Mutu Astonishes at the New Museum

An African master gets her Gotham blockbuster.

The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Via the artist, Vielmetter Los Angeles, and New Museum. Photo: Robert 
Edemeyer
‘Yo Mama,’ 2003. Diptych. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Via the artist, Vielmetter Los Angeles, and New Museum. Photo: Robert Edemeyer

“Wangechi Mutu: Intertwined” will occupy six floors at the New Museum through June 4, enough time to visit more than once. Bring your friends, bring your lovers, bring yourself, because it’s doubtful that we will see its likeness again. A Wakanda-esque starship of more than 100 works curated by Vivian Crockett and Margot Norton and parked on a scruffy stretch of the Bowery, it is a phantasmagoria of daunting scale. 

Ms. Mutu, born at Nairobi and educated at New York, has attained mastery in media as diverse as collage, installation, video, and sculpture. It adds up to an artistic practice shot through with voice and verve. Of Africa and focused on the feminine, her work manages fluency in both the prehistoric and futuristic tenses. She creates in the moment where the Big Bang and apocalypse converge, and neither curses nor enchantments are alien to her.   

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