Gozié Ojini

In Lieu is pleased to present The Air We Breath, Gozié Ojini’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Ojini exhibits an installation of drawings and activated sculpture.

In the work titled Giant Steps, Ojini simulates the traditions of empirical line-work across a variety of circumstances. A pair of ambiguous anatomical diagrams backdrop a collage of transparencies and cyanotypes: a diagram models industrial fertilization; mylar maps superimpose western conventions of categorized space onto the depicted bodies; a Middle Passage ledger lists measurements, tattoo descriptions, serial numbers, and misspelled names, all of which are transcribed in a tightly bound cursive illegible, and language inaccessible, to the identities implicated/obliterated. The discourse of overlapping mediums collectively create a collapsed network of intersections, french curves, and right angles tracing a lineage of dehumanization.

Outsourcing organic breath, pressurized canisters bleed air gas into the trumpet’s dormant, unpressed valves emitting a prolonged gasp throughout the space. “Circular breathing,” a technique wherein a musician essentially inhales and exhales simultaneously to sustain a constant flow of air, is approximated and limited by the volume and pressure of the tanks. Meanwhile, disparate brass instrumental pieces are surgically reattached and devoid of sound entirely. Elevated in their fragmented and defunctory forms, the sculptures facilitate the reflexive passage of languid atmosphere and challenge viewers to imagine how they might play such instruments. The sculptures in their silence and fragmentation register a sense of refusal twofold: a refusal to exist for the convenience of others, and the refusal to articulate this existence.