The Aesthetics of [Black Women's] Bodily Exploitation
Grace Tabea Tenga
Them (2024) and Her (2024) at the entrance of On Lies, Secrets and Silence by Frida Orupabo at Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art
Photography: Christian Øien
Parted bodies of black women take center stage in the visually compelling exhibition On Lies, Secrets and Silence by Frida Orupabo at the Astrup Fearnley Museum of Modern Art in Oslo. This art critique is published in honor of International Women's Day and Month.
On Lies, Secrets and Silence is the first solo exhibition of Norwegian-Nigerian artist Frida Orupabo (1986-) locally.. The collage-and-film based artworks has brought the sociologist-turned-artist great success, with works displayed in London, Hong Kong, New York and the prestigious Venezia biennale. What began as an exploratory instagram account, @nemiepeba, has been a base for her exploration of race, gender and identity, and how these intersect in the lives of black women. These themes hit you like a ton of bricks with the monumental curtains of Them (2024) and Her (2024) at the exhibition entry. The green-hued fabric features the piercing gaze of a black woman. The museum's ventilation system moves the textile gently, as if she is breathing through her nose. It sets the tone ready for upcoming pieces, full of confrontation and contemplation.
Collage, collab, copy-paste
Orupabo's approach to collage-making, by layering pixelated black-and-white photos, has become one of her most distinctive signatures. It is as if Orupabo has taken the archival images of colonized and liberated Africans in the mid 1900s and applied a modern gloss that brings them to life in a contemporary manner. The contrast of aging photos with a modern finish, makes for captivating images that occupy one's imagination. Works of black female figures predominate the space. Their larger-than-life sizes are constructed by black faces and white body parts, such as the near 3 meter tall Big Girl II (2024). “Aint that bunad* shoes?” my friend pointed out at the exhibition while looking at the dancing woman in What's A Friend? (2024). The movement suggests dancing, perhaps the folk dance hallingdans, that is usually performed with people wearing bunads. Sociopolitial implications for bodily dress, control and autonomy serves as a common thread in Orupabo's work.
Trauma Cathes Up (2024) Metall. 30 x 30 x 30 cm
Photography Credit: Gerhard Kassner
Reclaiming Black Space in White Rooms
As I walk through the crisp white halls of the museum and see how boldly Orupabo's work takes up space, it feels both independent and part of a larger wave of black women making their marks in the art world simultaneously. The exhibition If you go to the river by Linda Lamignan at Galleri F15 in Moss grapples with the position of crocodiles as sacred guardian figures among the Gbamaratu people of Nigeria, part of her heritage by her grandfather. One of our most notable artists is the Norwegian-Congolese artist Sandra Mujinga, whose abstract art works debate technology and exploitation.
This wave includes the curatorial front. The new director of Fotogalleriet is the South African scholar Nkule Mabaso. There are attempts to form dialogue between migrant communities of color and predominantly white art institutions. “The idea came from wanting my Mom to understand what I do” said the art curator Ifrah Osman about her groundbreaking work Solo Oslo. It provides art guides in three widely spoken languages among migrants; Persian, Urdu and her mother tongue Somali, to widen the audience engaging with Edvard Munch's art works. Collectively, the space they take welcomes faces and bodies into spaces that were not necessarily built with them in mind.
Sociologist Turned Artist
Her sociologist background is apparent in her works. Everyday items are given special attention and care and combine function and aesthetics in an intriguing way. My personal favorite is Unidentified Hangers, seven clothes hangers in pink hues, with faces featured in the centre space. Secondly, her work experience at a centre for sex workers and victims of human trafficking are apparent in the focus on bodily consent and sexuality. Five videos show different scenes called Over the Edge (2024). The most provocative is of a hand inserting itself in a woman's vagina. There is offered little context to this hard-to-watch piece. Whose hand is it? Is the woman a plastic dummy or an actual human?
The doctor accused of sexually abusing over 80 women in Frosta, Norway, comes to mind. His medical examinations were deemed indefensible, such as inserting a deodorant in a patient's vaginal canal. He recorded patients without their consent. The case has sent shock waves through the community. He faces a 21 year prison sentence, the maximum prison sentence possible in the Norwegian justice system. This backdrop makes the video of Orupabo even harder to watch, an aesthetics of horror. But I shouldn't be that surprised, as medical history has many skeletons in its closet.
Frida Orupabo, Big Girl II, 2024.
Photo: Gerhard Kassner.
Gynaecological horrors
The video mirrors exploitation of black women in medicine. Dr. J Marion Sims is called “the father of gynaecology” for his invention of the vaginal speculum, experimented vaginal surgery for repairing fistula on enslaved black women during slavery without their consent or anaesthesia (despite the latter being invented in his time). The African-American artist Michelle Browder created honorific statues of the women who underwent these experimental surgeries called Mothers of Gynaecology (2021).
Intergenerational trauma
Screaming faces. Lowered gazes. The historical pain and intergenerational trauma of black women culminate in the miniature box titled Trauma Catches Up (2024). It embodies suffering in tight confinement. A cut-out reads Universalism: the ideological doctrine of European Superiority. Imperialistic. Absolutistic. Monolithic. The legacy of colonialism continues to weigh heavily upon its subjects.
One of the theories for why talk therapy works, is that the patient in sharing their trauma allows the therapist to hold it for the duration of the session, being an emotional container. This relieves the patient of the sole responsibility of dealing with their pain. I imagine the box being the physical container that holds the mass of historical and continual racial oppression, in a pressurized form. To quantify the effects of colonialism and slavery is seemingly impossible, however, it is the basis for reparations to restore justice post-oppression. Trauma Catches Up embodies the historical pain, structural oppression that form the basis of reparations claim.
On Lies, Secrets and Silence the forbidden, taboo and provocative finds its home in the meticulous black-and-white universe of Frida Orupabo. The execution manner of conveying her the intricacies of the matters makes her an intriguing artist to look out for.
Norwegian-Nigerian artist Frida Orupabo at the Finnish National Gallery, October 2022
Photography Credit: Pirje Mykkänen
Grace Tabea Tenga (1994-) is a clinical psychologist from the University of Oslo, dancer in the black women's collective B16 and arts critic in the newspaper Klassekampen and arts journals like Scenekunst, Shakespearetidsskriftet and Periskop. She engages in art from decolonial and feminist perspectives, informed by her exchange studies to the University of Cape Town, South Africa, and bachelors degree in Interdisciplinary Gender Studies.
*bunad is the traditional garment of Norway, inspired by mid 19th century farm wear. It is usually made of thick wool, intricate hand stitching and accompanied by silk scarves and silver jewelry. It is worn for celebratory occasions such as weddings and the national day, the 17th of May.