Tour Artist Chris Ofili's 20-Year Retrospective at the New Museum

Chris Ofili, Afronirvana, 2002. Oil, acrylic, polyester resin, aluminum foil, glitter, map pins, and elephant dung on canvas,108 x 144 in (274.3 x 365.7 cm). Courtesy of the artist, David Zwirner, New York/London, and Victoria Miro, London. ©Chris Ofili 

Upon their exit from the brightly-lit freight elevator, visitors to the New Museum are greeted by a wall of watercolor portraiture from Chris Ofili’s Afromuses collection. These 26 diptychs that comprise Ofili's partial recreation of his 2005 exhibit at the Studio Museum in Harlem are a subtle introduction to the chaotic retrospective that sprawls through the museum’s three main galleries.

Opened yesterday, Night and Day is Ofili’s first major solo museum exhibition in the United States, his first in New York in almost 10 years. The immense show covers the past two decades of the contemporary artist’s career, showcasing his diverse and vibrant paintings, drawings, and sculptures. It is “a series of environments […] in which [Ofili’s] work is not only to be looked at, but to be very much experienced,” explains Massimiliano Gioni, artistic director and curator of the retrospective.

Just past the contorted, mixed-metal body of Ofili’s visceral Saint Sebastian statue, the whitewashed, bare walls and grey, concrete floors of the the main hall of the second floor gallery provide a minimal backdrop for Ofili’s early work. These are Ofili’s “hip-hop” paintings, the pieces that dazzle with playful colors, swirls of glitter, and of course, chunks of the artist’s favored and highly controversial medium: elephant dung. Saturated with musical, religious, and historical references—and highly reflective of the artist’s keen cultural awareness—each piece is supported at its base by two decoratively titled and glazed balls of dung.

At the far end of the room leans perhaps the most infamous piece in the retrospective: The Holy Virgin Mary. When the piece first debuted in 1999, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani described it as “sick” and attempted to sue the Brooklyn Museum. Not only is it a reminder of the iconography's ability to provoke outrage as well as delight, but The Holy Virgin Mary’s return is an optimistic and hopeful gesture that in just 15 years, New York has learned to appreciate the celebratory spirit of Ofili’s unconventional representations.

On the path back to the elevator, the artist’s boldly contrasting Annunciation sculpture sears its image into viewers' minds: cast in bronze, the smoothly shining body of a shapely woman blends into the jagged, darkened wings and claws of a vulture-like black angel. The Blue Rider gallery that follows continues to awe by delivering a blunt shock to the senses. Blinking in the sudden, dim light of the space, visitors are temporarily disoriented by a seemingly total silence. Unlike in the lower rooms, the concrete floor of this room has been padded with a cushioned carpet, the walls painted a twilight grey, and the lights lowered to near darkness. Out of the gloom, Ofili’s work slowly reveals itself in metallic shades of cobalt, black, and indigo.

In order to take full advantage of Night and Day’s less obvious subjects, visitors should avoid the elevator in their transition from Ofili’s Blue Rider artworks to the show's final room. In the exposed stairwell between the third and fourth floor, two more of the artist’s statues are displayed. Entitled Shithead, one of these two sculptures is composed of a shocking range of elements including human teeth, elephant dung, and the artist’s own hair.

The final installment of Night and Day contains Ofili's work from 2007 to the present, and is a sensual culmination of the artist’s sweeping trajectory. As in each of the previous galleries, this room sets the tone for the art it holds; a floral wash of violet and lavender offset the bold, carnivalistic paints and visuals of seven colossal linen paintings. The artist’s three most recent works, unconcerned with restrictive style or unified design, are, as Gioni remarked, some of the artist's most surprising and beautiful to date. Calling upon the mythology of Ovid’s Metamorphoses and the exotic seduction of Ofili’s adopted home of Trinidad, the work is nothing short of an overwhelming visual celebration. It is a finale, in short, that defies description and demands attendance.

View Night and Day, Ofili's 20-year body of work, at the New Museum through January 25th, 2015.

Related:

Painting The Internet: Jeanette Hayes' Art For The Digital Age

Watercolor Pixel Art Portraits Remix Pop Culture & Classic Paintings

Three Amazing Young Artists Made A Baroque Surrealist Masterpiece Of A Video