Manuela Matta, (2023) & New – Tide, (2024)
About the works
‘Manuela Matta’
‘Manuela Matta’ (2023) is a specific artwork and functional object commissioned for Manuela. A surrealistic alphabetical collage printed across the yellow velvet curtains that guard the restaurant’s entrance, ‘Manuela Matta’ was conceived with its role both within and without the restaurant space at front of mind. “I made the initial collage [by] cutting and reconfiguring the alphabets of the name ‘Manuela’ until they were as far away from the name as possible while also being deeply rooted in the original title and aura”, Duro says. “I was inspired by the idea of juxtaposing various elements of construction, deconstruction, and repurposing”, he explains, citing American performance artist, Gordon Matta-Clark, as a starting point; ‘Manuela Matta’ both directly references the late artist’s name, and indirectly remembers FOOD, the artist-owned and run restaurant he co-founded in Manuela’s Soho environs in 1971.
‘New – Tide’
‘New – Tide’ (2024) is the second specially commissioned artwork for Manuela, New York. As a curtain and room divider, it separates Manuela’s open-plan restaurant from its private dining space. Composed of a combination of fabrics assiduously stitched together, ‘New – Tide’ pairs textiles designed by Duro with antique fabrics he collected over a number of years. Vintage trimmings are interspersed throughout the horizontal and vertical paneling as “intentional intrusions”, which, in Duro’s words are designed to prompt “the reimagining and redefining [of] walls and spaces”. These intuitive and color-drenched abstract compositions are rendered in repetition, whilst the elements of craft, making and assemblage are in keeping with the rest of Duro’s artistic practice.
About the artist
Duro Olowu (b. 1965, Nigeria) is a British-Nigerian fashion designer and curator, whose innovative combinations of pattern and texture draw from his international background. Nigerian-British Olowu is noted for his fluency in combining diverse aesthetics and mediums and was named ‘New Designer of the Year’ at the British Fashion Awards in 2005, just one year after launching his eponymous womenswear label. He continues to show his bi-annual womenswear collections at London Fashion Week and his designs have been acquired by the Rhode Island School of Art and the FIT Museum.
In recent years, Duro also curated contemporary art exhibitions to critical acclaim. Beginning with ‘Material’ (2012) and ‘More Material’ (2014) at the Salon94 gallery in New York, as well as ‘Making & Unmaking’ (2016) at the Camden Arts Centre in London, ‘Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago’ at The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2020) and ‘Duro Olowu Selects” at The Copper Hewitt Museum, New York City (2022). Artwork by Olowu was included in two Neon Foundation exhibitions: ‘The Palace at 4am’ (2019) curated by Iwona Blawick at The Archeological Museum, Mykonos and ‘Portals’(2021) curated by Elina Kountouri at The Former Public Tobacco Factory, Athens.
