Njideka Akunyili Crosby Layers Up at David Zwirner L.A.

Histories, mass media, and personal lives pile up in the works of Nigerian-born, Los Angeles-based artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby.

Her first solo exhibition with David Zwirner, Coming Back to See Through, Again inaugurates the gallery’s new space at 616 North Western Avenue in L.A. from 23 May to 29 July 2023.

In her practice, Akunyili Crosby combines depictions of people and scenes from her life, rendered in acrylic paint, pastels, and coloured pencil, with transfers made from her photo albums and Nigerian magazines and newspapers. It’s a technique that takes account of the social and political complexities that intrude on our lives, for better or worse.

Further depth can be gleaned through doors and windows, on screens, and in posters. In Still You Bloom in This Land of No Gardens (2021), for example, a portrait of the artist and her child leaves space for an open door through which we can see a photo of Akunyili Crosby’s mother enshrined on the fridge.

The exhibition includes two new works from the artist’s series of portraits of children, ‘The Beautyful Ones’ (2012–ongoing). The series takes its name from the debut novel by Ghanaian writer Ayi Kwei Armah, which weighs hope for future generations against systemic corruption that stymies progress.

In the mid-2010s, Njideka Akunyili Crosby sold works for U.S. $3,000 a pop. Her highest price at auction, realised at Christie’s New York 21st Century Evening Sale in 2022, is over $4.7 million. Akunyili Crosby received the ‘Genius’ Fellowship from the MacArthur Foundation in 2017.

Main image: Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Still You Bloom in This Land of No Gardens (2021) (detail). Acrylic, coloured pencil, collage, and transfers on paper. 243.5 x 274.3 cm. © Njideka Akunyili Crosby. Courtesy the artist, Victoria Miro, London and David Zwirner, Los Angeles. Photo: Fredrik Nilsen.