Nigerian, b. 1963; lives and works in London, Great Britain
Oladélé Bamgboyé is concerned with the embodiment of diaspora, drawing upon the history of African studio-portrait photography, in which the studio is the site for staging fantasies of self-expression. Bamgboyé’s Celebrate series (1994) traces his movements as he dances through a luminous white environment streaked with crinkled streamers. The setting, with his multiple and shifting exposures, is indeterminate to the point of illegibility. Contrary to his earlier works, these scenes evoke a joyous ebullience that calls to mind Hélio Oiticica’s Parangolés of the 1960s, in which performers took to the streets dancing, dressed in bands of color. Yet Celebrate remains invested in the questions of Bamgboyé’s earlier works, rooted in the profound challenges that cultural displacement poses to identity.
