Background
Wangechi Mutu was born on June 22, 1972 in Nairobi, Kenya.
Nairobi, Kenya
During the period from 1978 to 1989, Wangechi studied at Loreto Convent Msongari school in Lavington, Nairobi.
St Donat's Castle, St Donats, Llantwit Major CF61 1WF, United Kingdom
In 1991, Mutu graduated from the United World College of the Atlantic with International Baccalaureate Diploma.
72 5th Ave, New York, NY 10011, United States
Mutu attended New School in New York City.
66 5th Ave, New York, NY 10011, United States
She attended Parsons School of Design.
30 Cooper Sq, New York, NY 10003, United States
In 1996, the artist received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, graduating from Cooper Union.
1156 Chapel St, New Haven, CT 06511, United States
In 2000, Wangechi got Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale School of Art.
Wangetchi Mutu performing Throw at Pace Gallery.
Wangechi Mutu was born on June 22, 1972 in Nairobi, Kenya.
During the period from 1978 to 1989, Wangechi studied at Loreto Convent Msongari school in Lavington, Nairobi. Some time later, she attended United World College of the Atlantic in Wales, graduating with International Baccalaureate Diploma in 1991.
In the 1990's, Mutu settled down in New York City, where she attended the New School for Social Research (present-day the New School) and Parsons School of Design. In 1996, the artist received her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, graduating from Cooper Union. Later, in 2000, she got Master of Fine Arts degree from Yale School of Art.
Mutu elaborates collages, which imitate amputation, transplant operations and bionic prosthetics. Her figures are satirical mutilations. Their forms are grotesquely marred through perverse modification, echoing the atrocities of war or self-inflicted improvements of plastic surgery.
In 2004, Mutu took part in Gwangju Biennale in South Korea. Two years later, in 2006, she collaborated with British architect David Adjaye on a project. They transformed the Upper East Side Salon 94 townhouse in New York into a subterraneous dinner party-setting, titled "Exhuming Gluttony: A Lover’s Requiem". In 2008, Mutu participated in Prospect 1 Biennial, which was held in New Orleans. Some time later, in 2010, Wangechi had her first solo show at Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto. Three years later, the artist held her first United States solo exhibition "Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey" at Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, North Carolina.
In 2013, the creative team of Wangechi Mutu took part in the main project of the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art. The same year, Wangechi collaborated with recording artist Santigold on the creation of her first animated video "The End of Eating Everything". In 2017, the Gladstone Gallery opened her new exhibition, named "Ndoro na Miti", which stands for trees and mud, the main used materials for her new art.
Also, Mutu created room-sized installations, using found as well as crafted objects. All her work examined and extended the female body, which she saw as the point of departure in her art. Moreover, she designed fabric. Two printed textiles, which she created, were used by twenty-three fashion designers, including Sarah Burton and Phoebe Philo, for the Born Free campaign.
Currently, the artist lives and works in New York City.
Quotations:
"Females carry the marks, language and nuances of their culture more than the male. Anything that is desired or despised is always placed on the female body."
"I'm not a policy maker. I'm not even a very great activist. My main thing is to make things that speak for the culture that I live in."
"I hope my kids see imagination has power to change everything."
"In most cases I start off with a sketch. But I'm also thinking about real images: out of National Geographic, out of fashion magazines, out of The Economist, out of Time. I'm making a sketch, but I'm using the existing images that have been put out in the world."
"A lot of my work reflects the incredible influence that America has had on contemporary African culture. Some of it's insidious, some of it's innocuous, some of it's invisible. It's there."
"We became Homo sapiens not that long ago, from the scientific perspective, and we've retained a lot of our beast nature. We've done all these amazing things in terms of our knowledge base and technology, and now we're flying around and using the internet. But we're still very animalistic. So, I think about hierarchies. I think about evolution. I think about how we stack up, how we sit on top of each other. How we pray that we know what we're up to."
"What is Africa, anyway? Even I don't know what Africa is, entirely. But I know that it's not some of these simplified sound bites you hear in America."
"I have this amateur side attraction to, and interest in, the sciences and biology and physics and evolution. Paleontology is of interest to me. I'm interested in the way these fields have helped us understand how we are human and why we are human. I'm also from the area that is considered to be the cradle of mankind."
"Kenya is rapidly developing its industry and manufacturing, and its cultural identity as a new country. We had a humongous history pre-British, and when we were colonized and violently reshuffled, we had to decide who we were again. We couldn't rest on the stories and the cultures of our great-grandparents."