OTOBONG NKANGA: CADENCE, A SITE-SPECIFIC COMMISSION

The Monumental Installation Is the Artist’s First Solo Presentation in New York, at The Donald and Catherine Marron Family Atrium

Currently on view at the Museum of Modern Art – MoMA – in New York, is Otobong Nkanga: Cadence, a site-specific exhibition by Nigerian-Belgian artist Otobong Nkanga (b. 1974). The large-scale installation, on view through July 27, 2025, presents an all-encompassing environment of sculpture, sound, and text that addresses the rhythms of both ecological life cycles and social upheaval.

Central to the commission is a monumental tapestry that is suspended along the highest wall of the Atrium. Hanging sculptures composed of dyed ropes, interwoven with hand-blown glass and ceramic forms, are suspended floor-to-ceiling within the space and featured alongside ceramic tablets imprinted with poems written by the artist, and an immersive sound work created by the artist. Otobong Nkanga: Cadence is organized by Michelle Kuo, Chief Curator at Large and Publisher, with Elizabeth Wickham, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture.

The unique, large-scale tapestry features a kaleidoscopic range of natural and synthetic fibers created by the artist with innovative digital weaving techniques at the TextielLab in Tilburg, the Netherlands. The multipaneled tapestry fuses abstract forms with figures that suggest oceanic depths, sprawling ecosystems, and galaxies. A series of veiled images invoking water, shooting stars, bombs in the sky, and plant forms are interwoven throughout the many layers of the tapestry, exploring states of censorship and visibility, and social and ecological turmoil. Raku fired-clay and blown-glass vessels that suggest the rhythmic fall of a drop of water—almost as if captured using time-lapse photography—are suspended on hand-dyed lines of rope and connected to anthracite coal platforms, bringing together elements of water, fire, and industry. The space is filled with an ethereal sound work based on the voice and breathwork of the artist, in which cascading sounds drop from high to low pitch and multiply, producing a polyphony of tones and words and creating a kind of sonic sculpture. These cadences are accompanied by the artist’s poetic texts inscribed in clay sculptures, as well as a live performance taking place in spring 2025 (SOURCE: press.moma.org)

Nkanga works with both improvisation and virtuosic composition, and she has constructed the site-specific installation over several weeks in the Marron Atrium, hand-sculpting and arranging many of the elements in situ.

Otobong Nkanga (b. 1974, Kano, Nigeria) is a visual and performance artist based in Antwerp, Belgium. Nkanga studied at the Obafemi Awolowo University in Ile-Ife, Nigeria; the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, Paris; and DasArts, Amsterdam. She has been artist-in-residence at the Rijksakademie in Amsterdam and DAAD in Berlin. Nkanga has received numerous awards, including the Nasher Prize (2025) and has held solo exhibitions at the most prestigious museum institutions internationally.