Wole Lagunju Cut from the Same Cloth
While Iyami draws on something shared, a source of life for everything that exists, it views chaos as an inherent aspect of that creation. In this realm, where all possibilities are available and all living beings are connected, power and unification are balanced by caution and danger. With self-regulation at its heart, Iyami is as central to matriarchy as it is directly opposed to patriarchy; in Cut from the Same Cloth, Lagunju sought to iterate this dynamic. Beginning with a central diptych, Chronicles of the Past, Present and Future (2022), the artist merged contemporary Yoruba fashion with symbols from Iyami’s philosophical landscape; with the remaining portion of canvas, he developed a series based on the more transcendental dimensions of Iyami.
In Cut from the Same Cloth, Wole Lagunju extends his long-term interrogation of the concept of Iyami. Described by the artist as the basis of Yoruba culture and a primary theme of his work, Iyami literally translates as “my mother” and refers to womanhood – a kind of essential femininity – more broadly. Drawing on a pre-colonial social structure and often symbolically associated with birds, Iyami figures femininity as institution, unifying the collective by evoking the origins of life on earth.
Cut from the Same Cloth by Ana Beatriz Almeida Fig. 01
Among the numerous icons portrayed here, Lagunju’s combs merit particular attention: known as Oya, they hold a special place in Yoruba culture. With each design denoting a particular meaning, the styles themselves have been maintained throughout the African Diaspora. Besides the Oya, much of Lagunju’s imagery is drawn from Gelede, festivals of Yoruba male devotion to female power. Gelede masks –worn by men during masquerades – are divided into two parts: the lower usually depicting a woman’s face, and the upper representing a power struggle within Iyami’s metaphysical domain.
Often including representation of animals like snakes and birds, some contemporary masks also feature renderings of modern devices that
impact daily life; always, a strong narrative about the struggle for power permeates the design. Believed to influence human action as well as natural forces over the social realm, one of the names for this concentrated energy is Aye. Translating to “earth”, and sometimes “humanity”, Aye is understood to be an explicitly female phenomenon; in addressing it, the artist questions not only patriarchy but also our relationship to the planet – both as an ecosystem and as subject to Western society’s structure of power. By applying Iyami to contemporary art, Lagunju reclaims the powerful position occupied by such concepts before the worldwide spread of European hegemony. It is a mistake to restrain the idea of Iyami – as a female force, connected to nature and responsible for moderating societal morals –to its Yoruba context. Before medieval times, boundaries based on nations and countries didn’t exist: at least, not in the way we understand them today. As such, it’s no surprise that concepts like Iyami can be observed across diverse times and places. According to Senegalese historian Cheikh Anta Diop in his 1974 publication The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, Ancient Egyptian culture migrated both north and south of it place of origin, taking on diverse manifestations in each place. Symbolism associated with the goddess Maat, for instance – a female figure equipped with protective bird wings –illustrates a connection between supernatural power and bird imagery, echoed in Lagunju’s depictions of the Yoruba female force. Questioning plays for power as well as the structures that sustain them, the worldview underpinning Cut From the Same Cloth rejects moral dichotomies in favour of the belief that a single force can produce good or evil outcomes depending on the collective values with which it is applied. Leveraging that theory of collectivity –encircling all living beings and the planet itself – Lagunju dissolves barriers between `local’ and ‘global’. By reclaiming legacies of Yoruba iconography in service of an explicitly ‘contemporary’ practice, the artist’s rejection of a Western perspective is an ethical decision as much as an aesthetic one. Unifying a perception of the world that is shattered, refracted, in Western epistemology, Lagunju’s Iyami gestures instead to a mutual responsibility pivotal to matriarchal structures.
Representing elements of abstracted femininity, the iconography of Gelede masks blur rather than underscore gender binaries. In their public function as part of ritual masquerade, male performers are encouraged to channel female energy and be reintegrated into a
power structure that places it near its apex. In Yoruba culture, the king’s power is understood to come from the Iyamis; think of chief Funmilayo Ransome-Kuti who, after establishing Abeokuta Women’s Union in 1948, led marches and protests of up to 10,000 women forcing Alake (then-king of Ogun State) to abdicate. The dynamic between Cut From the Same Cloth’s central diptych and its smaller works is strongly connected to the idea of Iyami in its literal sense of motherhood, parent and child; throughout the exhibition, Lagunju’s tableaus nod either directly to feminine power or to a man in relation to a more transcendental dimension.
As Achille Mbembe explains in his book Out of the Dark Night: Essays on decolonization (2021), the aim of the anti-colonialist movement and decolonisation itself is to open up the world in search of new ways to inhabit it, belong to it, inherit it and create it. By integrating philosophies long silenced by patriarchal and colonial powers, Lagunju’s individual practice furthers the collective work of resurrecting a broader notion of nothing less than being human. Considering visual art’s long history of depicting one group of people enjoying privileges at the expense of others, Lagunju’s integration of Iyami serves not only its Yoruba heritage but a universal imperative too.
In the wake of a crumbling Western hegemony and its myriad crises –sexism, ecological collapse, racial tension – Lagunju’s Cut From the Same Cloth unfurls new possibilities, re-imagining humankind as a community rather than a host of disparate individuals. From the world’s largest social structures to those who turn their wheels, the memory of a female origin for life is ushered into view: the possibility that we are all Cut From the Same Cloth, after all. All images copyright the artist, courtesy Ed Cross.
Fig.01: Chronicles of the Past, Present and Future I , 2022 Oils on canvas 168 × 170cm
Fig.02: Chronicles of the Past, Present and Future II , 2022 Oils on canvas 168 × 170cm
Fig.03: Study of Jaden , 2022 Oils on canvas 187 × 142cm
Fig.04: Study of Funmi, 2022 Oils on canvas 75 × 55cm
Fig.05: Iconography of Woman II , 2022 Oils on canvas 80 × 60cm
Fig.06: Janus Nude , 2021 Oils on canvas 90 × 61cm
Fig.07: Comb Cosmos, 2022 Oils on canvas 60 × 56cm
Fig.08: Comb Cosmos II, 2022 Oils on canvas 56 × 61cm
Fig.09: Femme Fatale, 2021 Oils on canvas 81 × 60cm
Fig.10: Incurable Unbeliever, 2022 Oils on canvas 90 × 61cm
Fig.11: Iconography of Woman, 2022 Oils on canvas 80 × 60cm
Fig.12: Untitled, 2021 Oils on linen 75 × 56cm
Fig.13: Figurehead, 2022 Oils on canvas 76 × 56cm
Fig.14: Figure Besotted With Cosmology, 2021 Oils on linen 76 × 56cm
Fig.15: Femme Fatale II, 2022 Oils on canvas 76 × 56cm
Fig.16: Sweet Tongued Man of God, 2022 Oils on canvas 76 × 56cm
Fig.17: Sweet Tongued Man of God II, 2021 Oils on canvas 75 × 56cm
Fig.18: Cult Figure, 2022 Oils on canvas 75 × 51cm
Emily Watkins, curator of We All Live Here
Displayed alongside three new pieces on canvas, exemplary of Lagunju’s primary – figurative – practice, familiarly ambivalent countenances ripple into view once more; rendered in the same oil paints as their neighbours on the same material surface, their themes and sensibilities share more with their inky predecessors. Applying pigment with a pallet knife onto canvas offcuts, Lagunju’s new series is literally cut from the same cloth as his larger works –exhibited together, each illuminates aspects of itself in the other: not so different after all.
Following ideas and uncanny characters first extrapolated in We All Live Here, an exhibition of his (smaller, stranger) ink drawings with Ed Cross in 2020, Cut From the Same Cloth seeks to bridge the gap between two distinct strands of Lagunju’s work: conceptually, and physically, too.
Born in Oshogbo, Nigeria, now based in North Carolina, USA, Wole Lagunju is best known for his large-scale figurative works on canvas. Images of dominant Western visual culture – models and celebrities, from magazines and museums – are spliced with diverse Nigerian motifs, in particular Gelede masks traditionally used by male dancers to play female parts in masquerade.
The purpose of my recent paintings in Cut From the Same Cloth is to question existing canons of race, reimagine heritage and respond to global influences. In my juxtaposition of traditional Yoruba iconography with that of Western Euro-American culture, I hope to instigate new conversations about stereotypes of racial superiority while fostering intercultural understanding. However, I will not interject in the resulting conversations or proffer solutions to existing issues relating to cultural relationships or diplomacy when it comes to interpreting them. I am returning to my African roots to search for narratives and share knowledge that will hopefully transcend cultural boundaries and resonate with individual viewers as we all investigate and critique both personal and cultural relationships to issues of power, gender and Woleidentity.Lagunju, 2022
August
In 2014, after my exhibition Wole Lagunju: African Diaspora Artist and Transnational Visuality at James Madison University, Virginia, United States, I decided to engage with images of men and women that appear in pop culture and high-end glossy magazines to further my artistic practice. In the exhibition catalogue, I reiterated how the configurations derived from combining these images with Gelede masks and costumes might best be left to the imagination. And fast-forward to 2022, it seems that the reinterpretation of contemporary fashion is all the rage in contemporary African art; not surprising, perhaps.
Wole Lagunju is a 1986 graduate of Fine arts and graphic design at the University of Ife, now Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. Lagunju’s hybrid paintings of traditional Gelede masks which are juxtaposed with images of the modern woman in the Western world redefine the forms and philosophies of Yoruba visual art and design. He reimagines and transforms cultural icons appropriated from the Dutch Golden, Elizabethan as well as the fifties and sixties, Euro-American eras. Lagunju’s cultural references, mined from the eras of colonisation and decolonisation of the African continent, critique the racial and social structures of the 19th century whilst evoking commentaries on power, femininity and womanhood.
Wole Lagunju has exhibited widely in Nigeria, United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Trinidad and Germany.
Recent exhibitions include: What will you do with your own Aje?, Montague Contemporary, New York (Solo Exhibition) 2022, We all live here, Ed Cross, London (Solo Exhibition) 2020, Yoruba Remixed, Ebony Curated Gallery, Capetown (Solo Exhibition) 2018, Wole Lagunju: African Diaspora Artist and Transnational Visuality, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia (Solo Exhibition) 2014, Womanscape: Race, Gender and Sexuality in African Art, University of Texas, Austin Texas, 2011. Wole was awarded a Phillip Ravenhill Fellowship by the UCLA in 2006 and a Pollock Krasner award in 2009. He lives in the United States. Since 2009 Ed Cross has worked with emerging and established artists across and beyond the African diaspora . The gallery seeks to stage conversations – between practitioners, international audiences and as guided by its artists – to amplify voices historically silenced and create space for their independent development.
E D C R O S S Ed Cross Fine Art Ltd 19 Garrett Street London EC1Y 0TY United Kingdom @edcrossfineartedcrossfineart.com+44(0)7847645686info@edcrossfineart.com