Created By
Saleh Lô
graphite drawing & acrylic on panel, Graphite drawing and acrylic on found tomato paste cans
Curator
Luke Chapman
In the installation “Immigration”, Saleh Lô orchestrates a profound meditation on what Arjun Appadurai would recognize as the "scapes" of late capitalism—those fluid networks through which people, commodities, and capital circulate with devastating unevenness. The installation's architectural logic—the pyramidal accumulation of cans beneath the intimate portraits—creates a spatial hierarchy that mirrors the global economy's extraction of value from human labor. The tomatoes cradled in the depicted hands become charged symbols: simultaneously the fruit of European soil and African sweat, they crystallize the circular migration of bodies and commodities that defines contemporary "Southern Cosmopolitanism." Lô's collaborative approach ensures that the migrant worker emerges not as a statistical abstraction but as a co-author of testimony, his individual narrative woven into the broader tapestry of transnational exploitation. The work compels viewers to confront their own position within these circuits of consumption, revealing how the most mundane act of purchasing tomato paste implicates us in systems of labor extraction that span continents. This is art as archaeological practice, excavating the human cost buried within the smooth surfaces of global commerce.
Immigration by Saleh Lô constitutes a powerful interrogation of global labor circuits and commodity flows, anchored by the arresting juxtaposition of intimate portraiture and mass-produced objects. The installation centers on graphite drawings that depict hands clutching vibrant red tomatoes—rendered with hyperrealist precision that imbues the fruit with almost sacramental weight—while a monumental pyramid of tomato paste cans dominates the floor space with industrial authority. The drawn figure emerges from Lô's collaborative methodology, representing an individual whose labor trajectory spans continents: from European agricultural fields to the processed commodity that saturates Mauritanian markets. The chromatic dialogue between the red of the tomatoes and the ubiquitous red packaging creates a visual rhyme that underscores the cyclical nature of global exploitation. This work operates as what might be termed a "transnational ready-made," where the mundane objects of consumption are revealed as repositories of hidden labor histories, migration narratives, and structural violence.
Created By
Saleh Lô
142 x 255 cm | 56 x 100 in
2025
