In the Gold Gallery, Gussman Entrance Hall, and outside the Museum
Nigerian American artist and poet Precious Okoyomon presents a new commission in three parts, deepening the artist’s engagement with racial and colonial histories of the natural world through sculptural and installation-based artworks. Central to the exhibition is an attempt to undo and rework classifications of “alien” and “native.” The new works are in part inspired by Okoyomon’s extended research and teaching engagements with Cornell students, faculty, and staff, which began with Okoyomon’s appointment as the Johnson Museum’s first Migrations Visiting Artist in September 2022.
Theory of a Curve, a site-specific earthwork that surrounds the Museum in an undulating, radial grove of wildflowers, comingles native and invasive species whose growing together, as Okoyomon describes it, “will show us a new form of utopia.” The artist explains that inspiration for Theory of a Curve comes from “a host of hideaway plants and flowers brought to the US from around the world, which have now become unwanted species, forgotten, beautiful weeds that refuse to die despite our urge to kill them.” This lyrical, thought-provoking intervention challenges us to consider how scientific classification and ideas about the natural world might allegorize relations among people who, like plants, have dispersed, crossed borders, and put down roots in new places around the globe for millennia. Indeed, immigrants everywhere, at certain points in history, have been portrayed as dangerous—even monstrous—outsiders, whose presence threatens the livelihoods and integrity of local communities. Okoyomon’s Theory of a Curve, in which plants with a profusion of origins and migration stories coexist, offers us an alternate vision of joyful inclusion, and for the “beautiful weeds,” a space of temporary refuge and belonging. Theory of a Curve will be installed through August 2025.
In conjunction, Horizontal Cosmology (in the wing’s Gussman Entrance Hall) consists of a “library for pollination,” filled with poetry, theoretical texts, and books on animal and plant species that have influenced Okoyomon’s thinking and artistic practice. Fresh tea brewed from a blend of leaves and flowers featured in Theory of a Curve will be available at a series of drop-in events for visitors to enjoy as they read books available in the library and engage with the ideas underpinning Okoymon’s practice.
The Self Grows Forward Out of Its Reference, Okoyomon’s third commissioned component (in the Gold Gallery, Floor 2L), consists of an installation of new works in sculpture whose materials and forms develop and expand the artist’s visual thinking. Okoyomon’s figures traverse symbolic, representational, and abstract forms, and draw from the visual traditions of art from West Africa, Europe, and Japan. The work suggests the processes of discovery and (re)creation that may accompany a search for self: While grounded in the context of the self’s subjection to historical categories such as race, gender, and nationality, Okoyomon’s sculptural forms are ultimately unconstrained by these confines. The Self Grows Forward Out of Its Reference is on view through December 22, 2024.
Precious Okoyomon: The Sky Measures Little was curated by Gemma Rodrigues, the Ames Director of Education and Curator of the Global Arts of Africa at the Johnson Museum. It is the third in a series of exhibitions developed in conjunction with the Migrations Global Grand Challenge, part of Global Cornell, with support from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation’s Just Futures Initiative. Support has also been made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Theory of a Curve does not include plants that are prohibited by the New York Department of Environmental Conservation. A complete list of the plants is available here.
Precious Okoyomon (born 1993) is a Nigerian American poet and artist. Their work considers the natural world, histories of migration and racialization, and the pure pleasures of everyday life. They have had solo exhibitions at the LUMA Westbau in Zurich, Switzerland; the Museum Für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany; Performance Space New York; the Aspen Art Museum in Colorado; and the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Madrid Foundation in Spain. They have been featured in multiple biennials, including the 59th Venice Biennale; the 2022 Okayama Art Summit in Japan, and the 2023 Thailand Biennial in Chiang Rai, Thailand, among others; as well as in multiple group exhibitions, including at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London; the Palais de Tokyo in Paris; the Nigerian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale; and Fondation Beyeler in Basel, Switzerland. Okoyomon’s work is included in the permanent collections of the Museum Für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany, and LUMA Arles, France. In 2021 Okoyomon was the recipient of both the Frieze Art Fair Artist Award and the Chanel Next Art Prize. In 2024, But Did You Die?, their second book of poetry, was copublished by the Serpentine and Wonder Press.
Above: Every Earthly Morning the Sky’s Light Touches Ur Life is Unprecedented in its Beauty (2021), exhibition view at the Aspen Art Museum, Aspen, CO. Courtesy of Precious Okoyomon and the Aspen Art Museum.