James Ostrer: Johnny Just Came

In this exhibition, James Ostrer, who is known for his politically challenging works, unpacks his own relationship to racism, greed, self-loathing, and the cultural context from which they come from. Through large-scale installation, video and his signature semi-permanent sculpture, the artist elucidates a colonialist, consumerist, and misogynistic interplay played out by white male dysfunction on a global and personal level. Ostrer believes that as someone in a privileged position, he should question himself directly, both as a white person, and as a male, because both are identifiers of a dominant position in a global society that encourages conflict. He says, “My current interest lies around trying to convert the narcissistic tendencies of an artist’s need for attention into a wider dialogue that reverberates across the social power constructs that bind us all”.

The exhibition takes its title from the urban slang for an African who has recently arrived in a Euro-American megalopolis such as London, Johnny Just Come, or JJC. In this instance the artist is reversing the power dynamics of that well-worn postcolonial route by placing himself in the position of Johnny, the newbie in town and an alien experiencing a culture for the first time – based on his own experience of visiting Lagos, Nigeria.

The exhibition is a collaboration with pre-eminent African curator Azu Nwagbogu and Gazelli Art House.