Artist Yaw Owusu
The Institute of Contemporary Art, San Diego ([icasandiego.org](http://icasandiego.org)) kicks off its 2022- 2023 exhibition season titled Limitless Growth, Limited World with sculptural works by new artist-in-residence Yaw Owusu. Here, the innovative artist discusses how he utilizes oxidized pennies collected in his native Ghana to explore consumption and human values in A Penny, for What It’s Worth, on display through Nov. 20.
Yaw Owusu, “African-American Flag” (1920-2020, United States oxidized pennies on canvas), 54 inches by 84 inches. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE ARTIST
What was appealing to you about ICA San Diego’s residency program? I have only lived in the U.S. for four years now, and my work and research are centered around value and its relationship to global economic histories and developments. I have spent most of my time here in New York, and some parts of the Midwest territories. This is my first time having an artistic engagement with the West Coast. The residency serves as a door to explore the realities of the West as well as expand on my continuous research and experiments.
How did you approach making art surrounding consumption for the Limitless Growth, Limited World exhibition season? The theme for this year resonates so much with my work. I considered the mere fact that I’m using pennies, which to a great deal are worthless in today’s economy. By turning these worthless monetary objects into valuable, fungible objects in the form of artworks, the new objects elevate into a realm of value and a new discourse around their exchange and use, the fundamental of consumption.
Which materials did you use to explore consumption from a monetary perspective? I collect pennies mostly from banks and fly with the pesewas [monetary unit] from Ghana to the U.S. … By transporting pesewas to the United States, [where they] immediately become obsolete because of their place-shift and use, the coins now only serve as a reference point to a place and its history.
How did you build on your past work with repurposed objects, currency and symbolism? I am fascinated by the metamorphoses of raw materials into commodities, and then as objects of value, through an exchange. ... The penny is an object that reflects the fluctuation of material value to me. By using this least denomination, the work moves from money itself to the question of value. These objects of exchange carry specific texts about nationalism, and Abraham Lincoln’s portrait—which represents African Americans’ emancipation from slavery—turns the least denomination into a symbol of a strong political question, ‘What is the value placed on African Americans today?’
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