 What can you all, those of you who might be asleep. Okay, so let's get this thing started down. Well, thanks for having me. I think I was at, saw us about 20, about 20 years ago, I did a talk. I was part of a conversation here. And the interesting thing actually now, at that time actually a lot of African artists were sort of, you know, regarded as not being particularly part of a global conversation. African artists were either anonymous artists that sort of inspired Western modernism, Picasso and so on. There was a primitivism exhibition in the 80s, the Museum of Modern Art in New York. And it was a rather odd situation because, you know, we are contemporary people. We, you know, we, we watch the same subs on TV and, you know, we're part of a modern conversation. And African artists who produced modern art were somehow being dismissed as being a derivative of Western modernism. And so as somebody coming from a Nigerian family, a middle-class Nigerian family grew up in Lagos, the same access to everything. You know, grew up watching Sesame Street. And for those of you who know Nigerian soap operas, also watched things like Baba Salon TV. So when I came into London from Nigeria, I came to, first I came to school. And then went to art school. And I couldn't quite understand the kind of discrimination that existed and the level of, you know, ignorance really to be frank. And I remember being, well, I started off, you know, painting the nude. Then I, because that was my art training, I trained as a painter. And, you know, at that time I was looking at people like Van Gogh and Sikert and Bomberg and the London School as well. And then I decided I was going to become political in the practice. You know, I got interested in political art. I was making work about Perestroika, which is what was happening in the then Soviet Union. And I'm sure, you know, this has been said over and over again. So those of you who would like to yawn, you can yawn now. No, but, you know, it's an important point. So I was making work about Perestroika. And one of my tutors when I was at, but I'm sure actually at the time, said, why aren't you producing authentic African art? What's Russia got to do with you? Why aren't you producing ethnic art? Then I started to ask the question about authenticity. What is authenticity for a contemporary Nigerian? You know, I grew up in a Yoruba household. Yes, of course, I do speak Yoruba. I speak my own language and, you know, as you would in Nigeria, you'd speak English at school. Now, I've been thinking about this. My generation, we are completely different. We're not, we can't go back to tradition. A number of my, you know, English colleagues were not. Expected to look at medieval art or make work about Morris dancing. So why would I then be expected to care about traditional Africa? I'm not interested. History is important, of course. And I've been to a number of ethnographic museums I used to go to the Museum of Mankind just off Cork Street in those days. So off I went to the Museum of Mankind and the British Museum in search of my authentic African-ness. I didn't find it there. I just found very scary masks there. Ritual, those objects are ritual objects. I'd rather watch Soul Train, to be honest. This is how I grew up. So where was I? Yes, so the story about the Tuto, that's where I was. Yes. So I went to Brixton Market. Brixton Market, yeah. To, in search of my authenticity. And well, went to the fabric shop there. Then I started talking to them about the fabrics. When I was in Nigeria, I used to, you know, see the batik and I used to wear the fabrics. And, but I actually grew up thinking those fabrics were authentically African. Then realized what I was told in the shop that they're Dutch fabrics, influenced by Indonesian batik. Then produced in Manchester and also in Holland. Now I have to give you context here. I was at art school. So I was studying art and I was studying, you know, abstract expressionists. And also I was, you know, looking at, you know, Rothko, you know, Pollock, Bannet Newman, I, you know, like everybody else, I paid homage to Rothko in the Rothko Room at the Tate. I never could really find what people found there, but it was supposed to be quite kind of spiritual. You know, so I did go in there to contemplate the Rothkos. But anyway, so back to my work. I was looking for direction. And so, but I could not find myself in the conversations about global art and contemporary art. In the, I think it must be in the 80s, there was a show at the Pompidou Center called Magishare Latte. I think that was the first exhibition in which non-Western artists were featured on a kind of an international platform. But then those artists, the Western artists were, were featured as artists, but the non-Western artists were featured as shamans or magicians. And, but I always wanted to be a contemporary artist and be part of the conversation. And I was interested in, in, you know, pop art. And, and of course, the, at that time, it was really fashionable to look at the discourse around post-modernism and feminism at the time. And there was a lot of, you know, writing on post-colonial theory. So there was, you know, a questioning of the Western canon. And so the, it was a time of the non-white male artists, you know, challenging the system and a certain their own visibility. So at the time, a number of American feminist artists, Cindy Sherman, Barbara Kruger, and, you know, David Hammons in the United States. And Rashid, who ran in the UK, he started a magazine called Third Text. And Third Text was a critical text magazine that kind of dealt with, you know, non-Western practices and tried to make them visible. Now, it's important to do all this talking because it's important to understand that art doesn't actually happen in a vacuum and to actually understand the political and the historical context of my practice. And so this was a time also when Margaret Thatcher was in power. And Margaret Thatcher was talking about conservative Victorian values. Victorian values were values I couldn't possibly identify with at the time because, of course, we all know what happened in the colonial era and what, well, the Victorians did to my heritage. So, and so, back to you, to the work. I started then to think about Western modernism but also to think about high art and popular culture. And so the first series of works I did using the fabrics, I did double-dutch. I was one of the early paintings and I was kind of looking at fragmenting this modernist idea of abstraction but then introducing a pattern and fabric into that. Now, the, so I'll just show you a number of works. So, starting with painting and looking at this notion of authenticity. I mean, I did this series called Totem Paint. I mean, that came, I did those paintings much later on. But the work then evolved into, first of all, I mean, looking at the formal aspect of the work and representing them in different ways so that the actual gallery wall becomes part of the work. It's not separate. The context becomes part of the work. And there are also, I mean, things like fetish paintings which are just kind of, parody is also a very important aspect of the work. It's a sort of mimicking of what an African artist is supposed to do but then, and surely now actually, all the parts are industrially produced and essentially actually Western. It's a New York toy painting and I must also add, now the work, people don't often talk about the aesthetic aspect of my work. Now, essentially I consider myself I'm an estate and an artist. I do want to challenge things. There's a degree of activism in the work. But the activism is also formal in nature. So there is a questioning that goes on within the form of the work itself. And so the first move into working with costumes well, I was inspired to do that whilst looking through some costumes at the Victoria and Albert Museum. And then I started what I describe as ethnic size in the aristocracy. And then you will notice that some of the figures are headless. And the headlessness actually began as a joke about the French Revolution. And when the aristocracy had the heads chopped off. So this is based on Gainsborough, Mr. and Mrs. Andrews. So that's Mr. and Mrs. Andrews without their heads. It's a newly married couple in the original painting they're in their estate. And their portraits down in front of their estate. And so what I've done is gently remove the estates and their heads. So, and well, this actually was done in 1998, but it remains topical of course with the UK, but unfortunately discrimination that's been going on, you know, alien obsessives, mom, dad and the kids, it's a kind of regular nuclear family. You know, we were kind of scared of people that kind of don't look like us. And there's a degree of, and of course, dysfunctional family. Again, it's poking fun out of a kind of ridiculous situation really and cloud nine. So I did some things with, you know, with space. And then so the, a lot of the work, and that still sort of happens, there are, you will, as I go through, so what I've decided to do, because after all I'm a visual artist, I've decided actually I'm going to just show you a lot of images. And I want you to, you know, just look at the images and kind of engage with them in your own way. And so a lot of kind of politics does end time to the work that some of them are related to current affairs, but they're not, they're not necessarily about politics, they're political in themselves. But also essentially they're a form of poetry. And art after all, it's a form of magic making and it has the potential for transformation. And so that's that aspect I'm interested in. I'm not necessarily interested in the kind of literal kind of protest art I'm interested in. There is also always a degree of frivolity in the work, but actually I'm interested in my own right to aesthetic frivolity as an artist of African origin. In other words, I don't always have to be somebody kind of protesting against something. Actually I do have the freedom to enjoy my work and to basically indulge in whatever fantasies I wish to. And this is based on Fragonard's painting. And I mean, you've all, you see there's a correlation between Ed Miliband talking about zero hours contract and what happens in the work. It may not actually be obvious, but by actually deconstructing aristocratic iconography, I'm exploring the issue of class war and the inequality between the North and the South and the inequality between the haves and have nots. But this is not, this is done in a kind of a fun way, but it does underpin the work. So there are those things there. There might not be immediately obvious, of course. And then of course, there's what's known as institutional critique. So I do make interventions into period homes or other kind of in a museum settings. But again, that's not necessarily, I mean, I'm not necessarily fond of art speak myself. I do relate to them, understand them and then chuck them in the bin and just enjoy my work. So this is a flower cloud and I also happen to enjoy ballet. And actually, I don't have that film here, but some of you may have seen it. I saw, I made a piece based on Swan Lake called Odila and Odette. And it's a black ballerina dancing opposite the white ballerina. And they mirror each other, but it looks like a mirror, but you may be able to find it online. But so there's always an element of theatricality performance, masquerade in the work. And there is a degree too of Gallo's humor in the work. How to block two heads at once. Of course, we know that there's a lot of conflict in the world and so the work does touch on some of those things. And this is, so anyway, I should just show you some pictures. Some of them I will talk about. Some of them I won't remember why I did them. But it doesn't matter, let's just look up, have fun. And of course, this is, I was exploring things to do with the environment. So this, I did a series based on global warming. And you can see the kids kind of precariously falling off this overheating globe. I really like color and I enjoy picking fabrics. And of course, I love designing frogs. I have, I work with a number of great costumers in my studio and I work with a number of really great people in my studio and we just have fun designing fun things. So Canon ball heaven, those Canon balls wouldn't blow anything up. As you can see, I did the series at the time of the riots in London and also the Arab Spring, yeah. And this is my tribute to bankers in fact at the time of the economic crisis. So I did a show at Stephen Friedman Gallery and this is the Last Supper. I think there's a central figure there that's Bakos, the god of wine is central. So he's replaced the figure of Christ in that image. And those kind of champagne kids and say no more. I'm a bit of a hypocrite though because I do like the money. So, you know, cake man also another tribute to bankers. And that's something I did for crisis, the homeless charity, impelled aristocrat. Ladder kids, I did other bands museum in the US. That's a piece based on aspiration. And then pieces from a show I have in New York at the moment at James Coyne Gallery in Chelsea. The whole show is about the environment. So the ballerinas they're based on, on Greek gods and they've got weapons. It's from a show called Rage of the Ballet Gods. And it's this ballerinas as Greek gods where they've got this weapons and they've got gloves on their heads depicting various environmental disasters. And this is the refugee astronauts. After the apocalypse, I can never say that word. I can't get my your bad tongue around some English words. But anyway, there you go. Some of you may have seen this. This was at the Haywood Gallery. There are black footballers printed all over the fabrics. Yeah, this was a documenter. And I don't think it needs much explanation. So it's about sex tourism. And I was reading about the Grand Tour and that was the time when people used to go to Italy and France to learn about culture. But I read that they learned about other things instead. So some of the work does come out of things I read and a scramble for Africa. This is in the 19th century when Africa was being divided by European countries. And the kind of 14 European countries, I think, decided that they would take a piece from, divide Africa into different countries. And so this is me reimagining that conference, the Berlin Conference, but then they're kind of headless. So this is an installation I did at the National Gallery. And I remember that some of the people on the board at the National Gallery were not entirely pleased about this intervention. So I removed portraits of some slave owners and replaced them with those figures. And they're shooting a pheasant in the middle of the National Gallery. Kind of blooded pheasant. And this is based on a French ship that sank off the coast of Senegal, I think. I think, yeah, okay. And another crash, okay. So I'm just going to go through some, you know, how am I doing for time, actually? I guess egg fights are based on Hollywood's travels. And it's about two groups of people that had a war about which side of the egg do you eat first? Something along, something silly. And so that's what that's based on, based on Hollywood's travels. And then I did this project called the British Library of the Brighting Pavilion. And so there are 10,000 books. This was made when there was all the talk about foreigners, you know, and the books have the names of British people who came from elsewhere, basically, originally. And this is currently a show at the William Morris Museum in Walthamstow. I took the William Morris family portraits and reconstructed them with the local people of Walthamstow. And so then I produced these diptychs. William Morris, of course, was a great socialist. And so you can see the difference. On the right, the people who live in Walthamstow now. It's become very multicultural, so it's a way of exploring the changes, I guess, in Britain through those William Morris portraits. And there's a dress displayed there. Who that? Okay, and then I did a series on the London Underground, photographs on the London Underground in 1805, no, 1998. That was a long time ago. The area of Victoria and Dandy, I enjoyed dressing up. It was fun. We took over this stately home for three days and got dressed and had our photographs taken. And that was a lot of fun to do. And none of us could keep a straight face shooting this one. But being very professional, of course, we got it done. And then the picture of Dorian Gray. I'm rather fond of Oscar Wilde writings. And also looking, using the picture of Dorian Gray to talk about my own disability. For those of you who don't know, I got a virus when I was 19. In my spine, which left me completely paralyzed. And I've addressed some of that in my work, but not directly. But Dorian Gray is about time and the body and also the aging of a Dandy. And when I was much younger, I fancied myself as a Dandy. But so I was very much interested in Dandy, and I was reading a lot about it. And people like Bob Romo. And so I made this series of work, the picture of Dorian Gray. And then this is what based on Goya's the sleep of reason produces monsters. The sleep of reason produces monsters. Now I did those, I think after George Bush, I think Dobby said something about the axis of evil. And so I explored this notion of irrationality. Irrationality. And I did it through the reconstruction of Goya's etchings. And series of photographs based on Dandy's Inferno and the different levels of hell all shot in my studio. Some things I will talk about, some things I will not talk about. But it doesn't matter. So, and I very much like Andy Warhol. So those are some Warhol, well, myself as Warhol. Those pictures are in my show in New York at the moment. So if you happen to be hanging out in New York, I just came back and loved it. And so if you're hanging out in New York, you can check them out in Chelsea and check out the new Whitney Museum as well in New York. It's pretty cool. Okay, so, and those are photo stills from my film. That's the first film I made. I lived in Stockholm for six months and I worked with Swedish television. But that film is, in fact, about the Iraq war. While I was living in Stockholm, I discovered the story of Gustav III, who was fighting wars in Russia in the 18th century and while these people were starving at home. And but he loved going to the ball. And so he got shot while he was at the ball. And I wanted to transform the Gustav himself to a woman and his killer to a woman. I kind of felt I just wanted to change the power dynamics within that narrative. So plus I wanted to dress up a lot of actors and have fun there. And this is another film I made, which is based on Traviata, Puccini. And I've jumped too fast there, but anyway. And so photo stills from Odile and the Dead, a collaboration I did with the Royal Opera House in Conagag and I subsequently went back to do more collaborations with the Royal Opera House. And I've got a kind of a ballerina based on Michael Fontaine spinning around in a glass ball. It's a fun piece. My first piece that actually kind of moves. And that's still, you can see that at the Royal Opera House. If you would care to look up, if you look down, you'd miss it. So it's quite high up. So this is my, I went to do public art, public art. I decided I should be a nice person and take my work outside of the elitist gallery. Put it on the street. So when I was invited to do this in Trafalgar Square, I really enjoyed it. I, for the first time I could actually have great conversations with cabbies, London cabbies about the fourth plinth. And all the cab drivers know about the fourth plinth and they have an opinion. And so this is based on Nelson's ship in a bottle. And with it. And this is now in Greenwich. So you can see it there, it's permanently installed. And this is the ballerina of the Royal Opera House. This is in Howard Place, not too far from Victoria Station. It's called Wind Sculpture. And it's the fabric blowing in the wind. I think it's delightful, don't you? So I think art should be fun. And of course I have to mention Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Because Yorkshire Sculpture Park commissioned the first wind sculptures. And so, and I know that I will be in trouble if I don't pick up Yorkshire Sculpture Park. So pick up to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park. Okay, so. Okay, let's move on from that. Okay, so. And Chicago, Chicago, yeah, Chicago. I'm Museum of Contemporary at Chicago. Installation there. Bazuma, I mean, that's a Bazuma. And Germany, I think somewhere, yeah. Ah, this is my studio. They said where the magic happens. So, well, my studio actually, I should tell you about my studio. I have a project space in my studio. It's been going since 1998. And I have this space downstairs. I work upstairs. And I have the proposal box outside of the space. And artists put in proposals. And they get residences for a month. I accept all the group shows. And I do a supper club every two months with a based on, based on an artist. And a chef cooks a meal based on that artist. And you can buy tickets online. And the money goes from the supper clubs, go back into supporting the artists. I've been doing that since 1998. And I learned a lot as well, actually, because that's how I managed to stay in touch with a younger generation. And, let's see, can't actually make out what those... Oh, this is guest projects. Ah, this is a supper club, yeah. I think that's all I've got to say. Thank you.