WANGECHI MUTU, HISTOLOGY OF THE DIFFERENT CLASSES OF UTERINE TUMORS, 2006

Mixed media drawing (glitter, ink, fur, collage and other materials on found medical illustration paper), Measurements: 46.00 x 31.00 cm (base material size); 59.10 x 43.50 x 4.40 cm

“This set of twelve mixed-media works was made early in Mutu’s career, at a point when her practice was focused on collage. Drawing from disparate sources including medical journals, fashion magazines, pornography, and ethnographic texts, Mutu’s way of critiquing these publications is to cut them up and reassemble them for her own means. The collages which make up Histology of the Different Classes of Uterine Tumors are composed on pages taken from a nineteenth-century medical folio illustrating different diseases of the female sexual organs. Layering the drawings with magazine cuttings, torn bits of paper, packing tape, fake fur, and glitter, Mutu has transformed them into faces, ‘turning them into distorted character investigations of the human experience’. When displayed, the collages are to be hung in a specific sequence which replicates the order in which they were made in the artist’s studio. The work’s title is taken from the header at the top of one of the folio sheets.” - National Galleries