Monty Hall
Anthony Akinbola
April 6-May 5, 2024
IN THE MOBILE ART GALLERY AT RANDALL RECREATION CENTER
South Capitol & I Streets, SW, across from the Rubell Museum, DC.
HOURS: WED-SUN 11 AM - 5 PM, CLOSED 1:30 - 2 PM FOR LUNCH.
CulturalDC always strives for accessible programs. Our Mobile Arts model allows us to access populations across the District and beyond. Due to some challenges at this location, please email us before arrival for mobility accommodations.
Conversation with Murjoni Merriweather, Anthony Akinbola, and Phillip Collins - April 25, 2024 - RSVP
Monty Hall is an interactive art piece that invites the public to take their shot at "chance" with the opportunity of selecting from an array of lockers that may or may not hide a treasure inside.
Presented by CulturalDC, Anthony Akinbola’s exhibition features a bank of lockers, each containing a totemic object. Visitors are given a single chance to pick a locker containing a token the artist has placed inside. The artist will replenish the lockers periodically throughout the exhibition.
The presentation tackles the fetishization of objects within ritualistic systems: Akinbola’s stated aim is to “liberate these objects from the narratives that oppress them. I see the show as offering deliverance from ideologies: religion, capitalism, and even art itself.”
Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola is a first-generation Nigerian-American raised between Missouri and Nigeria and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Foregoing conventional approaches to painting and sculpture, Akinbola reimagines identity construction through startling original treatments of color and texture. His self-developed techniques explore the possibilities of totemic materials such as palm oil, hair brushes, and durags—fiber scarves used to maintain Black hair.
Characterizing his works as “metaphors for what a first-generation existence might look like,” Akinbola unpacks the rituals and histories separating Africa from Black America. His multifaceted compositions celebrate and reconcile diverse cultural narratives, creating multilayered works of art that engage consumption, respectability, and the commodification of Black culture. •
COURTESY THE ARTIST AND SEAN KELLY
Anthony Akinbola
Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola (b. 1991, Columbia, Missouri) is a first-generation Nigerian-American raised between Missouri and Nigeria, and currently based in Brooklyn, New York. Foregoing conventional approaches to painting and sculpture, Akinbola reimagines identity construction through startling original treatments of color and texture.
Akinbola self-developed techniques explore the possibilities of totemic materials such as palm oil, hair brushes, and durags—fiber scarves used in maintaining Black hair. He has characterized his works as “metaphors for what a first-generation existence might look like,” and unpacks the rituals and histories separating Africa from Black America in an attempt to mitigate that separation. His multifaceted compositions celebrate and reconcile diverse cultural narratives, creating multilayered artworks engaging consumption, respectability, and the commodification of Black culture.