Exhibition View with Enuma Okoro

Meet writer and critic Enuma Okoro for an intimate curatorial walkthrough of 'The Flesh of the Earth' just for Art History, Fine Arts and Writing students.

This event is free, however, due to limited capacity, reservations are required. Please be advised that photographs will be taken at this event for use on the Hauser & Wirth website, social media and in other marketing materials.

About the exhibition

‘The Flesh of the Earth’ features work by artists Olafur Eliasson, Adama Delphine Fawundu, Jenny Holzer, Rashid Johnson, Haley Mellin, Cassi Namoda, Lorna Simpson, Kiki Smith, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum and Billie Zangewa.

The exhibition, in the words of Okoro, 'encourages us all to consider ways of decentering ourselves from the prevalent anthropocentric narrative, to reimagine a more intimate relationship with the earth and to renew our connection with the life-force energy that surges through all of creation, both human and more-than-human. Our human bodies—one of a diversity of created bodies of the natural world—are the primary language with which we dialogue with the earth. By acknowledging that these varied bodies are always in relationship we reawaken our awareness of the quality of those relationships, considering where we may falter or harm, and also deepen our appreciation and recognition of our interdependence with the more-than-human world.'

About the curator

Enuma Okoro is a Nigerian-American author, journalist, theologian, lecturer, and arts and culture critic. She is a weekly columnist for the Financial Times newspaper. Her weekend column, ‘The Art of Life,’ reflects her broader research and writing interests: how the intersection of art, philosophy, spirituality, ecology and culture can speak to the human condition and interrogate how we live. Underlying this interrogation is a deeper interest in knowledge systems, from ethno-epistemology to (black feminist, BIPOC, diasporan) critical theory, and the power of narrative and story. She writes, lectures, curates and hosts public conversations with the grounding premise that stories, through their varying mediums, are how we challenge old or false narratives, free our imaginations and tell new and expanded truths that shift perceptions and instigate change. And she believes that stories are everywhere. Even the trees and the rivers and the animals hold them.

Image above: Adama Delphine Fawundu, 'Ngewo Whispers', 2023, Archival pigment on aluminum, 182.9 x 121.9 cm / 72 x 48 in, © Adama Delphine Fawundu. Courtesy the artist and Hesse Flatow, New York

Image below: Olafur Eliasson, 'Now, here, nowhere', 2023, Colored glacier-rock-flour glass (dark green), colored glass (yellow, light green, spherical red fade, blue), gold, driftwood, 106.5 x 231 x 13 cm / 41 7/8 x 91 x 5 1/8 in, © Olafur Eliasson. Courtesy the artist and Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York and Los Angeles