Beyond Beyoncé Fame, Awol Erizku Expands What Black Art Can Be

LOS ANGELES — True, Awol Erizku could also be finest identified for his beatific {photograph} of a pregnant ​​Beyoncé, which in 2017 was probably the most preferred put up in Instagram’s historical past. And Erizku has taken many different memorable photos of celebrities, together with the younger inauguration poet Amanda Gorman for the quilt of Time and the “Black Panther” actor Michael B. Jordan for GQ.

However in a latest interview at his sprawling studio in Downtown Los Angeles, Erizku, 33 — carrying Doc Martin boots on his ft and a floppy hat over his dreadlocks, because the Ethiopian pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou performed on the audio system — stated he considers himself first an artist, one who additionally works in portray, sculpture and video set up.

“It’s one thing that I’m adamant about,” he stated. “I’m not a photographer for rent.”

The need to convey Erizku’s work to the eye of the broader artwork world is a part of what fueled the need of Antwaun Sargent, a director and curator on the Gagosian, to provide him the gallery’s Park Avenue area for a present opening March 10.

“Awol is among the photographers within the Black vanguard who’re saying boundaries don’t apply to the realities or the situations through which we’re making photos,” Sargent stated. “That may be a refreshing perspective to have, significantly on the subject of the extraordinarily white historical past of images.”

“How are we, as an artwork world, going to disregard that?” Sargent continued. “You have got photographers in Lagos, London, Johannesburg, New York and Los Angeles making photos that defy simple categorization and which might be emphasizing Black want, Black magnificence and Black group. For me, that’s important.”

Erizku’s exhibition, “Recollections of a Misplaced Sphinx,” situates six light-box images in a black-painted inside together with a mixed-media sculpture that reimagines the Nice Sphinx of Giza as an amalgam of Egyptian, Greek and Asian influences. There may be additionally a golden spinning disco ball, “Nefertiti — Miles Davis,” within the form of the Egyptian queen.

“I’m deconstructing the mythological elements that make up the Sphinx,” Erizku stated. “It’s essential for me to create assured, highly effective, downright regal photos of Black individuals.”

Sargent has identified Erizku since interviewing him for Advanced journal about his exhibition “The Solely Means Is Up” in 2014. Erizku stated he skilled a direct consolation with him, feeling “for the primary time I didn’t have to clarify the work.”

Born in Ethiopia and raised within the South Bronx — Erizku describes himself as “from the tasks” — he obtained into hassle in junior highschool and stated, “artwork was the one method out for me.”

A sketcher and doodler, he went to the Excessive College of Artwork and Design in Manhattan, began out doing medical illustrations and picked up a digicam at Cooper Union, the place in 2010 he obtained his bachelor’s diploma in fantastic arts.

In his third 12 months at Cooper Union, Erizku riffed on Vermeer’s “Woman With the Pearl Earring,” creating the {photograph} “Woman With the Bamboo Earring,” that includes a Black lady in a big heart-shaped hoop earring, which attracted public consideration (an version bought at Phillips public sale home in 2017 for $52,500).

From there it was on to Yale, the place he studied with the photographer Gregory Crewdson and earned his MFA in 2014. Erizku was significantly impressed by the work of artists like Richard Prince, Jeff Wall, Roe Ethridge, Marcel Duchamp and David Hammons — “those who labored outdoors the margins,” he stated.

However early on he mastered the world of social media by treating Instagram as his gallery, selectively opening his feed for public viewing at appointed hours.

In 2012, he was featured in a bunch present on the Flag Artwork Basis after which had two solo exhibits on the now closed Hasted Kraeutler gallery in Chelsea earlier than becoming a member of Ben Brown in London and Hong Kong adopted by the Night time Gallery in Los Angeles. He’s at the moment not represented.

“The work has an aesthetic attraction — you need to have a look at it,” stated the collector Glenn Fuhrman, a founding father of Flag and longtime supporter of Erizku’s work. “However there’s all the time much more occurring beneath the floor.”

Some members of the artwork world have already taken discover. Public Artwork Fund, in 2017, confirmed Erizku’s work on Wi-Fi kiosks in all 5 boroughs as a part of the exhibition “Industrial Break.”

In 2019, the curator Allison M. Glenn included Erizku in her present “Small Discuss” at Crystal Bridges Museum in Bentonville, Ark. “The ability of his apply is that it has an accessibility at a number of factors for plenty of totally different individuals,” Glenn stated. “He depends upon and shifts recognizable symbols. That’s artwork historical past. That’s been the work of portray.”

Final 12 months, Public Artwork Fund featured 13 of Erizku’s images on bus shelters throughout New York Metropolis and Chicago in a present known as “New Visions for Iris” that included a still-life addressing mass-incarceration and a portrait of Michael Brown Sr.

“He’s a part of an artwork historic dialog,” stated Daniel S. Palmer, the fund’s curator, “from previous masters to the modern imagery of our present second.”

The Gagosian exhibition is significant, Sargent stated, partly as a result of it expands the notion of what Black artwork may be at a time when Black portraiture has develop into the market rage.

“The artwork world has flattened the methods through which Blackness operates,” Sargent stated. “Doing exhibitions like this one helps to broaden past an overemphasis on figurative portray,” although he famous that figurative work is legitimate.

He added that it was a strategy to proceed a dialog “past a number of the trendy notions of the Black determine.”

Sargent pointed to long-overdue recognition of Black photographers akin to Anthony Barboza in addition to Ming Smith and the Nineteen Sixties Kamoinge group, just lately featured on the Whitney. “We have to use each technique to make it possible for our photos are seen and appreciated,” he stated, “as a result of frankly the artwork world didn’t care.”

Displaying Erizku within the Gagosian area Park & 75 — a storefront seen from the road — offers the exhibition important accessibility. “With extra Black artists displaying than ever, there’s nonetheless an issue with museums and galleries attracting these audiences to see the work of members of their group,” he stated. “There are plenty of boundaries to entry on the subject of the artwork world.”

Erizku usually incorporates wildlife in his photos — he photographed the hip-hop star Nipsey Hussle with a horse, Michael B. Jordan with a falcon and a wolf; Gorman with a chook (that now chirps in a cage by the window in Erizku’s studio). He stated he was impressed early on by the unconventional 1974 efficiency of Joseph Beuys — “I like America and America likes me’’ — through which the German artist spent every week in his seller’s gallery, fenced in with a dwell coyote.

The price of Erizku’s work is on the low finish for a significant gallerist like Gagosian, with items promoting for about $40,000 to $60,000. However Sargent stated it’s important for blue-chip galleries to showcase new views. “If we’re being sincere about saying that we need to make it possible for all voices are represented within the artwork world, we’ve to be severe about offering platforms for artists who’re considering in methods which might be divergent from conventional notions round picture making,” Sargent stated.

To some extent, Erizku has bypassed the gatekeepers, provided that he’s been presenting his personal exhibits on social media for years. His major curiosity, the artist stated, is with the ability to talk and elevate Black photos, whether or not of the actress Viola Davis, African masks, nail salon palms, Ethiopian intercourse employees or the basketball participant Kevin Durant.

“I need to be remembered for Black creativeness,” Erizku stated, “to broaden the bounds of Black artwork.”

Awol Erizku: Recollections of a Misplaced Sphinx

March 10-April 16, Gagosian Park & 75, 821 Park Avenue, Manhattan. 212-796-1228; gagosian.com.