1984–present
Cyrus Kabiru
Cyrus Kabiru grew up in Nairobi opposite a rubbish dump and builds sculptural eyewear from the junk found there: he officially began the C-Stunners series in 2011, though he had been making similar pieces since childhood. He photographs the sculptures himself in self-portraits. His works are held by the Studio Museum in Harlem and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Biography
Cyrus Kabiru held his first notable show in 2007 at the Kuona Trust, a visual arts centre in Nairobi. His professional career is usually counted from that exhibition, although by then he had been doing the things his art grew out of for many years.
He was born in 1984 in Nairobi, one of six children. The family home stood opposite a rubbish dump. According to family lore, his father repaired glasses with whatever materials came to hand, and that story pushed the boy to make objects from things found and thrown away. His father wanted him to have a career in electronic engineering, but he began artistic experiments on his own early on; he had no teachers, and he calls himself self-taught. Much of his work he links to his father and their shared experience. The basis of his manner is found objects: electronic parts, junk, debris. He builds sculptures from them and then often photographs himself wearing them in self-portraits. His practice combines sculpture, craftsmanship, photography, design and fashion. The themes of the work are transformation and an imagined future.
His best-known series, C-Stunners, is an ongoing cycle of irregular, futuristic eyeglasses in many different shapes. Kabiru officially began it in 2011. He explains the name this way: the “C” is for Cyrus, and “stunners” is the viewer’s reaction, a kind of stunned amazement. Self-portrait photographs of him wearing these pieces are also shown as works in their own right, for example the Macho Nne group.
The Black Mamba series is devoted to the Indian bicycle brand of the same name. In Kenya these bicycles were a common means of transport, but with the growth of cities they are seen less and less; as a child Kabiru rode one himself. The series is linked to a documentary project, The End of Black Mamba, which he also produced. In 2015 a book of that title was published by the Han Nefkens H+F Collection.
He counts himself among the Afrofuturists. His electronic waste recalls cyberpunk and at the same time echoes African jewellery and mythology visually. Miyale Ya Blue (2020, 60 × 65 × 15 cm) belongs to a series of sculptures in the form of homemade radios; Kabiru draws on his own experience with transistor radios. The Swahili word “miyale” means “rays”, so the title points to the sun.
His solo exhibitions were Constructions (Upcoming) at the Kuona Trust in Nairobi in 2010; Cyrus Kabiru at the Kunstpodium T gallery in Tilburg in 2011; and C-Stunners & Black Mamba at the SMAC Gallery in Cape Town in 2015. In group shows he took part in 2013 in The Shadows Took Shape at the Studio Museum in Harlem and in the exhibition Afrofuture at Milan Design Week, and in 2014 in the Lagos Photo Festival in Lagos. In 2021 his work was shown at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in the project Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room. His pieces are in the collections of the Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Lemaitre Collection in Paris, the Han Nefkens H+F Collection in Rotterdam, the Helena Fernandino and Emilio Pi Collection in Madrid, the Kuona Trust, and the Scheryn and Saatchi & Abel collections in Cape Town. In 2013 Kabiru became a TED Fellow, and in 2016 he received the Quartz Africa Innovators Award.
Profile notes