Zak Ové in The National

Melissa Gronlund, The National, March 18, 2018

Zak Ové's solo exhibition Star Liner selected in The National's round up of  shows to see during Dubai Art week.

 

The first show in the UAE by the British-Trinidadian artist Ové, (above Earth, 2017), seems predicated on the motto “go big or go home”. Enormous, colourful faces are composed of car parts – the bonnet of the car becomes the bridge of a nose – while Edo-influenced sculptures sit within rockets, as if readying for take-off. Ove, who is based in London, draws from a variety of strands of black culture: Afro-futurism and the music of George Clinton, as well as African and Trinidadian motifs, and he does not shy from controversy. Black dolls wearing the Stars And Stripes stand watch in the show as well, in this terrific riot of colour, celebration, and moral conscience."