Late final yr, I developed a reference to one in all Awol Erizku’s artworks considerably by chance. I used to be on the dance flooring at Residing Room, one in all L.A.’s latest member golf equipment and nightlife hotspots, being bathed within the fragmented, dazzling gentle of a disco ball within the type of Nefertiti’s bust. Because the night time grew extra navy with time, I lastly appeared up, and was struck by the wonder and highly effective presence of African royalty above me.
Erizku, a 36-year-old Ethiopian-born, Los Angeles-based up to date artist, has most just lately put in that art work, “Nefertiti–Miles Davis,” on the California African American Museum as a part of his first solo museum exhibition, “Awol Erizku: X.” Composed of recent and up to date works, the present is a celebration and reexamination of Afrocentric aesthetics — an strategy to expression the artist calls “Afro-esotericism.” Malcolm X is on the coronary heart of all of it, his picture anointing the partitions and {a photograph} of his former residence, boarded up with an indication promoting its rehabilitation, introduced with out remark. It’s a present about preserving Black historical past, concerning the non secular implications effervescent beneath acquainted objects with double meanings within the tradition, from ice to bricks.
Awol Erizku, “Transfixion (Nefertiti),” 2025.
Elsewhere in Los Angeles, Erizku’s exhibition “Moon, Turn the Flames…Gently Gently Away,” his inaugural solo with Sean Kelly Gallery on view via July 3, options hypersaturated nonetheless lifes that mirror the wonder (flowers), temptations (cash) and struggles (smoke) of cultural life in L.A., a metropolis he has now lived in for 10 years.
On the event of that opening, I met Erizku at Residing Room once more, however this time it was face-to-face and never via an opportunity encounter together with his work. The multidisciplinary artist, who works throughout images, sculpture, portray, set up, movie and sound, was grounded, heat and most fascinated about eschewing the politics and oft-performative pleasantries of the artwork world in favor of real reference to the group of friends. Although we didn’t know one another, there was an instantaneous familiarity, which is maybe essentially the most sacred, inexplicable a part of the African diasporic expertise: that sense of recognition, which is extra a sense than something that may be adequately described. On this approach, the very spirit of Blackness is artwork — a stirring past language. And it’s this concentrate on the sensation of wordless understanding that guides Erizku’s strategy to creation.
Evan Nicole Brown: Each of your L.A. exhibits hinge on an emblem: the 5 colourful, interlocking Olympic rings. Symbolism is such a deep and dominant a part of your work: How do you strategy including your aesthetic to ready-made symbols — just like the Olympic rings, the Hollywood signal, the L.A. Dodgers emblem — that are acquainted to us as viewers, to be able to make them your personal?
Awol Erizku: Symbols, for me, have develop into a option to talk and have a direct impact. So by merely turning the Dodgers emblem and actually simply swapping the colours to these of the Pan-African flag, I’m capable of converse to Black of us immediately. I feel if you see that, you already know that’s for you, you already know that’s a unifying image. That’s what I’m after — symbols that we will use in a common method.
Awol Erizku, “Poetics of Universal Relation (Malik’s Dream),” 2025.
Awol Erizku, “Last Seen Balling (Pradayou),” 2025.
ENB: That simply made me understand the true energy of visible symbolism as a shorthand, as a option to say a lot with out saying something in any respect. Even a colour generally is a shorthand to exhibit one thing.
AE: That additionally resonates with the “Nipsey blue” within the background of the
On a deeper stage, in my lexicon, I title the works in a approach that isn’t so direct. The piece for Sean Bell, “Sean Bell – Shawny Binladen,” is definitely the title of a Shawny Binladen track, which then complicates this narrative even additional. And the title of [the piece for Amadou Diallo], “American Skin (41 Shots) – Bruce Springsteen,” is in reference to a Bruce Springsteen track, which once more complicates the narrative even additional as a result of now you’re not simply speaking about police homicide and rap, now I’m utilizing somebody from a unique style who’s additionally speaking about police brutality in America. There’s a deeper concern and consciousness of the ripple results of police brutality in America because it pertains to younger Black males particularly.
Awol Erizku, “Poppy Freestyle I,” 2025.
Awol Erizku, “To3 Tagg3r (Blue),” 2025.
ENB: How does your Ethiopian heritage determine into your work, significantly as you make creative decisions that join the broader diaspora? In your photos, I see you exploring police brutality on American soil, but in addition recurring motifs like cowrie shells, smoke and flowers appear to be extra conceptual reminders of residence, ritual, forex and cultural reminiscence.
AE: The unhappy factor is — and that is why I really feel these two topic issues have possibly been in my consciousness for therefore lengthy — is that Amadou Diallo was Guinean, and Sean Bell was a foundational Black American, however to police you’re nonetheless a Black man on the finish of the day, you already know? So no matter qualms we could have on the nuance stage, to the surface world we’re a monolith, although we all know we aren’t.
For me, that’s the nucleus of the work. It’s all about making a language that we will use all through the diaspora in a common style. “Afro-esotericism,” an ideology that I’ve been constructing for the final [several] years, pertains to my 2023 monograph “Mystic Parallax,” which exhibits you a model of Black aesthetics cohabitating and current in the identical universe; it’s much more fascinating to create a brand new approach of wanting on the world by [using] the issues that we have already got publicity to.
ENB: How does the panorama of Los Angeles, the house of Hollywood and plenty of different cultural exports, inform your follow, significantly your initiatives that have interaction celebrities and the idea of fame?
Artist Awol Erizku lights a cigarette that’s a part of one in all his artwork items on exhibit at Sean Kelly gallery.
AE: I personally am distant from that world. I imply, there’s some work-related issues that I do each infrequently, however as an entire, I went to high school and I targeted quite a bit on idea. So the industrial stuff actually doesn’t maintain that a lot water for me.
L.A. could be isolating, it may be welcoming, it may be territorial. It’s a multifaceted metropolis; that’s what I really like about it and that’s the place I discover the inspiration for many of those works. I discover L.A. to be inspiring as an artist as a result of it offers you a variety of room to breathe, and a variety of room to follow various things; it’s virtually like an empty canvas that’s simply ready to be stuffed with concepts.
ENB: I’m continuously enthusiastic about the stress between the produced model of L.A. and the pure world of town, and the way the standard of sunshine right here from the solar contrasts with the artificiality of neon.
AE: In the case of neon, I feel it’s a medium that I’ll proceed to work with till I can’t. I discover neon to be this medium that makes use of gentle in a extra poetic approach.
A fantastic instance of that’s “NO ICE”; it’s so easy, however you possibly can actually learn into it. The duality and double entendres in hip-hop is so essential and essential. Why is “OPPS” within the fashion of the Cops [T.V. show] emblem? If you already know, you already know, you already know what I imply?
Awol Erizku, “OPPS,” 2025.
ENB: Let’s circle again to “Afro-esotericism,” which has to do with symbolism, spirituality and this legacy of mythmaking.
AE: It’s the intrinsic emotions, expressions, gestures, ideas and simply total [experience] of being a Black human being on this planet, just like the issues that we have already got in us. There are all these items that find yourself getting co-opted by individuals on the web, however I’m extra within the issues that they’ll’t faucet into, the issues that they’ll’t steal. It’s an open supply [ideology]; I’m open to individuals including to it, to make some form of atlas or an encyclopedia [with] information of being.
ENB: The richness of Black tradition is so particular so I actually resonate with that. However I’m additionally inquisitive about whether or not you create house in your follow for play — to not undercut the depth of all that you just’re exploring, however I’m virtually exhausted by Blackness being such a critical topic, and being so profound. It’s so enjoyable seeing memes nearly the best way we chortle whereas operating away from one another, you already know? How do you permit room for that form of register of Blackness in your work, too?
AE: That’s exactly what I’m making an attempt to get out. I’m merely saying, take a look at what our expansiveness can afford us.
Evan Nicole Brown is a Los Angeles-born author, editor and journalist who covers the humanities and tradition. Her work has been featured in Architectural Digest, Dwell, The Hollywood Reporter, the New York Instances, T Journal, Time and elsewhere. She is the managing editor of Modern Artwork Overview Los Angeles and the founding father of Group Chat, a dialog sequence in L.A.
