Duro Olowu: Making & Unmaking

From Bauhaus jewellery and West African textiles to contemporary portraiture and sculpture, this unique volume explores the rituals of making that underpin an artist’s work.

Accompanying an exhibition curated by the groundbreaking Nigerian-born British fashion designer Duro Olowu at Camden Art Centre, London, this book offers the opportunity to re-evaluate art and textiles from the nineteenth-century to the present.

Olowu selects material by more than 60 artists from around the world, including rarely seen works by Anni Albers, Wangechi Mutu, Alice Neel, Chris Ofili and Irving Penn, and newer paintings by Lynette Yiadom-Boakye. By setting up unexpected dialogues between historic and contemporary artists working in a myriad of media – textile, painting, sculpture, photography and collage – Olowu reveals a shared preoccupation with themes of gender, race, beauty, sexuality and the body.

The volume includes an in-depth conversation between Olowu and artist Glenn Ligon, along with texts by Jennifer Higgie and Shanay Jhaveri, that together highlight the intricate layers of history and place that influence the making of art.