PRESENTATION: Precious Okoyomon-One Either Loves Oneself Or Knows Oneself

Precious Okoyomon’s works traverse art, poetry, and performance. They investigate identity, colonial history, spirituality, and people’s relationship to things and the living environment. Intimate personal questions are linked with political and social issues. Even before the pandemic, Precious Okoyomon was invited to exhibit at Kunsthaus Bregenz,  the youngest artist in the institution’s history, then just twenty-seven years old. Okoyomon gained the attention of a broad public with installations that incorporate materials such as soil, plants, and animals. At the Venice Biennale in 2022, the artist transformed the hall of the Arsenale into a lush, rampant ecosystem.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Kunsthaus Bregenz Archive

For “One Either Loves Oneself Or Knows Oneself”, her solo exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Precious Okoyomon has developed several new works that investigate diverse themes. Located on the ground floor are two rooms that recall the consulting rooms of the psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud. Furniture from around 1900 creates an atmosphere that is at once familiar as well as impersonal. Employees in specially designed clothing engage visitors in dialogue and pose questions about dreams, memories, and hidden feelings. A bookshelf holds books on subjects such as love, cooking, and Arabic poetry but also volumes by Édouard Glissant, whose work points to creative interactions between cultures. The pattern on the wallpaper is composed of drawings by Okoyomon. The hybrid figures with large heads, dolllike bodies, and fiery eyes appear to be both lost in dream and demonic, inviting us to delve into the depths of our own psyche. The Kunsthaus Bregenz stairwells have been darkened for Okoyomon’s exhibition. An additional, lowered ceiling constricts the stairway upward, creating a new spatial feeling. On the first floor, stuffed animals hang from the ceiling. Outfitted with real feathers, they seem like hybrids, child- like, playful beings that embody both delicateness and a sense of security. As is often the case in Okoyomon’s work, that presented here deals with dreams and levity, fragility and affection, love and care. Cuddly stuffed animals protect children; they are companions and friends, provide comfort, and serve as a projection surface for children’s fantasies. A huge teddy bear on the second floor creates an intimate atmosphere. Its teardrop-shaped eyes, the hearts on its paws, and its anxious gaze prompt us to experience moments of sadness and self-forgetfulness. The installation is supplemented by music by the sound artist Takiaya Reed, whose ethereal pieces evoke trance-like states and accompany the transition into the world of waking dreams. On the third floor of Kunsthaus Bregenz visitors are welcomed by a garden. Along with pupated caterpillars in the process of metamorphosis, butterflies that have already hatched flutter through the air. Flickering outside of the warm humid habitat is a movie showing a flight over Hudson River. The film was produced for the exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, Okoyomon herself piloted the plane. The images convey a feeling of boundlessness and freedom, characterized by a sense of an ego that views both things and life in the material world as a source of spiritual inspiration. In addition to expansive installations, Okoyomon has earned a reputation with their poems. The poetry volume “Ajebota” (2016), Okoyomon was then just twenty-three years old, met  with positive response. The poetic texts are experimental and link personal thoughts with socio- political themes. They deal with exploring the body and experiencing pure emotions. Okoyomon’s texts are about the experiences of a Black, queer person; they are tender, unembellished, and naïve, as intimate as they are uncomfortable.

Photo: Precious Okoyomon, One Either Loves Oneself Or Knows Oneself, Exhibition view ground floor Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2025. Precious Okoyomon, the existential detective agency, 2025, Photo: Markus Tretter, © Precious Okoyomon, Kunsthaus Bregenz, Courtesy of the artist

Info: Kunsthaus Bregenz, Karl-Titian-Platz, Bregenz, Austria, Duration: 1/2 -25/5/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed & Fri-Sun 10:00-18:00, Thu 10:00-20:00, www.kunsthaus-bregenz.at/