Merging themes of Interstellair Reizen and Cultural Convergencies, Bag Ové Creates large-scale sculptures and multimedia installations that explore African descent, traditions and history. The practice of the British-Trinidadian artist is deeply rooted in the stories of the African diaspora, focused on traditions of Maskerade. He dives into his role in performance and ceremony, as well as masks as powerful instruments for self -emancipation and cultural resistance.
Ové’s interdisciplinary work includes sculpture, painting, film and photography, exploring connections between mythology, oral history and speculative futures. “His sculptures often contain symbols, iconography and materials from African, Caribbean and diasosporical traditions, so that they are merged with modern aesthetics to celebrate the continuity and adaptability of culture,” says his studio.
Ové often delves into the relationship between contemporary lived experiences and the spirit world, such as in “Moko Jumbie” or a glass mosaic installation in London entitled “Jumbie Jubilation”. In these works, the artist brings an ancestral spirit rooted in African and Caribbean folklore that is known as a Jumbie to life as a spectral dancer, dressed in banana leaves with a hull of a golden, radiant face.
The motif of Rockets has emerged in the recent installations of OVE, such as “The Mothership Connection” and “Black Starliner”, with totem-like piles of African tribal masks and scheduled Veve-symbols designs Intricated in the Vodou-Religie to represent spiritual gods that are known as Lwa.
“The Mothership Connection” combines architectural elements that refer to the Capitol building in Washington, DC and a ring from Cadillac lights that nod to Detroit, “Motor City.” The crown element is a gigantic Mende Tribal mask that glows when the 26-foot long sculpture is illuminated at night, with a pulsating rhythm that suggests for a heartbeat.
The title is also a reference to the iconic album from 1975 of the parliament-funkadelic, Mother’s connectionIn Met Space is a continuous line in the celebration of the group about what BBC journalist Phrasier mcalpine described as a response to the declining optimism of the era after the civil rights. Mother’s connection Always at a time when “flamboyant imagination (and let’s be honest, exceptional funkiness) was both just and joyful,” he wrote.
Ové reflects this exuberance through vibrant colors, repetition and monumental scale. Library Street Collective, which exhibited “The Mothership Connection” on the site of The shepherd At the end of last year in Detroit” Describes the work as a nod “to a future in which black people are admitted to all possible frames of reference.”
In een monumentale assemblage van Afrikaanse gemaskerde figuren getiteld ‘The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness’, Ové bedacht van 40 grafietsculpturen georganiseerd in een militaristisch rooster, elk zes en een halve voet lang, die zijn marcheren over het terrein van Somerset House, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, San Francisco City Hall, en Los Angeles County Museum from art.
The title of this piece refers to two groundbreaking works in Black History – Ralph Ellison’s novel from 1952 Invisible manThat was the first novel by a black author with the National Book Award, and Ben Jonson’s 1605 Play The mask of blackness, Remarkable because it was the first time that Blackface Makeup was used in a stage production.
Ové recovers and reformulates dominant stories about African history, culture and the diaspora, where the past is questioned to state what he calls ‘potential future’, where possibilities change in realities. “By combining ancestral wisdom with Afrofuturistic ideals, Ové ensures that the voices of the past remain an integral part for shaping the future that we have in mind,” says his studio.
“The Mothership Connection” will be exhibited later this summer and autumn on 14th Street Square in the Meatpacking District in New York City, accompanied by a gallery show on Chelsea Market. Dates are currently confirmed and you can follow updates on OVés Instagram.
