Kambui Olujimi (born 1976) is a New York-based visual artist working across disciplines using installation, photography, performance, tapestry, works on paper, video, large sculptures and painting. His artwork reflects on public discourse, mythology, historical narrative, social practices, exchange, mediated cultures, resilience and autonomy.

Early life and education

Olujimi was born and grew up in the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of

Brooklyn Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Kings County is the most populous Administrative divisions of New York (state)#County, county in the State of New York, ...

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the U ...

. In 1996, he attended

Bard College Bard College is a private liberal arts college in Annandale-on-Hudson, New York. The campus overlooks the Hudson River and Catskill Mountains, and is within the Hudson River Historic District—a National Historic Landmark. Founded in 18 ...

. In 2002, he received a BFA from

Parsons School of Design Parsons School of Design, known colloquially as Parsons, is a private art and design college located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhatt ...

. He attended the

Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture The Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture is an artists residency located in Madison, Maine, just outside of Skowhegan. Every year, the program accepts online applications from emerging artists from November through January, and selects 65 t ...

in Maine in 2006. In 2013, Olujimi received an MFA from

Columbia University School of the Arts The Columbia University School of the Arts, (also known as School of the Arts or SoA) is the fine arts graduate school of Columbia University in Morningside Heights, New York. It offers Master of Fine Arts (MFA) degrees in Film, Visual Arts, The ...

Career

Reviews of his work have appeared in publications including ''

Art in America ''Art in America'' is an illustrated monthly, international magazine concentrating on the contemporary art world in the United States, including profiles of artists and genres, updates about art movements, show reviews and event schedules. It ...

'', ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'', ''

The New Yorker ''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issue ...

'', ''

Modern Painters ''Modern Painters'' (1843–1860) is a five-volume work by the Victorian art critic, John Ruskin, begun when he was 24 years old based on material collected in Switzerland in 1842. Ruskin argues that recent painters emerging from the tradition o ...

'', ''

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ x 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

'', ''

Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking ...

'', and ''

The Brooklyn Rail ''The Brooklyn Rail'' is a publication and platform for the arts, culture, humanities, and politics. The ''Rail'' is based out of Brooklyn, New York. It features in-depth critical essays, fiction, poetry, as well as interviews with artists, criti ...

''. Throughout his career he has received numerous grants and fellowships including from A Blade of Grass, the Jerome Foundation, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. He has also collaborated with interdisciplinary artist

Coco Fusco Coco Fusco (born Juliana Emilia Fusco Miyares; June 18, 1960) is a Cuban-American interdisciplinary artist, writer, and curator whose work has been exhibited and published internationally. Fusco's work explores gender, identity, race, and power th ...

. Olujimi's visual work is in the permanent collections of the

Brooklyn Museum of Art The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...

and the

Cleveland Art Museum The Cleveland Museum of Art (CMA) is an art museum in Cleveland, Ohio, located in the Wade Park District, in the University Circle neighborhood on the city's east side. Internationally renowned for its substantial holdings of Asian and Egyp ...

. Olujimi has been connected with the

Catharine Clark Gallery Established in 1991, the Catharine Clark Gallery presents the work of contemporary, living artists using a variety of media. The gallery is located in San Francisco’s Potrero Hill Neighborhood, at 248 Utah Street. The Catharine Clark Gallery is ...

since 2010. He teaches in the Visual Art programs at Columbia University and

Cooper Union The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art (Cooper Union) is a private college at Cooper Square in New York City. Peter Cooper founded the institution in 1859 after learning about the government-supported École Polytechnique in ...

. Olujimi was one of the subjects of the short feature Through a Lens Darkly, concerning the struggle for African American photographers to receive recognition.

Personal life

Some of Olujimi's work is inspired by Bedford-Stuyvesant community leader and activist Catherine Arline, a woman he considered a surrogate mother and referred to as his guardian angel. Olujimi described his series of portraits of Arline as both a "mourning practice" and an experiment in "memory work." Olujimi currently lives and works in Queens, New York.

Honors

Awards

* 2021: Awarded Joan Mitchell Fellowship by the

Joan Mitchell Foundation Joan Mitchell (February 12, 1925 – October 30, 1992) was an American artist who worked primarily in painting and printmaking, and also used pastel and made other works on paper. She was an active participant in the New York School of artis ...

Artist-in-residency

* 2005: BCAT / Rotunda Gallery Multimedia Artist Residency (New York, NY) * 2006:

(Skowhegan, ME) * 2007-2009: Apexart: Outbound Residency to Kellerberin, Australia (Kellerberin, Australia) * 2007-2009: Fine Arts Work Center at Provincetown (Provincetown, MA), 2nd Year Fellow * 2009: Santa Fe Art Institute (Santa Fe, NM) * 2009:

Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts is located in the Old Market Historic District of downtown Omaha, Nebraska, at the corner of 12th Street and Leavenworth Street. In addition to an international artist-in-residence program, Bemis Center hosts te ...

(Omaha, NE) * 2010: Acadia Summer Arts Program, (Mt. Desert, ME) * 2011: The Center for Book Arts (New York, NY) * 2013: Tropical Lab 7 (Singapore) * 2014: Franconia Sculpture Park (Franconia, MN) * 2015: Civitella Ranieri (Umbertide, Italy) * 2015: Meet Factory (Prague, Czech Republic) * 2015: The Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (New York, NY), Process Space Residency * 2015: The Fountainhead Residency (Miami, FL) *2016: Queenspace Residency (Long Island City, NY) * 2017: Robert Rauschenberg Residency (Captiva, FL) *2018: MacDowell Colony (Peterborough, NH) *2019: Black Rock Senegal (Dakar, Senegal)

Exhibitions

Olujimi's work has been exhibited in a number of institutions nationally and internationally: Real Art Ways (Hartford, CT), CUE Arts Foundation (New York, NY), MIT List Visual Arts Center (Cambridge, MA), Apexart (New York, NY), Art in General (Brooklyn, NY), The

Sundance Film Festival The Sundance Film Festival (formerly Utah/US Film Festival, then US Film and Video Festival) is an annual film festival organized by the Sundance Institute. It is the largest independent film festival in the United States, with more than 46,6 ...

(Park City, UT), Smithsonian Institution, (Washington D.C.),

Madison Museum of Contemporary Art The Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA), formerly known as the Madison Art Center, is an independent, non-profit art museum located in downtown Madison, Wisconsin. MMoCA is dedicated to exhibiting, collecting, and preserving modern and co ...

(Madison, WI), Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles (Los Angeles, CA),

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, ...

(New York, NY),

Studio Museum in Harlem The Studio Museum in Harlem is an American art museum devoted to the work of artists of African descent. The museum's galleries are currently closed in preparation for a building project that will replace the current building, located at 144 W ...

(New York, NY) and Yerba Buena Center for the Arts (San Francisco, CA), Museo Nacional Reina Sofia (Madrid, Spain), Kiasma (Helsinki, Finland), Para Site (Hong Kong, China), The Jim Thompson Art Center (Bangkok, Thailand),

Contemporary Arts Museum Houston Contemporary Arts Museum Houston is a not-for-profit institution in the Museum District, Houston, Texas, founded in 1948, dedicated to presenting contemporary art to the public. As a non-collecting museum, it strives to provide a forum for visual ...

(Houston, TX), The Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX), The Newark Museum *(Newark, NJ), the Brooklyn Museum (Brooklyn, NY), and Project for Empty Space, Newark, NJ. He has given artist lectures in many institutions nationally and internationally, including Carleton University, Ottawa, University of Buffalo, Rhode Island School of Design.

Works and publications

* * * * *Olujimi, Kambui. ''Zulu Time;'' essays by Sampada Aranke, Gregory Volk, and Leah Kolb''.'' Madison, WI: Madison Museum of Contemporary Art. 2017. Exhibition Catalogue.

Sources

* Harris, Thomas A, and Kambui Olujimi. Through a Lens Darkly: Philosophy of the Artist. , 2014. Internet resource.

References

External links

*
Kambui Olujimi
at

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Olujimi, Kambui American artists Living people 1976 births People from Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn Columbia University School of the Arts alumni Bard College alumni Parsons College alumni Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture alumni