Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972). Once upon a time she said, I’m not afraid and her enemies began to fear her The End, 2013. Mixed media, dimensions variable. Courtesy of the artist. © Wangechi Mutu. Image courtesy of the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. (Photo: Peter Paul Geoffrion)
There is something misguided about Once upon a time she said, I’m not afraid and her enemies became afraid of her The End (2013), the first piece viewers encounter upon entering “Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey” now at the Brooklyn Museum, and it’s not the verbose title. It’s the work itself: a wall-sized diorama that combines ancient myth and post-apocalyptic spectacle, high-flown allusions and discount materials, image-mongering and set-design. The depicted scene—a centaur-like creature fleeing a squadron of pelt-covered robotic insects—is rendered all but negligible by an array of competing, ungainly, and ill-conceived materials; these include strapping tape, moving pads, faux snakeskin, wood veneer, animal fur, snippets from magazines, and paint. Once upon a time is shockingly literal in its construction. Talk about inertia: None of the materials are in the least animated. This is an opening gambit for a museum exhibition? You’d never know that the Nairobi-born, U.S.–educated, and Brooklyn-based Mutu is an artist of finely tuned precision.
Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972). Riding Death in My Sleep, 2002. Ink, collage on paper, 60 x 44 inches (152.4 x 111.76 cm). Collection of Peter Norton, New York. © Wangechi Mutu