Grace Nkem : CLOWN WORLD

November 18th - December 18th, 2023

CLOWN WORLD is a solo exhibition featuring 20 works from artist Grace Nkem.

Grace Nkem (b. 1997 Tver, Russia) is a Nigerian-Russian painter from Tver who studied Art History at Columbia University and now lives and works in New York City. In her work she grapples with the ills of social alienation, mass digitization, and globalism— ironically noting that she owes her very existence to the latter of the three.

Nkem’s main goal is to produce artwork that rewards sustained attention as she works through themes that weigh heavily upon the modern psyche: mass hysteria, truth and untruth, racial antagonism, class consciousness, the dissolution of consensus reality, the specter of terrorism, compounding loss of cultural history, rampant wealth inequality, the tyranny of the digital, and a cultural preoccupation with perceived social decay.

“‘Clown world’ is a euphemism that the alt-right throws around a lot online and, as usual, they're falling off track and drawing wrong conclusions. So while it's a pity that a phrase which so aptly describes our consensus reality (or lack thereof) was coined by hiterlian numerologists, I will persist in using it. The Clown World exists, but it is not a tragedy born of racial admixture nor immigration, queer liberation nor abortion access— it is the inevitable result of a hyper-connected world in which the material ramifications of economics have dismantled long-standing systems of meaning and value. 

Clown World is a place where nothing makes sense but everything is related, pie to the face. Clown World is the result of an overstimulated, atrophied collective unconscious that latches on to the absurd— which, as Baudrillard once said of violence, is one of the few things that can still operate in terms of ‘the real.’ Pie to the face.

Thus, this exhibition is a look into a world filled with symbols and void of meaning, a mirror to our own— like an I Spy book, or geopolitics, or a crossword puzzle. It is an attempt to catch a glimpse of our sleep-deprived, sick, and heavily medicated collective cultural imaginary.”

— Grace Nkem