Chino Amobi at Fitzpatrick Gallery

Artist: Chino Amobi

Exhibition title: Sextant

Venue: Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris, France

Date: April 9 – May 28, 2022

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris

Sextant (/ˈsɛkst(ə)nt/) noun. instrument.
An instrument that measures the distance of stars from a ship, despite the instability of the observer.

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Fitzpatrick Gallery is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of Chino Amobi in Paris.

Born to parents of Nigerian descent in the American south (b.1984, Tuscaloosa, Alabama), Chino Amobi bridges the fields of contemporary art, electronic music, literature, film and fashion with experimental ease. Working across these platforms enhances the richness of each medium; indistinguishable, they dissolve together in unity within the exhibition space.

Amobi’s science fiction narrative, Eroica, a thriller in the Epic tradition, situated between history and myth, unfolds as a cinematic Gesamtkunstwerk within an immersive maximalist stage. Written in the style of a cyberpunk genre, with references to historical nonfiction, folklore, and urban fiction, Eroica opens with a missing person’s report detailing a disappearance under unusual circumstances in New Tibet. In light of the evidence, Amobi’s disappearance is alleged to be a case of onticide — an act of de-subjectification. With sections of the book written entirely in Mandarin, Sanskrit and graphic codes, Amobi situates the reader in a time and place beyond the comfort of an accessible Western vantage point.

The pilot for the first volume of Eroica, directed by Nathan de Paz Habib, introduces the audience to the novel. The opening scene is set in a nondescript basement with an investigator receiving a report for a missing person. Through his investigation, he discovers archives that confirm Amobi’s death from onticide. What follows are a series of flashbacks held within an atmosphere of tension and suspense, revealing the protagonist’s journey.

Drawing from his personal experiences and encounters, Amobi’s phantasmagoric portraits and landscapes dissipate onto his nocturnal canvases, hovering over planes of light, technology, nature and the cosmos. This metamorphosis evolves within a sanctuary where the awakening of new bodily sensations unfolds. Through the myth of Eroica, Amobi reevaluates our ontological relationship with habitable space as a place of cosmogonic immersion; breaking with the subjective isolation of the body and attempting to reconnect to the cosmos through the geography of the intimate.

In the firmament that we observe at night, the stars shine brightly, surrounded by a thick darkness. […] What we perceive as the darkness of the heavens is this light that, though traveling toward us, can not reach us, since the galaxies from which the light originates move away from us at a velocity greater than the speed of light. To perceive, in the darkness of the present, this light that strives to reach us but can not- this is what it means to be contemporary.

— Agamben, G. (2009). What is an apparatus?: And other essays. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press.

Chino Amobi, Sextant, 2022, installation View. Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris. Photo Credit: Romain Darnaud

Chino Amobi, Eroicaverse, 2022, Oil, Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Romain Darnaud

Chino Amobi, Leviathan, 2022, Oil, Acrylic on canvas 243.84 x 152.4 cm, 96 x 60 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Romain Darnaud

Chino Amobi, The Water Sprite, 2022, Oil, Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 100 cm, 47 1/4 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Romain Darnaud

Chino Amobi, Serpentine Vespers, 2022, Oil, Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 100 cm, 47 1/4 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Romain Darnaud

Chino Amobi, PARIS XI, 2022, Oil, Acrylic on canvas 152 x 243 cm, 59 7/8 x 95 5/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, I8I (EROICA SEXTANT), 2022, Oil, Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150 cm, 59 1/8 x 59 1/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, Æ, 2021, oil, acrylic on canvas 100 x 100 cm, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, ORACLE I (LIZ JOHNSON ARTUR), 2021, Oil Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, ORACLE II (MALIBU), 2021, Oil acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, ORACLE III (CRYSTALMESS), 2022 Oil Acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mol

Chino Amobi, NEW TIBET, 2022, Oil acrylic on canvas, 76 x 70 cm, 29 7/8 x 27 1/2 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, ONTICIDE (FOR BAUDELAIRE), 2022, oil, acrylic on canvas, 60 x 60 cm, 23 5/8 x 23 5/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, X1 , 2022, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 100 x 100 cm, 39 3/8 x 39 3/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, I.M. PEI, 2022, Oil and acrylic on canvas 101 x 70 cm, 39 3/4 x 27 1/2 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mol

Chino Amobi, PARIS V, 2022, Oil and acrylic on canvas 80 x 60 cm, 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mo

Chino Amobi, ORACLE VI (GRACE WALES BONNER), 2021, Oil and acrylic on canvas, 80 x 60 cm, 31 1/2 x 23 5/8 in, Courtesy of the artist and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit: Aurélien Mole

Chino Amobi, Oracle, 2022, Printed jersey, Image: Marc Asekhame, Makeup: Sasha Gymm, Hair: Yann Turchi

Chino Amobi, Alchemist, 2022, Printed crushed velvet, silk lining, Mother of pearl buttons Coat & Scarf, Courtesy of the artist, Karolina Widecka and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris Photo Credit, Image: Marc Asekhame, Makeup: Sasha Gymm, Hair: Yann Turchi

Chino Amobi, Eroica Onticide I, 2022, Audio & Video looped, 9:22 min, Courtesy of the artist, Nathan de Paz Habib, Basement HQ and Fitzpatrick Gallery, Paris