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One of the sculptures inKayode Ojos solo show Equilibrium atMartos Galleryfeatures a male chastity system.
Its not clear after all if this is a ready-made or still life mise-en-scene.
Riding the line between sculpture and photo is not the only point of uncertainty.
Spoiler alert: Taye Diggs is the sidekick who ends up becoming the villain, says Ojo.
Im interested in that character because Im interested in betrayal.
A blazer hangs from alamp.
A dress drapes over a chair poised atop amirror.
A body chain spills out of the crotch of pleather jeans upside down and hooked onto amusic stand.
Everything is made to be photographed, says Ojo.
And in this show, a couple objects find their way into both a sculpture and a photo.
But the artist also explains, Im always shooting photos of the sculptures as Im making them.
When he moved to New York after high school, Ojo wanted to be a fashion photographer.
There was a mall, he says, but if you wanted brands youd have to drive to Nashville.
His family didnt do that.
My parents were immigrants.
They werent huge consumers.
Ojos parents moved from Nigeria for his dad to teach engineering at the university in Cookeville.
There, he grew up around kids who wore hunting camo and brought homemade jerky to school.
But these tools can be slippery, their value unreliable.
The drag extends beyond just cross-dressing.
I abide by all the same rules as someone who is.
How do I express a level of intelligence and wealth?
Is it okay to have money?
Where should it be displayed?
These are things people are worried about, he notes.
But his interrogation of objects and their value has another connotation.
And this not-so-distant history is related to how racism functions today.
Its this thing that can always be in your head.
Every interaction you wonder, Is this fetishization?
In Equilibrium, Ojo includes a video featuring a white Belgian dealer of African objects.
A thumb against teeth.
A hand underneath a cross pendant.
I like how this picture looks like a glasses ad, he says.
Everything they sent me was very 90s and very thrift store, he says.
Fairy-tale Chanel perfume ads shot by Baz Luhrmann or the Chloe Spring 2000 campaign frosted with Y2K glitz.
