Chi Modu - Uncategorized 

Vantaa Art Museum Artsi 6.6 - 1.9.2019 

During in the summer of 2019, the Art Museum of Vantaa is pleased to present a wide and comprehensive retrospective of photographs taken by the American-Nigerian photographer Chi Modu, focusing mainly for hip hop and rap culture. During the 90's, Modu worked as photographer the legendary The Source magazine, which grew from a hand-to-hand handout advertising gigs to a musical style icon that was read and studied in Finland.

During his career, Modu photographed all the significant players of the New York hip hop scene, from Mobb Deep to Wu-Tang Clan's Method Man and Ol 'Dirty Bastard, and his good friend Biggie Smalls a.k.a. The Notorious B.I.G, and Puff Daddy. Exceptionally, he also managed to cross an to the other side of the frontline, and worked with some of the most colossal names of West Coast hip hop and rap, such as Ice Cube, Eazy E, Ice-T --  and Tupac Shakur, the subject of a candi photo book showing rare and previously unpublished photographs Modu released under his Uncategorized brand in 2016.

The Nigeria-born Chi Modu ended up in the United States at the age of three when his father worked on his doctoral thesis in New York. Fate dropped this young man in the middle of historical events: the breakthrough of rap music and its subsequent golden age of the 1990s  was brewing in America. In a new cultural environment, being Nigerian was a blessing to Modu: through it, he was an outsider at the same time, and also similar enough to become an insider accepted by his peers.

Modu's images show the connection between the subject and the photographer, from which their extraordinary power derives. Approval and curiosity, empathy and compassion - the subjects of the images trust Modu, and open up to him. In this respect, the images easily fit into the context of the portrait tradition of classical art, and communicate with that tradition vigorously and passionately.

Chi Modu's photographs were first exhibited at the Pori Art Museum in Finland during the summer of 2013. The choice of venue is exemplary of Modu's attitude: he wants to avoid traditional cultural capitals and networks, and bring his art closer to people.

“People always want to put art and artists into neat little boxes. My work does not fit into any one stereotype and neither do I. I wanted to create something that is the opposite of putting labels on everything and make a statement against stereotyping. I don’t see this as just an exhibit or book. I see it as a movement that can’t be stopped. Power to the people!”, says Chi Modu himself.

For the same reason, the collection now comes to Myyrmäki's Artsi. This summer, iconic pictures of the giants of hip-hop music, and also unseen material that was not on display in Pori, will be seen in Vantaa. The images are presented in the size of traditional portraits, but also gigantic, wall-sized prints.

The exhibition's curators are the rap artist Karri ”Paleface” Miettinen and Artsi's own Jean Ramsay. A catalog in Finnish and English, with a foreword by Paleface and an essay on Modu's by Jean Ramsay, as well as a selection of previously unpublished photos ranging from the early 90s to the 2010 Blockfests in Finland, will be available in the exhibition.