Museums in Europe and the US have expressed interest in displaying an army of Nubian masked figures by the British-Trinidadian artist Zak Ové, which was installed in the courtyard of Somerset House for the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair in October. The final destination for the 40 life-size statues is a planned sculpture park in Berkshire, west of London, being set up by the Saudi Arabian-born collector Hussam Otaibi, who part-owns a financial services firm in London. The park will be open to the public some of the time and is expected to launch in two years. Otaibi purchased Ové’s Black and Blue: The Invisible Man and The Masque of Blackness (2016) for £300,000 from London’s Vigo Gallery. The work was inspired by Ben Jonson’s play The Masque of Blackness, which featured actors in blackface makeup at a performance on the site of Somerset House in the 17th century, when it was the home of James I’s queen. Ové’s installation exists in three editions and will join works by Nathaniel Rackowe, Piotr Lakomy among others in the new park. Nick Hackworth, the director of Otaibi’s collection, Modern Forms, says there will be an emphasis on emerging artists and new commissions, although Eduardo Paolozzi’s 1966 sculpture, Suwasa, which once stood in the Economist Plaza in central London, will also go on show there.
