Exhibition Information:
August 23, 2024 - December 23, 2024

Savannah College of Art and Design Museum of Art
Savannah, GA

Organized by Haley Clouser

Thumbnail image: Installation view of “Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola: Good Hair,” SCAD Museum of Art. Courtesy of SCAD.

Installation view of “Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola: Good Hair,” SCAD Museum of Art. Courtesy of SCAD.

Nigerian-American artist Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola presents recent works that repurpose everyday objects associated with Black hair to convey the intersection of commodities and their broader sociopolitical implications. In his most ambitious Camouflage painting to date entitled Sunday’s Best, Akinbola stitches durags into a 48-foot-wide composition, invoking Modernist painting tropes while critically underscoring the ubiquity of gestural abstraction. The Price of Oil, an installation of pomade cans on retail shelving, signifies the dynamic history of Black hair within the American economy, where abundance paradoxically connotes the celebration yet sterile commercialization of culture. His newest sculpture Spinnin’ comprised of two barber poles is a monument to barbershops — the earliest sites of Black commercial enterprises and civil rights organizing — recognizing their part in fostering Black political mobility and financial independence in an ever-resistant environment. Exemplifying Akinbola’s yearslong practice of mediating between sculpture and painting through material, Good Hair draws attention to the nuanced roles of everyday objects within Black life, individuation, and joy.

ABOUT THE ARTIST
Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola (b. 1991, Columbia, Mo.; lives and works in Holmes, New York) is a first-generation American of Nigerian descent, raised in both the U.S. and Nigeria. He received his B.A. in communications and media from SUNY Purchase College. Akinbola has presented solo exhibitions at Sean Kelly, New York; Night Gallery, Los Angeles; Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna; Carbon 12, Dubai; John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisc.; and the Queens Museum, New York. His work has been featured in group shows at the Baltimore Museum of Art; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Hauser & Wirth, New York and Los Angeles; Pace Gallery, New York; and Bernard A. Zuckerman Museum of Art, Kennesaw, Ga., among others. Akinbola’s work is held in the Guggenheim Museum’s permanent collection and the Zabludowicz Collection, London.