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Belgian artist Vanessa van Obberghen has been traveling to Dakar for several years. In her work, for the most part photographs and multimedia installations, she investigates transcultural exchange. A key to unpacking "Big Wig," her tightly structured recent exhibition in Zurich, was provided by an untitled video projection, 2006-2007, showing a white man attempting to find his rhythm while surrounded by a group of people (both white and black) dancing; he never succeeds. The dance motif is reprised in three light boxes, BIG WIG (Zi KhR 1), BIG WIG (Zi KhR 2), and BIG WIG (Zi KhR 3) (all 2007), each of which contains several transparent, overlapping photographs showing the heads of black men, like stills marking the phases of...
