{"id":15441,"date":"2021-05-20T13:42:49","date_gmt":"2021-05-20T13:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artjournalstg.wpenginepowered.com\/?p=15441"},"modified":"2023-05-31T14:28:35","modified_gmt":"2023-05-31T14:28:35","slug":"the-weight-of-matter-ebitenyefa-baralaye-and-glenn-adamson-in-conversation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/artjournal.collegeart.org\/?p=15441","title":{"rendered":"The Weight of Matter: Ebitenyefa Baralaye and Glenn Adamson in Conversation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The following interview was conducted between artist Ebitenyefa Baralaye and curator Glenn Adamson on March 19, 2021, via Zoom, as Baralaye was developing a new body of work. This series, comprising tall, figural vessels, recalls the cross-cultural genre of the face jug while also engaging questions of contemporary identity. Examples from the group are to be included in A New Realism<\/em><\/a>, curated by Adamson for Friedman Benda Gallery (June 3\u2013July 2, 2021).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Glenn Adamson: <\/strong>Let\u2019s begin with Black figuration. This topic has become of central concern in recent years, thanks to the work of painters like Kerry James Marshall, Amy Sherald, Tschabalala Self, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, and many others. How do you approach the question of representation?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ebitenyefa Baralaye: <\/strong>My starting point is thinking of how power is coupled with representation. Cultures and communities define power by controlling how they represent themselves to the world. It is the prerogative of the artist. I am working with clay, a material that people have been using to represent the figure for thousands of years. It has been a spiritual stand-in\u2014a religious icon\u2014as well as a representation of social and political class. My recent work has shifted in ways deeply affected by the ongoing pandemic, the passing of my father due to COVID-19, and sociopolitical tensions and tragedies in our country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have been thinking about the encoded nature of faces: the way facial features represent not just one person but a community, a society, and a culture. I have been thinking, too, of face jugs made by enslaved potters\u2014an aesthetic of abstraction that likely has ties to West African abstraction. I am drawing on roots that track with my own narrative of identity and migration. I was born in Nigeria, spent my early childhood in Antigua, but have lived most of my life in the United States. The way I navigate the world has a lot to do with my ancestral lineage. This includes the Black artists, educators, activists, and other workers who have preceded me and created the platforms I benefit from in my current home, the United States. It also extends through my mother and father to the Yoruba people, and the lineage of makers and artisans who were involved in producing ceramics and sculpture long before I was born.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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