T oyin Ojih Odutola's most ambitious body of work to date chronicles the lives of two fictional Nigerian families; the UmuEze Amara Clan and the House of Obafemi. She imagines the aristocratic protagonists of her story existing in a parallel world; one in which Nigeria has been unmarked by the scars of slavery or colonialism.

This epic was played out across a series of five solo exhibitions, beginning at the Museum of the African Diaspora, San Francisco (Matter of Fact, 2016) and continuing at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (To Wander Determined, 2017), Savannah College of Art and Design (Testing the Name, 2018) and the Hood Museum, Hanover (The Firmament, 2018). The present work was shown in 2018 as part of When Legends Die, at Jack Shainman Gallery; the final instalment of this ground-breaking exhibition series.

Each of the works for When Legends Die were presented as if drawn from the private collection of the wealthy Nigerian couple Temitope Omodele and his husband, TH Lord Jideofor Emeka. Seeking to immerse the viewer within both textual and visual narratives, Ojih Odutola perpetuated this story by performing the role of ‘Deputy Private Secretary’ when writing accompanying text for the exhibition: “Their lordships sought to draw a more expanded portrait through the careful choice of works from their famed art collections—separate from the known public image of respectability of presented by titled aristocracy—to express the inner workings of their family”. The works on view were therefore mementos of a relationship that couldn’t possibly exist in real-world Nigeria, which passed a Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act in 2014.

Within this context, one can place Distinguished Relation As Ejogu Gardens (Amara Palaca) as a highly significant work in one of Ojih Odutola’s most important series. Here, the artist’s role as mythmaker, and her investigations into constructs of wealth, race, and history, converge. An imagined sculpture, in an imaginary setting; telling a familiar, yet simultaneously unfamiliar tale about how sociopolitical identity and power is formed. Although the works in this series are exquisitely rendered in colour, the statue at the heart of the present work recalls the artist’s earlier monochromatic explorations of blackness. “Like Blackness, wealth defines the spaces of those who inhabit it”, Ojih Odutola has said, “it limits and/or permits movement and readjusts context.” These earlier works were executed solely with ballpoint pen, and the pen holds significance for the artist as both tool of the writer, and of the artist.

Toyin Ojih Odutola lives and works in New York. Born in 1985 in Ife, Nigeria, she moved with her family to Berkeley, California in 1990 and relocated to Hunstville, Alabama in 1994. After staging her first solo show with gallerist Jack Shainman in 2011, she gained an MFA in Painting and Drawing in 2012. Her works are already held in the collections of several major institutions, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art, all in New York, and the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC.

托 茵・奧依・奧杜托拉以橫跨五場個展的作品系列，編織一個恢弘龐大卻又鉅細無遺的虛構世界，述說兩個尼日利亞顯赫家族的軼事。在藝術家想像中的平行時空，尼日利亞從未歷經殖民時期，尼日利亞人民亦從未淪為奴隸，而故事的主角烏姆埃茲・阿馬拉氏族（the UmuEze Amara Clan）和奧巴費米家族（the House of Obafemi）則是這個美好世界裡備受敬重的名門望族。

這個史詩式的故事始於三藩市非裔移民博物館（「Matter of Fact」，2016年），再到紐約惠特尼美國藝術博物館（「To Wander Determined」，2017年）、薩凡納藝術設計學院（「Testing the Name」，2018年）和漢諾威胡德美術館（「The Firmament」，2018年），最後來到傑克・謝曼畫廊，以2018年的「When Legends Die」作結，構成一個宏大的展覽系列。本作《埃喬古花園內的顯赫親系（阿瑪拉宮）》就是最後一場個展「When Legends Die」內的展品。

「When Legends Die」呈獻一對富有的同性伴侶泰米度匹・奧摩德里大人（TH Lord Temitope Omodele）與丈夫吉多弗・埃梅卡侯爵（TMH Lord Jideofor Emeka）的私人收藏，兩人分別來自藝術家虛構的兩個顯赫家族。為了讓觀者能夠沉醉在這個故事的文字與視覺敘述中，藝術家充當兩人的「副私人秘書」，為展覽撰寫簡介：「兩位大人因其貴族

頭銜一直對外樹立備受尊崇的公眾形象，這次冀以其顯赫藝術收藏內之精選藏品，向公眾呈現他們鮮為人知的家族軼事，展現隨性親和的一面。」由於尼日利亞在2014年立法通過《同性婚姻禁止法案》，因此展覽中的作品實際上來自一段現實中無法締結的婚姻。

在這個前提下，《埃喬古花園內的顯赫親系（阿瑪拉宮）》可謂是奧依・奧杜托拉這個極其重要的作品系列中別具意義之作。藝術家作為傳說的杜撰者，同時致力研究財富、種族和歷史的建構，兩樣看似風馬牛不相及的工作在本作中合而為一。虛構人物擁有虛構收藏，虛構的畫裡描繪了虛構的雕塑，藝術家透過從未聽過卻又無比熟悉的故事，帶領觀者探討社會政治身分認同與權力的形成。雖然這個系列的作品色彩絢麗，但本作所描繪的雕塑卻讓人聯想起藝術家早期只用黑色繪畫的作品。奧依・奧杜托拉曾說：「財富就好比黑色，會為深陷其中的人設限。它會限制您的行為，又或容許您的某些舉動，並調整您身處的境況。」奧依・奧杜托拉早期的黑色作品單以圓珠筆完成。對她來說，筆既是作者的工具，亦是藝術家的創作媒介，意義非同尋常。

托茵・奧依・奧杜托拉現時在紐約居住和工作。1985年，她生於尼日利亞伊費，1990年隨家人一同移居至美國加州伯克利，並在1994年搬到阿拉巴馬州亨茨維爾。2011年，她與藝廊策展人傑克・謝曼（Jack Shainman）共同策劃了她的首場個展。翌年，她取得繪畫及素描藝術碩士學位。目前，她的作品已獲多間大型藝術機構收藏，包括位於紐約的大都會藝術博物館、現代藝術博物館和惠特尼美國藝術博物館，以及位於華盛頓的史密森尼學會國立非洲藝術博物館。