Wangechi Mutu: Between the Earth and the Sky | Art21 "Extended Play"

(water running)

I soak all the wood.
I actually clean it all.

Just so it's as smooth

and usable as possible, you know?

It's got a little baby slug in it, see?

I think I've always been
a city girl with a nature brain.

I've always loved animals,
and plants, and insects.

[Wangechi Mutu: Between the Earth and the Sky]

(light violin music)

Nature has entered my work,

where I've been able to integrate

my love and interest for
how little organisms behave

into these larger themes.

I want to make work
that sits within nature,

sits under the sky, and the sun,
and the rain, and the wind.

--All cleaned up.

(violin music continues)

[Wangechi Mutu Studio, Nairobi, Kenya]

(clanking)

(mechanical whirring)

(clanking)

I have a bird on top of
the head of this sentinel.

--Yeah.

(man murmurs inaudibly)

--I've put nails in,

--but then I had to tape it
because actually

--some of them are pretty short.

--I'm wondering if you can epoxy these in,

--and then what I'll do is I'll fill in.

--This is actually fine.

(mechanical whirring, drill like sound)

I'm generally a multitasking being.

That's how I've always done things.

There's always been a little bit of this,

a little bit of that,
a little bit of this,

everywhere there's something going on.

(light piano music)

When I'm sculpting or when I'm painting,

there's always something that's damp.

So drying is a big part of the work.

I have to sort of time
all of those things.

Sometimes a three-dimensional piece

will completely influence

how I end up working on
a two-dimensional piece.

There's a lot of osmosis
and learning from my work.

(tapping)

(light piano music continues)

(birds chirp)

My earliest childhood memories
are in this one particular

area that we lived in called Woodley.

Lived in a little bungalow.

So you have one floor,

have a garden around.

I remember playing in the garden.

I remember the dry grass.

We did a lot of
playing with our toys

in sections of the garden
that we weren't supposed to.

We got very dirty in the garden.

It was a bit of a wild space.

Those memories have made
an impact on how I work.

(birds chirping)

I went to a Catholic school,
and we were all girls.

I was surrounded by women,

women teachers,

women students,

the Virgin Mary,

all kinds of feminine energy.

And because I think of it as
such a massively universal

part of humanity,

I'm able to keep pulling from it.

It's an eternal source
of inspiration for me.

(light violin music)

["The NewOnes, will free Us" (2019),
The Metropolitan Museum of Art]

The way we worship the image of the woman

but denigrate the actual
human being of woman,

that schism bothers me,

and it's obviously something
that has plagued us

for a long, long time.

So that's what I'm looking for.

(violin music continues,
and a harp plays too)

["Sentinels"]

The "Sentinels" are this regal figure,

who is standing,

representing a female

divine, feminine form.

I want to make sure that
she is absolutely stable,

that she is able to stand.

I realized they look like these soldiers,

like they were guarding me, or us--

guarding language,

guarding the earth that they're made from.

So I call them "Sentinels."

Growing up in Kenya, during
the seventies and eighties,

you're learning British
geography, European history,

we had not touched on African literature.

We hadn't even looked at our own histories

and our own heritage and culture,

because a lot of Kenyans
are so Christianized.

There isn't one particular
way of seeing things.

And in fact,

when there is a singular
voice or singular story,

it tends to be domineering,

problematic, and often fictional.

You know,

there's no way that can be one way to tell

the whole story.

I wanted to be able to say

"These are the places I come from,"

"these are the people we come from."

So I decided to apply to art school.

I had to aim for the moon,

so I applied to schools in New York.

(quick tempo music)

Collage, first and foremost,
was the most accessible

and impactful way for me to work.

All the tools and supplies
that I was afforded

by being in a big fancy
university were gone.

I was deeply invested in
becoming a serious artist,

but I didn't have the means,

so I started painting with watercolors.

Working with really, really
wet and fluid materials,

there's always a surprise.

(quick tempo music continues)

But I also realized that
there was this added tension

that I was looking for.

I would mix things from
a wildlife magazine,

or some fashion magazine,
or vintage illustration.

I would mix that with my watercolors,

and I loved the fact that I had grafted
and brought them together,

and now you had to read
it for what it was.

(piano music)

The collages developed and grew larger.

And I think at that point,

I was really thinking about
the history of photography,

and how photography and
colonization grew in impact

in a very similar way--

and how we photographed the "other."

The "other" was photographed,
and packaged, and consumed.

Seeing yourself represented that way

impacted you as a colonized "other,"

and how your image essentially
became who you were.

(violin music)

The currency that
photography has afforded me

is extremely important.

I don't think it's something
I've been able to articulate,

but it's always paintings
that have photography

dancing behind them.

(violin music continues)

Combining humans and animals,

it's as old as the human mind.

(different strings music)

"Crocodylus" was this hybrid

between a woman and a powerful animal.

[Gladstone Gallery, New York City]

We've always admired certain
creatures for their elegance

and their enormous strength.

One of the first things that we ever did

is look at some creature and go,
"Oh my gosh,"

"I wish that had that speed,
or that power,"

"or the stealth, or the courage."

(different string music continues)

"MamaRay" is a woman who is a veil,

an ocean herself,

a shield,

and a ray.

I was very interested
in the marks

that draw us to look at something.

Texture produces shadow, and
tone, and light, and rhythm,

and provokes us to look
longer at something.

All my foundational teaching
and work was in New York.

Once I began exhibiting, my base was there

so it made sense to be there.

But then for the longest time,

I wasn't able to travel
back and forth

between Nairobi and New York.

And for those years,

I struggled with
my perception of home.

(soft music)

I realized, "Okay,"

"this is the secret to a certain way"

"that I've been trying to work and think,"

which is to be able to compare

and look at myself

from one place

where this as a backdrop from the other,

with that as a backdrop,

and then combine that understanding.

(soft music continues)

(birds chirping)

(machine whirring)

The soil has become important
for me in this Nairobi studio,

because I actually identify with the soil.

It's the soil that
I remember from my childhood--

the color of the soil,

the feeling of the soil, the texture,

the way it behaves when
it's dry, when it's wet,

when it rains.

In New York, I don't feel that
same sense of identification

with the soil there.

I don't trust the soil;

I always think that there's
other things going on

in the soil that I haven't put in

and weren't put in there in
the first place by nature.

So there's this distance
between me and the ground.

Whereas here, I tend to
immediately want to capture

the essence of the soil,
the malleability, the color,

the crispiness, the granular aspects.

All of those things are
important for me in the work.

I truly believe that
there's something about

taking these bits and
pieces of trees and animals

and completely anonymous,

but extremely identifiable items,

and placing them somewhere
that draws their energy.

Whatever they were coming from,

whatever they did,

whatever molten lava they came
out of a million years ago,

that is now in my work.

And that little piece
of energy is magnified.

(soft music continues)

I'm trying to just push up
the volume on how incredibly

important every single plant
and animal and human is

in keeping us all alive and afloat.

That's how I look at things
when I'm in the studio.

When I feel like I'm really
having fun and playing,

there's fear in it.

The suspicion of things being found,

all of that,

when that enters into the work,

that's when I'm in my absolute mode.

(music builds)