They just get better and better. Here we have a succinct summary of modern life, all in one frame. The overwork, the pain, greed, overweightery and individuality bursting out from its confines. Oboe speaks to the human condition. Her medium here might be bins, but the subtext is nothing less than Aristotelian. Go Oboe! Keep the bins coming!
Oboe
Oboe Ngua – The bin project is back on track
Oboe’s mammoth project continues. “I did feel I had bitten off more than I could chew”, she said, “And for a while I felt I could never take a photo of every bin in the world. But now I am reenthused. Look out for me taking a picture of a bin near you.”
Classic Bin photo
Art critic Penelope St Jean writes…
This project by Oboe Ngua is one of those series of works that should be mentioned in the same breath as Rembrandt’s portraits, Michelangelo’s ceilings and even Billy Whaler’s epic paintings of asparagus spears from Suffolk allotments.
This particular photo is a classic of the series, an image where the ethereal beauty of the bin, qua bin, meticulously sits in an empty road, showing the links between human creativity and rubbish – trash to our North American friends. When you understand the aims of Oboe, this work is truly awe inspiring. I am certain that in the future – as long as a far-sighted museum purchases an entire edition – more people will visit and enjoy these bin photos than will visit the Sistine Chapel.
’But it’s just a picture of a bin,’ I have heard people say. What reductive madness makes people spout such nonsense. This is not just a bin, this is the classic, perfect, proto-bin, the bin of the people. This image shouts to us about the failings of democracy and the pained panic of so many 21st century endeavours. Any museum who doesn’t have this bin picture – or another from the series – on their walls asap, reveals themselves to be, in my opinion, not a serious gallery and I would advise boycotting them until they have a Binoto work in their collection.
Binoto: New bin photo available now
“A delightful new photo has been release by Oboe Ngua from her seminal series “All the Bins in the World.” Unlike many in the bin series these includes shadowy figures, one on their phone, the other staring intently at the bin. We feel that we are witnessing a bin-based crime, that society in a microcosm is being shown to us.
In the distance people walk away, oblivious to what is happening behind them. Suddenly we feel the emptiness, the loneliness of contemporary living.
Oboe shows us a bin overflowing, a bin that represents perhaps the artist’s mind, or more likely a way marker on the journey we all face to truth from adversity. Onwards, she seems to say, encouraging us in our individual ways to either reach out and grab the rubbish in our life, or alternatively walk on past, whilst phoning the council to pick up the pieces.”
Wendy Sploghe, art advisor
Edition of 50 with 1 Artist’s proof
Sad news from Oboe Ngua regarding the Binoto art project
“Friends, I have sad news to convey regarding my fine art project ‘All the Bins in the World,’ which has often been referred to in the media as the Binoto Project (a portmanteau of bin and photo). I was too optimistic when I calculated how many photos I could take in a day. Rather than 200, I can realistically only photograph 20 bins per day. By my calculations, at that rate it would take until I am 97 to photograph even all the bins in Europe.
“I know this is sad news for all those Collectors around the world who were hoping to buy one of my photos of their local bin. To them I apologise and say this. If you really want me to take a picture of your bin then get in touch. You have been wonderfully supportive and I want to help you out with a binoto.
“Otherwise, although the scope of the project is narrower than planned, I will be continuing snapping photos of bins in England. Next week I will be in Bath, if you see me do say hi.”
Oboe Ngua – All the Bins in the World
All the Bins in the World is an ambitious project by Oboe Ngua to photograph all the bins in the world. “I am starting with all the bins in London,” she says, “as I live there, but I hope to quickly move on to Europe, Africa and the world.”
Having received a substantial grant from the But is it Art?! Foundation of Fort Worth she is now able to devote the next seven years to the project. “On average I am able to photograph two hundred bins a day. If I work seven days a week, 7am to 9pm, without any breaks then I should finish photographing London’s bins by December 2026, when I shall have a large exhibition at Pimlico Wilde.”
Before then we hope to show the collection as it builds.
Oboe explains her motivation
“I grew up in Lagos where we didn’t have a bin in the house. Even when I was young I told myself that one day I would make up for that privation. Little did I know that I would do so in such a wonderful way. I hope to build the largest privately held collection of bin and bin related photographs in the world.”
Collectors are advised to make their interest known as this project is expected to sell out before it even goes on sale.
“I am amazed that my early bin works are already selling for thousands of pounds. But then I remember, it is such an under-examined subject. To me these bins have become friends and models; each one like a life drawing embodying everything that a bin can strive to be.