Kambui Olujimi
New York, NY
ARTIST STATEMENT
When Monuments Fall is
a series of paintings that examine the precarious position of Modernist monumentality and its atemporality.
The work intersects with national conversations around the recontextualization, amendment, and
removal of monuments. When Monuments Fall uses
veiling as a launch point within the work. The
draped statue, waiting to be uncovered for the first time, is full of promise, potentially commemorating
the achievements and values cherished by its community. The tarped statue is an abstracted
mistake, waiting for erasure, and is estranged from its community. This
cycle of projection, aspiration, and redaction sets the context for this work.
BIO
Kambui Olujimi was born and raised in Bedford-Stuyvesant Brooklyn and received his MFA from Columbia University in New York City. Olujimi’s work challenges established modes of thinking that commonly function as "inevitabilities." This pursuit takes shape through interdisciplinary bodies of work spanning sculpture, installation, photography, writing, video and performance. His solo exhibitions include; Zulu Time, at Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, A Life in Pictures, at MIT List Visual Arts Center, Solastalgia, at Cue Arts Foundation, and Wayward North at Art in General. His works have premiered nationally at The Sundance Film Festival, Studio Museum in Harlem, Museum of Modern Art, New York, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles and Mass MoCA. Internationally his work has been featured at Museo Nacional Reina Sofia in Madrid; Kunsthal Rotterdam in Netherlands; Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art in Finland and Para Site in Hong Kong among others. Olujimi has been awarded residencies from Black Rock Senegal, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Robert Rauschenberg Foundation, and MacDowell. He has received grants and commissions from numerous institutions including The Jerome Foundation, NFYA/ NYSCA Fellowship and MTA Arts & Design. Media coverage of Olujimi’s work includes; The New Yorker, Art Forum, Art in America, Brooklyn Rail, The Guardian, CNN, and The New York Times. Monographs on his past project include Walk With Me, (2020), Zulu Time (2017), Wayward North (2012), The Lost Rivers Dream Index (2007/ 2018), Walk the Plank (2006), and Winter in America (in collaboration with Hank Willis Thomas, 2006).