Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey

This essay is a slightly modified excerpt of the introduction to Trevor Schoonmaker, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey (Durham, NC: Nasher Museum of Art, Duke University, 2013), a catalogue published on the occasion of the exhibition of the same name. The exhibition is Mutu’s first survey in the United States, the most comprehensive and innovative show yet for this internationally renowned, multidisciplinary artist. Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey presented more than fifty works from the mid-1990s to the present, including collage, drawing, sculpture, installation, and video. The exhibition featured many of the artist’s most iconic collages drawn from major international collections; rarely seen early works, and new creations. The exhibition also unveiled the artist’s sketchbooks of intimate drawings that reveal her creative process and inspirations, on public view for the first time. Other highlights included Mutu’s first-ever animated video, created in collaboration with Santigold, commissioned by the Nasher Museum. The Nasher Museum was the first venue for the touring exhibition, which was on view there from March 21 through July 21, 2013. It traveled to the Brooklyn Museum, where it was on view through March 9, 2014, and continued to the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, in April 2014 and the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois in September 2014.