Chorus Line,

2008

<p>The female forms in these eight amalgamations of watercolor and found photographs have been subject to deformation, an effect that simultaneously suggests violence and jubilation. Mutu modeled the voluptuous, distended bodies on the Paleolithic fertility sculpture <em>Venus of Willendorf</em> as well as on Saartjie Baartman, an enslaved Khoikhoi woman from the area of South Africa. Baartman was traveled by her owner throughout Europe, where she was subjected to humiliating public display from 1810 until her death in 1815. Mutu’s collages address the fantasies and fears that society often has attached to women and people of color.</p>

Trained in both art and cultural anthropology, Wangechi Mutu explores the fantasies and fears that attach themselves to women and people of color. Mutu is known primarily for exquisite, meticulously rendered collages such as <em>Chorus Line</em>, an amalgamation of watercolor and found photographs sampled from fashion, scientific, and ethnographic magazines. The female form found in each of these eight collages has been subjected to considerable deformation, an effect that suggests violent abuse as well as exuberant jubilation. In addition to the Neolithic sculpture <em>Venus of Willendorf</em>, Mutu’s voluptuous, distended bodies are also modeled on that of Saartjie Baartman, an enslaved Khoikhoi woman from an area in today’s South Africa whose owner subjected her to humiliating public display throughout Europe from 1810 until her death in 1815.