Frida Orupabo: On Lies, Secrets and Silence
Courtesy of artist and SKIRA
An extensive new monograph, released April 29: Frida Orupabo On Lies, Secrets and Silence ($35, 160 pages, 205 color illustrations, published by SKIRA) is a richly illustrated book focusing on newly produced works from leading Norwegian artist and sociologist Frida Orupabo who gained prominence in the art world for her evocative digital and physical collages. Her work often explores themes of race, gender, identity, family relations, sexuality, violence and the human body: black bodies, which have been subjected to exploitation throughout history, are often present. Orupabo manipulates images, cutting them out, adding and excluding elements, and then reassembling them, suggesting a phantasmagorical and poignant reworking of representational codes. Frida Orupabo was born 1986 in Sarpsborg, Norway. She lives and works in Oslo. Orupabo is the recipient of the prestigious 2025 SPECTRUM Internationaler Preis für Fotografie and was shortlisted for the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation Prize in 2023.
Courtesy of artist and SKIRA
The book is released in conjunction with a solo exhibition at the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo, which just opened through April 27.
Alongside an introduction by curators Yuvinka Medina and Owen Martin, and poems by C. LeClaire, original essays in the book by Portia Malatjie, Nina Cramer and Mai Takawira explore the tensions and positions of Orupabo’s work both internationally and within a Nordic context.
Courtesy of artist and SKIRA
Yuvinka Medina is Senior Curator of Bonniers Kunsthall, Stockholm. Owen Martin is Curator of Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo. Portia Malatjie is a Cape Town-based curator and Senior Lecturer in Art History and Discourse of Art at the University of Cape Town’s Michaelis School of Fine Art. She is Adjunct Curator of Africa and African Diaspora at the Hyundai Tate Research Centre: Transnational at Tate Modern (London). Mai Takawira is an independent curator and researcher. She holds an MA in Modern Culture from the University of Copenhagen. Nina Cramer is a PhD candidate at the University of Copenhagen’s Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. C. LeClaire, a poet and writer based in Chicago, USA, is a Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic finalist, an alumna of VONA (Voices of Our Nations Arts Foundation) and a participant in Winter Tangerine’s creative writing workshop.
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