Iké Udé’s Sartorial Anarchy portraits feature the artist, himself, dressed in varied costumes across geography and time, exploring a world of dualities: photographer/performance artist, artist/spectator, Conversant with the world of fashion and celebrity, Udé gives conceptual aspects of performance and representation a new vitality, melding his own many theatrical selves and multiple personae with his art. In the Nollywood work, Udé seeks to complement the discourse on the representation of Africans in cinema, from colonial domination and inferior stereotypes to one of intellect and creative agency in telling our own stories. The new work includes a portrait of Turkish jeweler/sculptor, Sevan Biçakçi. 

‘Clothes and accessories are after all the index of culture—it locates one at a geography/time. Even within a specific geography/time, fashion further informs one’s class, religion, profession, habits, etc. In light of this, a cross-pollination, say of masculine sartorial ciphers across time and cultures bear quite a remarkable result, as you can see. Alas! This time, it is fashion, it seems—not politics—that makes strange bedfellows.’ - Iké Udé 

BIOGRAPHY 

Iké Udé currently lives and works in New York City. Udé was the founder and publisher of aRUDE magazine, a quarterly devoted to art, culture, style and fashion, and the author of Style File: The World’s Most Elegantly Dressed, a comprehensive monograph released by Harper Collins. A style icon, he was selected as one of Vanity Fair’s 2009, 2012, and 2015 International Best Dressed Originals. Udé’s work is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum, Washington D.C., The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the Museum of Art and Design (MAD), New York, the New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, CT, the Sheldon Museum of Art, Lincoln, NE and the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) Museum, Providence, RI. 

Artworks exhibited at The Betsy are for sale in partnership with artists and their respective managers. Please contact Sandra Rovira at [email protected] for more information.