Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground

Installation View

Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground

Following Otobong Nkanga's year-long residence in 2019 at Gropius Bau, the Berlin institution has opened "There's No Such Thing As Solid Ground".

Otobong Nkanga, Taste of a Stone, 2020. Site-specific installation, boulders, gneiss, granite, iceland lichen, inkjet prints on limestone, marble pebbles, movements, plants Installation view Otobong Nkanga: There's No Such Thing as Solid Ground, Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2020. © Otobong Nkanga, photo: Luca Giradini

20. July 2020

The exhibition There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground features various installations and drawings that continue the Nigerian artist’s interest in the relationship between repair and care, body and territory, the movement of natural resources and people. Keeping a certain poetry in the form of text, sound and nature elements, Otobong Nkanga has unveiled a reworked sound piece as well as the third installment of the project “Carved to Flow” (2017-2020) which she started at documenta 14.

Otobong Nkanga, Taste of a Stone, 2020. Site-specific installation, boulders, gneiss, granite, iceland lichen, inkjet prints on limestone, marble pebbles, movements, plants. Installation view Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground, Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2020. © Otobong Nkanga, photo: Luca Giradini

Otobong Nkanga, Taste of a Stone, 2020. Installation view “Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground” at Gropius Bau Berlin, 2020. Photo: C&

Otobong Nkanga, Diaspore, 2020. Installation view “Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground” at Gropius Bau Berlin, 2020. Photo: C&

Otobong Nkanga, Diaspore, 2020. Site-specific installation, performance, printed vinyl floor, Cestrum Nocturnum, plant pots. Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground, Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2020 © Otobong Nkanga, Foto: Laura Fiorio

Installation view “Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground” at Gropius Bau Berlin, 2020. Photo: C&

Otobong Nkanga, Solid Maneuvers, 2015. Installation view “Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground” at Gropius Bau Berlin, 2020. Photo: C&

Otobong Nkanga, Solid Maneuvers, 2015. Various metals, acrylic, Forex, make-up, salt, tar, vermiculite. Installation view Otobong Nkanga: There’s No Such Thing as Solid Ground, Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2020. © Otobong Nkanga, Foto: Laura Fiorio