Download an audio clip of Olu Oguibe]
Understanding place	[Download an audio clip of Olu Oguibe]

Artist Statement:

For me the stonewall in the gallery space is first and foremost a formal statement. It is a simple, three-dimensional line in space, a mark, if you will. It is also the ultimate minimalist gesture in the sense that the medium is not the stone but the wall itself, and my approach is to present the stonewall in its barest elemental essence, as a complete gesture, almost like a found object, without artifice.

Of course, like any other object, the New England stonewall is more than just a form in space. There is an amalgamation of geology, history, craft and metaphor inherent in the form that requires no greater intervention than to relocate the wall from nature to the gallery. In doing so, the goal is to transcend the philosophical limits set by other artists from Robert Smithson to Andy Goldsworthy, who have rearranged nature within nature in order to make art or a statement. Nature requires no such rearrangement.

I am interested in the New England stonewall as a conceptual marker, as metaphor; a metaphor for the conquest of the wild and the triumph of sedentary civilization; a metaphor for our democracy which was founded on labor, migration, individual determination, and communal vision; a metaphor for in-between spaces; a metaphor for a sense of place; a metaphor for New England itself.

By moving the New England stonewall into the gallery or museum space, and making the stonewall part of the vocabulary of conceptual art, I hope to generate a new, inclusive discourse that draws no line between aesthetic or formal concerns, and environmental, cultural, and social discourses.

In my stonewalls, minimalism, conceptualism, and environmental art all find their common ground.

About the Artist

In his new work, Olu Oguibe becomes the first artist to move the iconic and ubiquitous New England stonewall into the gallery space as conceptual sculpture. Working together with local masons, the artist recreates a simple stonewall in the gallery as a way to bring the wall into the discourse of contemporary art. Oguibe describes the New England stonewall as both a line and a limn, an illuminated space where the natural and cultural histories of New England take form and become art, albeit one that is hardly regarded with the keen attention that it deserves.

As an international artist whose work often deals with place, Oguibe believes that it is time that New England artists rebuild the bridge between art and the museum public by returning to the peculiar natural elements and forms that define the region and its environment, and in so doing, help renew the public's interest in the beauty and uniqueness of place.

Olu Oguibe is a conceptual artist whose work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, including the biennials of Venice, Havana, Busan Korea, and Johannesburg, South Africa, as well as the Whitney Museum, PS1-MoMa, the Smithsonian, the Irish Museum of Modern Art, Migros Museum, Zurich, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastrich, Whitechapel Gallery, Royal Festival Hall, the United Nations Headquarters, and many others. He has also served as curator or co-curator for many international exhibitions including shows at the Tate Modern in London and the Venice Biennial. Oguibe is a Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Connecticut.

This exhibition was made possible with the support of our members, and:

Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts
Greater Hartford Arts Council's United Arts Campaign
Travelers
Hartford Foundation for Public Giving
Sandy and Howard Fromson
The Wallace Foundation
Lincoln Financial Group
Maximilian E. & Marion O. Hoffman Foundation
The Nimoy Foundation
The Artist's Resource Trust (A.R.T.) Fund

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