FOLAKUNLE OSHUN
Folakunle Oshun is an artist and curator and the founder and director of the Lagos Biennial. The exhibition “Lagos Peckham Repeat: Pilgrimage to the Lakes,” which he curated with the South London Gallery, is on view through October 29.
HOW DOES YOUR WORK AS AN ARTIST INFLUENCE YOUR CURATORIAL WORK AND VICE VERSA?
Sculpture is all about form and its relation to space. As a sculptor, I see the world through that prism, and even when curating, space is just another form—just another shell—with its own context, of course. On the flip side, curating makes me overthink my art, which is both a good and bad thing.
WHAT WAS THE LAST SHOW YOU TRAVELED TO SEE?
Before “Lagos Peckham Repeat,” the last art event I traveled for was Berlin Gallery Weekend in May. There I was taken by the Hiwa K exhibition “Like a Good, Good, Good Boy” at KOW and Rhea Dillon’s “We looked for eyes creased with concern, but saw only veils”atSweetwater Gallery, which was a fantastically curated exhibition.
WHAT EXHIBITION COMING UP ARE YOU MOST EXCITED FOR?
Definitely the fourth edition of the Lagos Biennial, which opens in February 2024. With the theme “Refuge,” it will explore the premise of the nation-state.
TELL US ABOUT THE LAST EXCITING CONVERSATION YOU HAD WITH A FRIEND.
I met someone at a cafe today and we spoke about our experiences as foreigners in Paris. I told her that even though I don’t speak French I often come off as French in my mannerisms. This is quite frustrating because I must be extremely explicit when speaking English to French people, making me feel very German. Most of my communication is nonverbal, so it’s like learning to speak English all over again instead of just learning a new language. We both had a good laugh and continued our French-bashing.
NAME A CRITICAL BOOK OR TEXT THAT CHANGED YOUR LIFE.
Great Artists: From Giotto to Turner (2001) by Phil Grabsky, Tim Marlow, and Philip Rance. I read this book when I was eighteen. I had just dropped out of a university where I had been studying economics and was about to register for art school at the University of Lagos. My brother sent me the book from London without realizing how intense it was for my level of art appreciation at the time. I wouldn’t say it was a critical text in the conventional sense, but it changed my life. I recently read “The Power of the Archive and Its Limits” (2022), by Achille Mbembe. This didn’t change my life but it got me thinking about my work and research, which revolve around postindependence monuments in West Africa.
WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE (NON-ART) PLACE IN LONDON? IN LAGOS?
London: My hotel room. Lagos: Riding through the city on my Vespa.
WHAT IS THE BIGGEST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN PECKHAM AND LAGOS?
Electricity!
I SEE YOU TEACH A COURSE CALLED “SPATIAL POLITICS AND STORY TELLING” AT THE STAATLICHE HOCHSCHULE FÜR GESTALTUNG KARLSRUHE, GERMANY. WHAT IS THE ROLE OF STORYTELLING IN ART?
I think every artist is a storyteller in some form, but we shouldn’t get lost in the poetics of storytelling. For me, it is more about which stories are being told and who is telling them. An African proverb goes, “Until the lion learns to write, the hunter will always be the hero.” When I visited Germany in 2015 it was the first time in my life that I got the feeling that the world began with World War II. This right here is storytelling, the spinning of narratives to push certain agendas—in this case, an endless loop of atonement.
In teaching the course, I use historical, monumental architecture as a grid to navigate the past. The buildings tell their own stories, and confronting them with art can unlock deeper layers. Even though architecture comes with a lot of baggage, you literally have to tear down a building to erase its associated history—and even then, there is no guarantee. That act of tearing down is a story in itself. In sculptural terms, a mold is broken and a space that hitherto was thought of as a vacuum is set free.
WHAT SONG OR ALBUM ARE YOU LISTENING TO ON REPEAT THESE DAYS?
Born to Do It by Craig David (2000). Still sounds like it was produced last week.
IS THERE A CONVERSATION YOU WISH PEOPLE WERE HAVING THAT THEY’RE NOT, ESPECIALLY WITHIN ART INSTITUTIONS OR IN THE ART WORLD MORE BROADLY?
That elephant has left the room. I believe most museums and art institutions in the West are mere outlets for government propaganda. So you get invited to curate an exhibition and the bureaucracy and interactions are identical to applying for a visa. It’s the exact same language, protocol, and cockiness. Once you’ve done this for a while it gets predictable. In a nutshell, no real change is coming out of these mega-institutions, just performativity. It took a while for me to accept that, but I have made my peace. It’s not that one cannot make a difference in these spaces, just that it is all closely monitored, and there is way too much censorship to maintain an association with art.
WHAT ARE YOUR FAVORITE SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS?
Instagram: curators_complaining_2.0. X: @n6oflife6
WHAT BOOK DO YOU KEEP BY YOUR BED?
My Bible. It’s an old, massive King James edition. My father, a pastor and theology professor, gave it to me on my twenty-first birthday. I travel everywhere with it, and it helps keep immigration officers busy.
IF YOU WERE TO HELP BUILD A UTOPIAN SOCIETY, WHAT ONE ASPECT OF THE ART WORLD WOULD YOU BRING WITH YOU?
Red wine at exhibition openings.
WHAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING A CURATOR CAN DO FOR AN ARTIST?
Just tell them the truth. There is no love lost in this business. I’ve been on both sides of the fence and I see too many people who are either disillusioned or believe in their own lies. Many artists think they will make great art, make lots of money, and live an incredible life all at once. These things might come, but definitely not in a rush and usually not simultaneously. Great art comes from sorrow and pain, and life has to be lived one day at a time. If a twenty-one-year-old artist is selling for a million dollars, it’s one of two things: The art is crap or someone in the background is running a racket. Usually, it’s both.
COULD YOU DESCRIBE WHO OR WHAT YOU HAD IN YOUR IMAGINATION WHEN YOU FOUNDED THE LAGOS BIENNIAL?
While preparing for the first edition, I told my team that Lagos does not need a biennial: Lagos is a biennial in real time. The city has way too much energy; we just needed to harness it. And that we did.
