Toyin Ojih Odutola: U22 Adijatu Straße

Stand-out star of the Venice Biennale's Nigerian Pavilion, Toyin Ojih Odutola's narrative portraiture considers the politics of skin and storytelling

Nigerian artist Toyin Ojih Odutola (born 1985) transformed the prestigious Hamburger Bahnhof's east cabinet into "Adijatu Straße," a station on the fictional U22 underground U-Bahn line, represented on paper in this catalog. Challenging viewers with questions of power, colonial history and perceptions of African culture, the drawings in this book examine the interplay of movement, history and self-presentation. Her narrative portraits trace the lives of various characters and incorporate everyday or monumental settings, often interwoven with architectural details. Shaped by the artist's upbringing as a West African woman in the Southern United States, now working in New York, Ojih Odutola's work examines social and political dynamics through the vehicle of skin, the fluidity of expression, and the meaning of darkness and light. This exhibition shows 25 of Ojih Odutola's works drawn on paper, board and linen.