{"meta":{"version":"2.1","_links":{"self":{"href":"https://api.vam.ac.uk/v2/object/O1737535"},"collection_page":{"href":"https://collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O1737535/"}},"images":{"_primary_thumbnail":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2023NL2714/full/!100,100/0/default.jpg","_iiif_image":"https://framemark.vam.ac.uk/collections/2023NL2714/","_alt_iiif_image":[],"imageResolution":"low","_images_meta":[{"assetRef":"2023NL2714","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2715","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2723","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2724","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2725","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2726","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2727","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2728","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2729","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false},{"assetRef":"2023NL2730","copyright":"© Victoria and Albert Museum, London","sensitiveImage":false}]},"see_also":null},"record":{"systemNumber":"O1737535","accessionNumber":"A.2-2023","objectType":"Group","titles":[{"title":"Wrestling Oil Shell BP","type":"assigned by artist"}],"summaryDescription":"Sokari Douglas Camp (born in Buguma, Nigeria, 1958) spent her early years in Nigeria and moved to England at a young age to attend school. She studied art at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California (1979–80), was awarded a fine arts degree from the Central School of Art and Design in London (1980–83 ) and a master’s degree from the Royal College of Art (1983–86). She now lives and works in London. In 2005, was awarded a CBE in recognition of her services to art. Her work is represented in public collections worldwide (including the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA and Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo, Japan) and in the UK, notably inthe British Museum, Brighton Museum and Art Gallery and the Arts Council Collection. Her work, Europe Supported by Africa and America (2015), was shown at the V&A as part of ‘Sokari Douglas Camp at the V&A’ (22 June 2022 – 24 May 2023).\r\n\r\nDouglas Camp works predominantly in steel, taking inspiration from her Kalabari heritage, her life in the UK and European art history. She describes her practice as ‘welding, cutting and bending sheet steel and recycled oil barrels into shape’. Her work addresses complex socio-political issues of global significance, the legacies of colonialism and empire, the history of the African Diaspora, and the social and environmental impacts of fossil fuel extraction.\r\n\r\nCharacteristic of her practice and part of wider series of small-scale works, Wrestling Oil Shell BP is a dynamic sculptural group featuring a pair of figures wrestling on a standing oil drum. Douglas Camp was born a time when oil was discovered in the Rivers State, southern Nigeria, by large multinational corporations such as British Petroleum and Royal Dutch Shell. The logo of the latter, together with brands of comestible olive oil as playful interventions, feature on the barrel supporting the wrestlers, while oil, or ‘black gold’, here represented with stylised gilt drops of liquid, spills from the structure. Much of Douglas Camp’s work addresses the devastating effect of fossil fuel exploitation in the Niger Delta, with international oil companies benefitting from the Nigerian government’s mismanagement.\r\n\r\nThe artist returns to Nigeria frequently to visit her family and partake in the traditional activities of Kalabari culture in Buguma. The sounds, movements and colours of Kalabari masquerades, plays, regattas and festivals constantly inspire her works. In Wrestling Oil Shell PB, the garments of the two figures, made of colourful recycled tea and olive tins, recall the Kalabari masquerades at Festival Time (Alali).\r\n\r\nDouglas Camp also takes inspiration from European art history. Here the wrestlers are captured as one lifts the other from the ground in an asymmetric power struggle echoing the rape scenes depicted in marble by sixteenth and seventeenth-century European sculptors. The composition is reminiscent of Bernini’s Pluto and Persephone (1621) and Apollo and Daphne (1622-1625) as well as The Rape of the Sabine Women (1579-83) by Giambologna. Douglas Camp re-elaborates these figures and injects them with renewed meaning, leaving their gender undetermined.\r\n\r\nCombining and renewing West African and European visual cultures, Wrestling Oil Shell PB transcends geographic boundaries, bringing to the fore the harmful exploitation of natural resources in the Rivers State and the perpetuation of economic colonialism. In doing so, Douglas Camp’s work materialises the unequal power dynamics underlying the politics of race, gender and the environmental crisis.","physicalDescription":"Steel sculpture of two human figures wrestiling on top of an oil barrel. The barrel and the figures' garments are painted with colorful acrylics. ","artistMakerPerson":[{"name":{"text":"Sokari Douglas Camp","id":"AUTH398889"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"artistMakerOrganisations":[],"artistMakerPeople":[],"materials":[{"text":"","id":""},{"text":"","id":""},{"text":"steel","id":"AAT133751"},{"text":"gold leaf","id":"x33207"},{"text":"acrylic paint","id":"AAT15058"},{"text":"","id":""}],"techniques":[{"text":"welding","id":"AAT53958"},{"text":"cutting","id":"AAT54005"},{"text":"","id":""}],"materialsAndTechniques":"Steel, acrylic paint and gold leaf ","categories":[],"styles":[],"collectionCode":{"text":"SCP","id":"THES48600"},"images":["2023NL2714","2023NL2715","2023NL2723","2023NL2724","2023NL2725","2023NL2726","2023NL2727","2023NL2728","2023NL2729","2023NL2730"],"imageResolution":"low","galleryLocations":[{"current":{"text":"66","id":"THES49733"},"free":"","case":"1","shelf":"1","box":""}],"partTypes":[[{"text":"Group","id":""}]],"contentWarnings":[{"apprise":"","note":""}],"placesOfOrigin":[{"place":{"text":"London","id":"x28980"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"productionDates":[{"date":{"text":"2018","earliest":"2018-01-01","latest":"2018-12-31"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""},{"date":{"text":"2018","earliest":"2018-01-01","latest":"2018-12-31"},"association":{"text":"","id":""},"note":""}],"associatedObjects":[],"creditLine":"Purchased in 2023","dimensions":[{"dimension":"Height","value":"62","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Width","value":"44","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""},{"dimension":"Depth","value":"21","unit":"cm","qualifier":"","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null},"part":"","note":""}],"dimensionsNote":"","marksAndInscriptions":[],"objectHistory":"","historicalContext":"","briefDescription":"Figure group, Wrestling Oil Shell BP, steel, acrylic paint and gold leaf, approx. 80 x 20 x 45 cm by Sokari Douglas Camp, British, 2018.","bibliographicReferences":[],"production":"","productionType":{"text":"","id":""},"contentDescription":"","contentPlaces":[],"associatedPlaces":[],"contentPerson":[],"associatedPerson":[],"contentOrganisations":[],"associatedOrganisations":[],"contentPeople":[],"associatedPeople":[],"contentEvents":[],"associatedEvents":[],"contentOthers":[],"contentConcepts":[],"contentLiteraryRefs":[],"galleryLabels":[{"text":"Sokari Douglas Camp welds, cuts and bends sheet steel into sculptures that confront the environmental and socio-political issues caused by international oil companies exploiting the Rivers State in her native Nigeria. In Wrestling Oil Shell BP, recycled tea and olive tins create the garments of two figures fighting on top of an oil barrel. The artist drew inspiration from spiritual dancers in the Kalabari masquerades in eastern Nigeria and historical European sculptures of abductions of mythological female figures.","date":{"text":"","earliest":null,"latest":null}}],"partNumbers":["A.2-2023"],"accessionNumberNum":"2","accessionNumberPrefix":"A","accessionYear":2023,"otherNumbers":[],"copyNumber":"","aspects":["WHOLE"],"assets":[],"recordModificationDate":"2025-08-19","recordCreationDate":"2022-11-30","availableToBook":false}}