Gozié Ojini

The Air We Breath

April 9 - May 14, 2022

In Lieu is pleased to announce The Air We Breath, Gozié Ojini’s first solo exhibition with the gallery. Ojini will exhibit 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 nitrogen gas into the trumpet’s dormant, unpressed valves emitting a prolonged gasp throughout the space. This approximation of “circular breathing,” a technique wherein a musician essentially inhales and exhales simultaneously to sustain a constant flow of air, is limited by the volume and pressure of the tanks. Meanwhile, disparate brass valves, bells, and keys are surgically reattached and devoid of sound entirely. Elevated in their defunctory forms, the sculptures facilitate the reflexive passage of languid atmosphere, challenging viewers to imagine how such instruments might be played. The sculptures in their silence and fragmentation register the quiet determination to be whole.

Written by Reilly Thomson, edited by Gozié Ojini