Iké Udé portraits at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale

Iké Udé color-saturated conceptual photography brings a new vitality to contemporary portraiture as it addresses notions of identity, representation and aspects of performance. The innovative work of this Nigerian-born, New York-based artist will be featured at NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale in the exhibition “Iké Udé: Select Portraits,” on view from April 4, 2021 through January 9, 2022.

The exhibition includes self-portraits from the artist’s Sartorial Anarchy series, portraits of key figures from Nigeria’s Nollywood film industry, as well as additional recent portraits of personages drawn from the artist’s circle.

Referencing both the history of classical painting and elements of contemporary culture, the Sartorial Anarchy series features Udé dressed in varied costumes that transcend time and geography. The images explore a range of dualities such as photographer/performance artist, artist/spectator, mainstream/marginal and fashion/art. Conversant in the worlds of fashion and celebrity, Udé melds his own theatrical selves and multiple personas in his art, viewing articles of clothing and adornments as collected markers of varying epochs.

Nollywood

The Nollywood portraits are a visual celebration of African culture and the vibrant contemporary film industry in Nigeria that ranks only second to Hollywood in global prominence. The photographic portraits complement the discourse on the representation of Africans in cinema, from one of colonial domination and demeaning stereotypes to one of intellect and creative agency in telling their stories.

Also on display will be striking new portraits of famed Turkish jeweler Sevan Biçakçi, financier and art patron Lesley Goldwasser, and entrepreneur Benjamin Harris Milstein.

NSU Art Museum recently acquired two photographs by Iké Udé for its permanent collection.

Iké Udé’s work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions and is included in the permanent collections of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., RISD Museum, Providence, RI, and Sheldon Museum, Lincoln, Nebraska. His writings on fashion and art have appeared in many publications worldwide. Udé was the founder and publisher of aRUDE magazine, a quarterly devoted to art, culture, style and fashion, and he is the author of Style File: The World’s Most Elegantly Dressed (Harper Collins). A style icon, he was three times named as one of Vanity Fair’s International Best Dressed Originals.

NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale

Address: One East Las Olas Blvd., Fort Lauderdale, FL 33301

Phone: 954-525-5500

Website: www.nsuartmuseum.org

Social media: @nsuartmuseum.

Founded in 1958, NSU Art Museum Fort Lauderdale is a premier destination for exhibitions and programs encompassing many facets of civilization’s visual history. Located midway between Miami and Palm Beach in downtown Fort Lauderdale’s arts and entertainment district, the Museum’s 83,000 square-foot building, which opened in 1986, was designed by architect Edward Larrabee Barnes and contains over 25,000 square feet of exhibition space, the 256-seat Horvitz auditorium, a museum store and café. In 2008, the Museum became part of Nova Southeastern University (NSU), one of the largest private research universities in the United States.

NSU Art Museum is known for its significant collection of Latin American art, contemporary art with an emphasis on art by Black, Latinx and women artists, African art that spans the 19th to the 21st century, as well as works by American artist William Glackens, and the European Cobra group of artists. Two scholarly research centers complement the collections: The Dr. Stanley and Pearl Goodman Latin American Art Study Center and the William J. Glackens Study Center.