Zak Ové's "Invisible Man" Coming to LACMA

Zak Ové, Black and Blue: The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness. Installation view in San Francisco, 2018. Photo (c) Bruce Damonte

Zak Ové's sculptural installation, Black and Blue: The Invisible Man and the Masque of Blackness, which was presented in San Francisco last year, is coming to LACMA. It will run July 27 to Nov. 3, 2019, in the Cantor Sculpture Garden.

Ové, a Trinidad-born Londoner, created 40 resin-and-graphite figures reproducing a Kenyan sculpture his father (filmmaker Horace Ové) gave him as a child. The work's title references Ralph Ellison's 1952 novel Invisible Man and Ben Johnson's 1605 blackface play The Masque of Blackness.

The Ové installation will invite comparison to Urban Light and other serial sculptures shown on LACMA grounds, such as the 2011 display of Ai Weiwei's Circle of Animals/Zodiac Heads. and the 2012 showing of Walter De Maria's The 2000 Sculpture. If you prefer something less regimented, SelgasCano's trippy pavilion/whatever is to be constructed nearby and will run at about the same time as the Ové installation.