Emeka Ogboh: The Way Earthly Things Are Going

For the first time in Germany, the Kunstmuseum Ravensburg is exhibiting Emeka Ogboh’s (born 1977, lives in Berlin) striking sound and light installation The Way Earthly Things are Going, created by the Nigerian artist in 2017 for the documenta 14 in Athens. It came into being in the course of his examination of the impact of the international financial crisis, in particular the Greek economic crisis. The title of the room-filling installation is derived from the well-known Bob Marley song “So Much Trouble in the World”. The multi-channel installation combines a polyphonic ancient Greek lamentation with market data from the stock indices, which are transmitted onto an LED strip in real time. Ogboh creates a dialogue between the ongoing reports from the capital markets – such as the reaction of the stock market to the corona crisis – and the poignant chant about forced migration and the search for a better life. The individual voices, dispersed across the room, unfurl and branch out into a spatial composition of sound and light. In doing so, the voices of the female choir, telling us of human fates, stand in sharp contrast to the factual information flow of the capital markets, which proceeds unaffected by individual fates. Ogboh creates a realm of experience out of sound and moving image that makes one reflect on the interaction between migration and the global economy.

In his sound works and multimedia installations, Emeka Ogboh examines how hearing and taste experiences shape our cultural identity and raises critical questions surrounding the topics of migration, globalisation and post-colonialism. His works have been presented in numerous international exhibitions, among them documenta 14, Athens/Kassel (2017), Skulptur Projekte Münster (2017), 56th Venice Biennale (2015), Dakar Biennale (2014). Solo exhibitions include the Cleveland Museum of Art (2019), in the Tate Modern, London (2017), Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden (2017), in the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC (2016).

Curator / director: Ute Stuffer

Parallel events:
Lecture: "Haut, Ton, Farbe. Zum Werk von Emeka Ogboh" ("Skin, Sound, Colour. On the work of Emeka Ogboh")
Johan Holten, Director of Kunsthalle Mannheim.
Thursday, November 19, 2020, 7pm

Lecture: "A Taste of Fashion in Africa. Reflexion über afrikanische Mode, Stile und gesellschaftliche Wahrnehmung" ("A Taste of Fashion in Africa. Reflection on African Fashion, Styles and Social Perception")
Beatrice Angut Oola, Fashion Africa Now, Hamburg, and Dr. Cornelia Lund, fluctuating images, Berlin
Thursday, January 28, 2021, 7pm

The Kunstmuseum Ravensburg was opened in 2013; it is the first certified museum in the passive-house construction style. Designed by the Stuttgart architectural firm Lederer + Ragnarsdóttir + Oei, the museum has been awarded such honors as the German Architecture Prize in 2013; it was declared “Museum of the Year 2015” by the International Association of Art Critics (AICA). The basis for the museum is the Selinka Collection. The collection includes works of German Expressionism as well as by the artist groups CoBrA and SPUR; it complements a program of temporary exhibitions dedicated to the art of the 20th and 21st centuries.

Contact
T+49 (0)751 82 810
kunstmuseum@ravensburg.de

Opening hours:
Tuesday–Saturday 11am-6pm (from 2021: Tuesday: 2-6pm)
Thursday 11am-7pm
Closed on Mondays