Archive
Babalola Yusuf
The Quality of Eternity ((is now))
08.04.2023 – 07.05.2023
‘Telling at least of the inadequation of one tongue to another, of one place in the encyclopaedia to another, of language to itself and to meaning, and so forth it also tells of the need for figuration, for myth, for tropes, for twists and turns, for translation inadequate to compensate for that which multiplicity denies us’.
Jacques Derrida, Des tours de Babel, 1985
An obsession with locating points of connection, ripples and overlaps pulses through Babalola Yusuf’s practice. In this solo exhibition at Flatland Projects, Yusuf brings together facets of mathematics, linguistics, oneirology, meteorology, and faith, dissolving boundaries between these practices via the principal mediums of clay and paint. A series of different metrics occupy the gallery space. Clay cogs populate pipes, resembling isolated parts of much larger machines— or perhaps beads on a bar of an abacus. Ancient Hebrew letters are given new life and a bulbous cloud sits perched at the window, with a container underneath ready to collect its interior. Wherever you look, countless exchanges are taking place, whether they’re numerical, fluid or verbal.
Put in conversation with one another, these three strands of interlocking codes open out a sense of deep time. Endless cycles of water take place on our planet, clay bears witness to these patterns and language constantly evolves across millennia. Alongside these age-old signifiers, recurring images from Yusuf’s dreams are applied to canvas. Boats set sail in negative space, clouds hover over seat cushions, with a primary palette adding a fable like quality to these works. Symbols are endlessly being rearranged, reshaped and reborn, as if slowly developing an entirely new alphabet of their own. Fragments of contemporary everyday experiences are also presented in the gallery, such as a glorious patch of light caught by Yusuf at a local bus stop. What develops is this push and pull between lived experience, divine imagery, and ancient systems. A specific sense of time and place loosens.
The mercurial quality of ceramic processes and the reciprocity between the different components further develops this ambiguity. Water specifically acts as a binding element, encouraging a sense of correspondence between the pieces in the show. The poles holding the cogs are bathroom pipes, meant to carry water which could fall from the cloud, or be collected from the container. Waves also run through the letter M and droplets percussively beat through the paintings. Distinction falls by the wayside, as precarious firing processes at the kiln add unexpected textures or tears. Like walking through a dream, parallel ideas or constellations ricochet and flood the gallery.
Yusuf has spoken about his passion for uncovering the resonance of the everyday. He’s particularly curious about what it means to digest habitual occurrences within an elongated spectrum of time. How can a sense of the eternal be grasped in the present? How does a past era, or an ancient script relate to our present times? How does today relate to a later date, or even how does the gallery space itself speak to our everyday environments? By stretching these temporal and spatial boundaries, Yusuf leads us to question what is really means to be understood, to move beyond solely visual or verbal communication into a more spiritual plane. Returning to Derrida’s ideas about the limitations of language, Yusuf tackles these barriers head on. Flatland is transformed to be part workshop, part library, part dreamland, part spiritual site. Specific anchors of clouds, letters and cogs help guide us through this maze, but half the fun of it is getting a little lost.