Days like razors, nights full of rats

Stevenson Amsterdam is pleased to present ‘Days like razors, nights full of rats’, a solo show by Frida Orupabo, the artist’s first in the Netherlands.

The title of the exhibition is taken from a poem by Charles Bukowski, the resonant focus being on how books and the library become an escape from a life filled with hardship. Orupabo reflects on socio-political histories and the internal psychology of the lived experience in this present moment in time.

The exhibition looks towards histories of political infiltration, including the FBI’s targeting of Black political and cultural organisations, and the ways in which movements can be weakened.

Orupabo says:

“I was drawn in by the title and how it resonated with what I was already looking at and thinking about, Black lives, political struggles, political games, and destruction from within: both from within important political movements but also from within ourselves, moral decline, loss of focus and critical thinking. I have thought a lot how money and power lures and corrupts.”

Comprising Orupabo’s signature pinned paper collages and archival imagery, with scenography reminiscent of a political campaign, the exhibition invites you into a landscape of promises, pitfalls and confusion.