Mariane Ibrahim is pleased to present You Begin to See the Signs, the gallery’s third solo exhibition with artist duo Mwangi Hutter. Opening March 4, 2025, the show coincides with Panafrica Across Chicago, a citywide initiative organized by the Art Institute of Chicago, celebrating the depth and range of artistic practices from across the African continent and its diasporas.
With an oeuvre that spans performance, video, sound, photography and installation, You Begin to See the Signs marks a return to wood and stonework in Mwangi Hutter’s practice. Their current use of different types of wood and granite reflects a focus on the cohesion of the four elements: earth, water, fire, and air – whose varied interactions birth distinct natural forms, each shaped by time and force. Attuned to these inherent rhythms and constraints of locally sourced material, they approach creation as a performative act of listening and response, engaging both their body and mind as they test the material’s limits of strength and tension.
The exhibition opens with single-channel video presentations, beginning with First to Throw A Stone (1992). In this work, Mwangi Hutter explores video as an emergent tool for fostering intercultural intimacy across borders, while engaging with the relentless visibility, consumption, and impact of violence in mass media during the 1990s. Intimacy and interrelation emerge as key themes in their practice, with Through the Wind (1993) offering their early reflections on the connection between humans and the natural world. Reviving the Fittest (2011), features the artist’s four children and explores the intergenerational relationship between Earth and humanity.
While their early works highlight a world defined by separation, over time Mwangi Hutter has shifted their focus towards proposing a vision beyond the surface—beyond the skin. This change materializes in their Union Series (2017/2018) where two bodies merge into a multiplicity of forms, symbolizing varied possibilities of unity. Their latest work, Scattering Series (2025) and the Inner Surface Series (2025), continues this exploration, as the artists struggle with each distinct material to reach its core, pushing beyond the surface to uncover deeper connections.
In the works presented in the gallery, wood and stone sculptures split in half, revealing either gilded or black and white interiors. The divisions on each piece establish a physical and metaphorical break in which two individuals are created while remaining intimately bound to each other, evoking broader themes of unity and separation, recurrent themes in the work of the artists.
The resulting presentation merges performance and sculpture, integrating with the gallery’s architecture and resonating more broadly with Chicago’s industrial landscape. Meditative and largely abstract, You Begin To See The Signs invites visitors to look beyond the surface, embracing the inner beauty and complexity of each object and being, evoking an almost animist sensibility. In a time of alarming polarization, not unlike the one witnessed by the artists in their earliest videos, such a simple invitation becomes a radical gesture.
As part of Project a Black Planet: The Art and Culture of Panafrica, Mwangi Hutter’s photo work Static Drift (2021), which was recently acquired into the permanent collection of the Art Institute of Chicago, will simultaneously be on view in the museum’s galleries at Regenstein Hall, until March 30, 2025.
You Begin to See the Signs will be on view at Mariane Ibrahim Chicago from March 4 - April 16, 2025.
