Mwangi Hutter Artist Talk

Mwangi Hutter is a pair of individuals acting as one artist that operates out of Germany and Kenya. This couple often works with their bodies, video mediums, and sound to create an overall message of unity among all humans. They very often work with the colors black and white. This, upon first glance, gives their work a politically and racially charged tone. However, upon elaboration it is revealed that these colors are inherently innocent until given a meaning by the society that is viewing them. By utilizing these colors with that message in mind, Mwangi Hutter highlights their unity even further. For example, in the piece “falling in love again” – a series revolving around a black female silhouette posing intimately with a white male silhouette – the two colors that are often seen as exact opposites are mingling and intertwining in an intimate dance while in the shape of the two artists interacting. This series also challenges the separations caused by gender roles by giving the male figure poses that are more traditionally associated with the “feminine” and by giving the female figure poses that are traditionally considered more strong and protective of the more feminine-posed figure. Furthermore, this piece in particular was received differently by audiences depending on the culture. In the United States, where we have a long history of a “black versus white” or “colored versus white” type of racial divide the message was more quickly made racial or political, but in Japan, where the oppression of African peoples in particular wasn’t so thickly sewn into the fabric of their history, the audiences didn't assign quite the same meanings to the piece. They still perceived the figures as opposites, but didn't charge the artwork with the same level of racial and political weight. This reaction alone goes to show that once you look past your own predisposed societal quarries, you can see the true meaning behind their works.