Chris Ofili: The Blue Rider
Introduction by Christoph Zuchlag. Texts by Louis Antwi, Bazon Brock, Carolina Grau and Greg Tate
In this oversized darkly serious artist\s book, Chris Ofili riffs on Wassily Kandinsky\s famous Blue Rider text, collaborating with the spoken-word artist Louis Antwi, who contributes a poem, and including essays by Carolina Grau, Greg Tate and Bazon Brock. Featuring photographs of sculptures and paintings of African Adams and Eves about to be bitten on the ass by coiled serpents, scenes of passionate love, monkeys, invented superheroes, star-crossed lovers and pimps, Ofili presents a dark, snake-infested Eden.
Publisher: Walther König, Köln
Artists: Chris Ofili
Contributors: Louis Antwi, Bazon Brock, Carolina Grau, Greg Tate, Christoph Zuchlag
Publication Date: 2006
Binding: Hardcover
Dimensions: 9 3/4 x 13 in (24.8 x 33 cm)
Pages: 114
Reproductions: 55 color
ISBN: 9783931355302
Retail: $65 US & Canada
Status: Available
Chris Ofili
Since the mid-1990s, Chris Ofili has become well known for his vibrant, technically complex, and meticulously executed paintings and works on paper. While his early works were predominantly abstract, involving intricate patterns and colors, he has since developed a signature figurative style that bridges the gap between the sacred and the profane, and by extension, between high art and popular culture. His works center around the relationship between form and content: often using several layers of paint, resin, glitter, collage elements, and occasionally, elephant dung, Ofili enlists sexual, cultural, historical, and religious references to create uniquely aesthetic and physical works that expose the darker undercurrents of society, while also celebrating contemporary black culture. Drawing on a wide range of sources—from “blaxploitation” movies, the Bible, jazz and hip hop music, comic books, Zimbabwean cave paintings, and the works of artist and poet William Blake—Ofili’s subject matter frequently employs racial stereotypes in order to challenge and reinterpret them.
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