b'Toyin Ojih OdutolaBorn in 1985 in Ile-Ife, Nigeria, Toyin Ojih Odutola moved in 1990 to the United States, where her father was a researcher and teacher at the Univer-sity of California, Berkeley. She received her MFA from the California Col-lege of Arts, San Francisco, in 2012, and even before graduating she had her first solo show in New York, where she now lives and works. Odutola first became known for her portraits in ballpoint pen, whose monochrome mark-ings she uses to build textures that render skin, particularly Black skin, in an elaborate way, capturing its luminosity. Odutola is a storyteller and has made series of works depicting invent-ed lives and histories, such as one chronicling an imagined prehistoric civi-lization ruled by queer female warriors in central Nigeria. Crown and House Post, in Congress is part of Scenes of Exchange, a series of charcoal and pastel drawings made for the Manifesta Biennial in Palermo. The works quotidian episodes show the presence of West Africa within Italy, African people, objects, and ideas having become part of Palermos cosmopoli-tan culture, mainly by trade. The West African artifacts in the window and corner of an apartment also pose questions about how meaning can get lost or changed with displacement and new contexts. Exhibited in :Scenes of Exchange, 12th Manifesta Biennial, Orto botanico di Palermo, Palermo, June 16November 4, 2018Crown and House Post,in Congress, 2018 Charcoal, pastel, and pencil on paper162.2106.7 cm116 178.1121.66.4 cm (framed) 117'