Interview: David Alekhuogie “Naïveté”

Ancestral Figures "A Reprise", 2020 @ David Alekhuogie, Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery

Interview by Lara Southern

Copy Editor: George Russell

LARA SOUTHERN: What inspired the body of work you created for Naïveté?

DAVID ALEKHUOGIE: I had just come back from Nigeria when Covid hit and was really interested in African sculpture and textiles. I began by thinking about the ways that hybridities play themselves out in the American version of Pan-Africanism.

In the same way that we consume hip-hop music, there's a kind of creditization in how we deal with African-American culture and place value on it through its “authenticity.” After rereading all of the post-colonial theory that I studied in school, I thought about how it related to my own experience and the misunderstanding of how appropriation works. I like to think that this “re-collage” aesthetic that runs through a lot of black art has to do with the idea that culture is not static. We have this concept of language—it's how people communicate, but it’s also how people assign class or social capital. A person listening to you talk is also thinking about how that relates to your class—that is an active part of how we think about points of view or voice.

Pure Life, 2021 @ David Alekhuogie, Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery

LARA: Talk about your exploration of portrait photography in this exhibition.

DAVID: I think that everybody wants to be seen, but there is this issue of surveillance. I think that the primary concern of an art photographer is to make interesting photographs. And I get that 100%, but at the same time, we as a community don't deal with the conflicts of the agency of people [we photograph] because our primary concern is to make art.

We forget about the fact that there's a conversation being had with the viewer, as well as the photographer and the person being photographed. The viewer gets this opportunity to look at this person. Meanwhile, the subject doesn't have any agency. There's a new generation of portrait photographers—Elle Pérez, for example—that really do a good job of addressing these kinds of nuanced concerns. I didn't want to give the viewer the opportunity to convince themselves they were humanizing a portrait subject. It’s something I teach in my photography course—it’s one part media literacy, one part the practical mechanics of making pictures.

florence and normandie chevron 33.9745° N, 118. 3006° W, 2018 @ David Alekhuogie, Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery

LARA: Speaking of the mechanics, with To Live and Die in LA you really focus on capturing the city’s light. Do you approach a project with a more technical or narrative goal in mind?

DAVID: Oftentimes it's simultaneous. It's hardly ever led by one or the other. I feel like with that body of work specifically, it was both. I was thinking about new topographics and reading a lot of Robert Adams, on why people photograph. I really jive with that kind of sensitivity to light and that kind of motivates the photograph. I wanted to think about the light itself as something that I could deal with.

post colonial bush breakfast “no wahala”, 2021 @ David Alekhuogie, Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery

LARA: You’ve spoken about the vulnerabilities that both landscapes and bodies have.

DAVID: I consider myself a landscape photographer—playing with the idea that a body can be spatial—as either occupied or not. It’s interesting to think about from both a practical and political perspective—you see it in the expression, in the fashion, in the ego. When you think about Black masculinity in the context of race relations in America, or in the UK—I think it is the most fluid and fragile because of this idea of being occupied, or of being mediated by all of these different agendas.

WE 107/2 "A Reprise", 2021 @ David Alekhuogie, Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery

LARA: Do you envision a time where the concept of Black joy will be free from an underlying level of trauma?

DAVID: I've been thinking about this a lot [in reference to ideas around “black music”]…there’s this kind of shared experience of politicization [between] the States, the UK, and Nigeria. It isn’t the same as super traditional African music, which is more regal and structured, and it doesn't have the qualities of being informed by the blues. It's an expression of black joy, that’s rooted in trauma. I think that is what makes music great. You can't really say the same thing about photography, quite yet. The first photographic work that I saw that rethought the aesthetic in a way, tackling the same things that black music addressed, was Roy DeCarava's. Okwui Enwezor’s show Grief and Grievance at The New Museum is also the first that really gets to the bottom of what the blues aesthetic really is.

For whatever reason, there's not a lot of people who really have been able to successfully push up against those boundaries. You're starting to see it in film, like in the Barry Jenkins film, Moonlight, and occasionally in photographic portraiture where the voice is so explicitly Black. But I think that requires a kind of deconstruction of influence.

Portrait for George 2, 2020 @ David Alekhuogie, Courtesy Yancey Richardson Gallery

LARA: Your work has been influenced by multiple mediums—do you imagine yourself exploring other kinds of artistic forms?

DAVID: I love photography. I don't get why it’s so rigid in terms of its history—all you need is storytelling access. But for whatever reason, there's not a lot of people who really have been able to successfully push up against those boundaries. You're starting to see it in film, like in the Barry Jenkins film, Moonlight, and occasionally in photographic portraiture where the voice is so explicitly black. But I think that requires this kind of deconstruction of influence.

LARA: Do you struggle commenting on an industry with your art that you're now a celebrated part of?

DAVID: I have an underdog complex that definitely affects how I deal with the world. I rarely post on social media and hate the way that you can be paraded around as an artist. I'm trying to build a rapport with my students because they're interested in this idea of social capital. I've always felt as though the work itself has to be a primary concern—but I know that part of getting what you’re worth is how you navigate the clout chase. If the culture is the commodity, then, from my perspective, it doesn't make sense to just spread it freely as this public thing to be consumed at will.

David Alekhuogie’s Naïveté is on view at Yancey Richardson Gallery through April 10th