Wangechi Mutu, Deutsche Bank's Artist of the Year 2010, and curator Okwui Enwezor, member of the bank's Global Art Advisory Council
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Wangechi Mutu, Deutsche Bank's Artist of the Year 2010, and curator Nancy Spector, member of the bank's Global Art Advisory Council
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Wangechi Mutu, I have peg leg nightmares, 2003; Collection of Jeff Kerns, Los Angeles; Photo: Gene Ogami; © Wangechi Mutu and Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
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Wangechi Mutu, Beet Root, 2008; Collection of Janine Barrois, Santa Monica, CA;
Photo: Robert Wedemeyer; Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
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Wangechi Mutu, Bunny Trap, detail view, 2008; Collection of the artist; Photo:
Robert Wedemeyer; Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
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Wangechi Mutu, Bear, 2008; Collection of the artist; Photo: Robert Wedemeyer; Courtesy of Susanne Vielmetter Los Angeles Projects
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Deutsche Bank announced today that on the recommendation of its Global Art Advisory Council, Wangechi Mutu was selected as the bank’s 2010 Artist of the Year. The bank is bestowing the award for the first time this year, opening a new chapter in its global commitment to art. The Global Art Advisory Council consists of the internationally renowned curators Okwui Enwezor, Hou Hanru, Udo Kittelmann, and Nancy Spector, who advise the bank on its long-standing involvement in the arts.
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, in 1972, Mutu is one of the world’s foremost contemporary African artists. Her oeuvre is remarkable due to its inimitable synthesis of horror and beauty, surreal poetry and social criticism. Mutu is a trained sculptor and anthropologist; she processes mass media and scientific images using collage and ink and creates site-specific works and installations. Her main motifs are mutated, distorted, mutilated female bodies shown in a field of tension between Western consumerist culture, the African Diaspora, and postcolonial history. Mutu’s works have been shown in numerous international exhibitions, including at the Tate Modern, the Studio Museum Harlem, and the Vienna Kunsthalle. She participated in important group shows such as USA Today (2006) at the Royal Academy in London. Her works can currently be seen in the exhibition Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic at the Tate Liverpool.
Unlike other awards, the Artist of the Year is not a cash prize. Instead, it reflects the bank’s philosophy of being committed to the arts with "more than money" and demonstrates Deutsche Bank’s concentration on the work of individual artists. From April 30 to June 13, 2010, Mutu’s work will be exhibited at the Deutsche Guggenheim, the unique joint venture of the Guggenheim Foundation and the bank in Berlin. Her first museum exhibition in Germany will focus on new work and a site-specific installation; the artist has also been invited to create a special limited edition for the museum. In addition, a selection of works from the exhibition will be purchased for the Bank’s permanent collection. An entire floor of Deutsche Bank’s newly modernized headquarters in Frankfurt will be dedicated to Wangechi Mutu’s work when it reopens in the autumn of 2010.
Wangechi Mutu
April 30 to June 13, 2010
Deutsche Guggenheim
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