Larry Achiampong’s Striking Collages Confront Christianity, Video Games, and Colonialism
Larry Achiampong, installation view of “And I Saw A New Heaven” at Copperfield, 2023. Photo by Reece Straw. Courtesy of the artist and Copperfield.
Five colorful posters immediately catch the viewer’s eye. Their subject is Jesus—however, his face is overlaid with a black circle with red lips, some of them with colorful halos. In one poster, a white hand is clutching a black bible, the ten commandments in quotes at the bottom of the collage.
In a new body of work at Copperfield, Larry Achiampong’s fascinating and thought-provoking multidisciplinary exhibition, “And I saw a new heaven,” references the unusual trinity of Christianity, video games, and HBO TV, drawing on “dialogues from the game-turned-series The Last of Us and the Bible,” according to the gallery.
Upon closer inspection, it’s clear that these circle details have been painted onto the works, and bear an unmistakable resemblance to the controversial Golliwog character from Florence Kate Upton’s children’s books: a cartoon-like figure that is based on blackface minstrels and is well-known in the U.K. as a racist caricature of Black people. This recognizable, problematic image of the British colonial past correlates, in Achiampong’s work, with the typical portrayal of Jesus as white and European.
The posters painted over by Achiampong have outdated graphic layouts similar to those found in churches in countries that were previously colonized by European nations, from Ghana to the Philippines. Western colonization led to holy figures like Jesus and Mary being portrayed as European-looking figures, perpetuating the ideology that the whiteness of Christianity was coming to save the souls of the “uncivilized” people they subjugated. Many people from those parts of the world grew up with such visuals, indoctrinated by centuries of European missionary work.
Portrait of Larry Achiampong by Reece Straw. Courtesy of the artist and Copperfield.
These collaged paintings are held in wooden frames which have been carpentered by Achiampong himself. By referencing the story of Christ, the artist also makes a point of highlighting the realities of how such manual labor is overlooked and unappreciated today.
On three screens in the exhibition space, footage of several video games is playing: The Binding of Isaac, Bayonetta 2, and Blasphemous, all of which reference Christianity. Blasphemous, for instance, sees the player pilgrimage through an alternate medieval, Catholic universe.
Bible quotes including Matthew 7:7 (“Ask and you shall receive, Seek and you will find, Knock and the door will be opened to you”) on the paintings mirror this subject matter. Having grown up with the religion, Achiampong critiques the complex nature of Christianity in his works, juxtaposing the video games (where the player commands the actions of the character) with religions in which the sayings of God command the believers.
Achiampong’s work also compares the overwhelming whiteness of the Christian church and computer games, where the representation of Black characters often replicates tired, negative stereotypes.
He nevertheless seeks to reinstate the cultural significance of video games by placing them in the context of the culture that it references. While the church is often viewed as “high culture,” gaming is merely viewed as popular entertainment. In this exhibition, the artist installs these video games for visitors to play, highlighting the games’ cultural and social references and the artistry within them, which is often bypassed in the creative world.
Later this month, Achiampong will also open his first major solo show at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, “Wayfinder,” which deals with similar themes. It will debut his feature-length, BAFTA-nominated film of the same title, commissioned by the Baltic, Turner Contemporary, and MK Gallery. Alongside the film, an expansive array of his works in photography, installation, sculpture, music, and film, including a playable video gaming room with an archive of games that have influenced his work as an artist, will be featured in the exhibition.
