Though the show is about the history of light as surveillance, Kiwanga is interested, too, in the ways that people evade being seen. The title “Off-Grid” alludes to this: The term suggests living off the electrical grid, but also, says the artist, becoming invisible or going rogue. The curtain of “Cloak” is semitransparent — it allows vision and blocks it at the same time, and, if people step behind it, functions as a sort of hiding place.
The exhibition also includes a 2019 sculpture titled “Maya-Bantu.” The work, composed of metal rods hung from the ceiling and covered in strands of sisal which bristle and glow in the light, also invokes aspects of a colonial past. The artist first became interested in the material after seeing large-scale plantations in Tanzania. The crop is native to Central America; it was brought to the region by German colonizers, and exploited as an important cash crop. In “Maya-Bantu,” Kiwanga says, sisal is in a not-yet-fixed state: “It’s not a rug or a rope or anything yet, but it’s no longer a plant. It’s just this raw material — a question of possibility.”
The riskiness of Kiwanga’s decision to work only with natural light will become more apparent as daylight wanes, when visitors face darkness in the galleries. For now, says Carol Fassler, a security guard at the New Museum, the darkness is only an issue during the last 45 minutes or so of the museum’s Thursday night viewing time. Visitors are confused at first, Fassler says, but that adds a dimension to the work.
“As it got dark, people started asking questions about why there were no lights, so I got to tell them about the history of the lantern laws,” Fassler said. “It’s as if, as it got darker, the whole thing was shining a light on her ideas.”
Kapwani Kiwanga: Off-Grid
Through Oct. 16, the New Museum, 235 Bowery, Manhattan; 212-219-1222; newmuseum.org.
