Dozie Kanu
Appropriating found objects and refashioning them to new aesthetics, Dozie Kanu creates sculptures and photography that are inherently disobedient and stubbornly slippery. They resist classification and exist instead as communicative or performative objects. Kanu’s ongoing investigation into the limits of form, functionality, materiality and usefulness are often filtered through a personal lens drawn from the artist’s lived experiences.
In the artist’s debut solo exhibition at Project Native Informant, Owe Deed, One Deep, 2020, every sculpture remixes and modifies found objects, with the visible rust as a reminder of how readily items are discarded once they are deemed no longer productive. The repurposing of objects deemed useless, the artist honours and reanimates the people whose labour gave them function. In extending the lives of these unwanted items, he perpetuates the existence of those who brought them into being. His memorialisation is a site of collective mourning of which has not yet ceased to exist, acknowledging that the pathways and legacies of the oppressive systems of the past continue to characterize the present.
Born and raised in Houston, Texas to Nigerian immigrant parents, Kanu initially intended to study film directing but shifted his focus to production design for film and theatre, receiving his BFA from the School of Visual Arts, New York, in 2016. Dozie Kanu’s first solo institutional exhibition was at the Studio Museum of Harlem in 2019.
Last year, Kanu opened his second solo exhibition at Project Native Informant, Tinted Spirit. In May 2022, the public sculpture commission On Elbows was shown as part of the Public Art Fund exhibition Black Atlantics. In September 2022, Cordyceps Gaud Adversary opened at Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen, Dozie Kanu's first solo European institutional exhibition.

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Summer Show, 2024
Fondation Beyeler, Riehen

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Cordyceps Gaud Adversary, 2022
Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Cordyceps Gaud Adversary, 2022
Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Cordyceps Gaud Adversary, 2022
Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
On Elbows in Black Atlantic, 2022
Public Art Fund, New York

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Tinted Spirit, 2022
Project Native Informant, London

Dozie Kanu
Detail: (un)console the soul from yesterday, yesteryear, yesterlife
2022
Steel and limestone
140 x 128 x 70 cm
55 1/8 x 50 3/8 x 27 1/2 in

Dozie Kanu
Dozitron HQ
2022
Each: 62.5 x 50 x 3 cm
24 5/8 x 19 3/4 x 1 1/8 in

Dozie Kanu
Detail: Headboard (a tribe sleep)
2022
Steel, oil, c-type print, found wood, nails and shoelace
90 x 151 x 8 cm
35 3/8 x 59 1/2 x 3 1/8 in

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Dozie Kanu, 2022
Galerie Francesca Pia, Zürich

Dozie Kanu
Headboard (Love Crime)
2022
Found mahogany head board, found chrome plated steel, inkjet prints, artist frames and epoxy sculpting clay
136 × 58 × 7 cm
54 x 23 x 2 3/4 in

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Blood Type, 2022
Performance Space, New York

Dozie Kanu
AB (Blood Type)
2021
Leather, cushion, steel, acrylic paint and spray paint
44.5 x 36.8 x 36.8 cm
17 1/2 x 14 1/2 x 14 1/2 in
(DKA030)

Dozie Kanu
negative (Blood Type)
2021
Steel and spray paint
57.1 x 38.1 x 43.5 cm
22 1/2 x 15 x 17 1/8 in

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
to prop and ignore, 2021
Manual Arts, Los Angeles

Dozie Kanu
Headboard (Abject Twin)
2021
Found head board frame, found lighting panel, steel and alligator skin
181.6 x 107.3 x 29.2 cm
71 1/2 x 42 1/4 x 11 1/2 in

Dozie Kanu
Slessor 2.0
2021
Hand carved marble, found burner, stainless steel and electrics
107.3 x 181.6 x 29.2 cm
42 1/4 x 71 1/2 x 11 1/2 in

Dozie Kanu
Detail: raspberry data chamber worthy with chest (type seat)
2020
Raspberry pi, video, steel wire, found toddler chair frame and found iron torso armour
61 × 31 × 36 cm
24 x 12 1/2 x 14 in

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
value order [gentrify.pt], 2021
Madragoa, Lisbon

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Owe Deed, One Deep, 2020
Project Native Informant, London

Dozie Kanu
merrill-y
2020
Stainless steel, found retail clothing hanger, steel, found mannequin torso, found rams head and chrome powder-coating
75.5 x 72.5 x 125 cm
29 3/4 x 28 1/2 x 49 1/4 in

Dozie Kanu
Detail: St. Jaded Extinguish
2020
Powder coated steel
144.5 x 53 x 70.5 cm
56 7/8 x 20 7/8 x 27 3/4 in

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Owe Deed, One Deep, 2020
Project Native Informant, London

Dozie Kanu
Bhad (Their Newborn’s Crib)
2019
Powder coated steel and anti-climb raptor spikes
114 × 58 × 99 cm
44 3/4 x 22 3/4 x 39 in

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder, 2019
180 Strand, London

Dozie Kanu
Allow Suffering to Speak (Pendulum)
2019
Found copper pipe, stainless steel, found ploughing-tractor disc blade, concrete, pigment and paint
146.05 x 53.34 x 92.71 cm
57 1/2 x 21 x 36 1/2 in

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
ARS JUS PAX, 2019
JTG Detroit Project, Woods Cathedral, Detroit

Installation View
Dozie Kanu
ARS JUS PAX, 2019
JTG Detroit Project, Woods Cathedral, Detroit

Dozie Kanu
Bench on 84s
2017
Poured concrete and steel
52.1 x 264.2 x 45.7 cm
20 1/2 x 104 1/8 x 18 in
Solo Exhibitions

00 Magazine Magazine
PNI Online

Tinted Spirit
PNI, London

Cordyceps Gaud Adversary
Neuer Essener Kunstverein, Essen

ARS JUX PAS
JTG Detroit Project, Detroit

Preenchendo Vazios
Lumiar Cité, Lisbon
Group Shows
Dozie Kanu
Frieze LA 2022
Frieze LA, Los Angeles

Dozie Kanu
Black Atlantic
Public Art Fund, New York

Dozie Kanu, Juliana Huxtable, Sophia Al-Maria
Transformer: A Rebirth of Wonder
180 The Strand, London

Dozie Kanu
Enzo Mari
Triennale Milano, Milan

Dozie Kanu
Crack Up – Crack Down
Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art, Warsaw

Dozie Kanu
Conversation Pieces
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco

Dozie Kanu
Recoil
International Waters, New York

Clémentine Bruno, Dozie Kanu
Art Basel Miami Beach 2020
Art Basel, Miami Beach

Dozie Kanu, Precious Okoyomon
Can't See
Sequences Biennial, Reykjavík

Dozie Kanu
HOI KÖLN PART 1: WELCOMING THE SPACE
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne

DIS, Dozie Kanu
Art Basel Miami Beach 2023
Art Basel, Miami Beach

Morag Keil, Dozie Kanu
HOI KÖLN TEIL 2: IM BAUCH DER MASCHINE
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne

Dozie Kanu
Dance with Daemons
Fondation Beyeler, Riehen

Dozie Kanu
SUPERMÖBEL
Kölnischer Kunstverein, Cologne

Press
Dozie Kanu, Neuen Essener Kunstverein
Monopol

Blood Type: Dozie Kanu's Inhabitable Installation
PIN-UP

Review: Dozie Kanu, to prop and ignore at Manual Arts, Los Angeles
Artillery

Dozie Kanu on Disrupting the Norm
Wallpaper*

Dozie Kanu Invokes the Spectres of Disused Objects
Frieze

Dozie Kanu, Black Performance
New Reader

Critics Pick: Dozie Kanu at The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York
Artforum
