Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, December 20, 2024: Kayode Ojo, an emerging American photographer, installation artist (#2182)

Friday, December 20, 2024

Artist of the Day, December 20, 2024: Kayode Ojo, an emerging American photographer, installation artist (#2182)

Twenty eighteen was a breakout year for artist Kayode Ojo, (1990) who had solo shows in Paris, Berlin, New York and Dallas. The son of Nigerian immigrants, he grew up in Tennessee and studied photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York.

Along with photos, he creates installations inspired by film and theater, like a piece in his Paris show called “A Straight Razor in the First Act.” A clock and a straight razor sit on a chrome and marble table, referencing a tradition in theater where a gun seen in the first act goes off in the third.

Ojo’s sculptural installations transform aspirational clothing and furniture into uncanny scenes. Wigs pour from champagne bottles. Pants hang upside down from a music stand, the crotch spilling glittering jewelry onto a mirror on the floor. Shiny surfaces are used to distract attention from the fact that these precariously assembled objects are all fakes — fast fashion and design knockoffs made to look glam. This past April, Manhattan-based Ojo mounted a solo show in Milan during Design Week, which came right on the heels of exhibitions in Dallas, Paris, Berlin, and New York. In the wake of this breakout run, PIN–UP paired the 29-year-old with one of his fans, architect and designer Rafael de Cárdenas, to discuss luxury, success, discomfort, and object-driven storytelling.

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