I Prayed To The Wrong God For You

Tiona Nekkia McClodden will unpack the notion of ‘chronos vs kairos’ in relation to her work over the past year with a close reading of her latest work I prayed to the wrong god for you, 2019 filmed across the United States, Cuba, and Nigeria. The multi-channel work combines video and sculptural elements in a highly personal ritual dedicated to Shango, a deity or Orisha within the Afro-Cuban religion Santería/Lucumí whose origins can be traced to the Yoruba people of Nigeria. In this body of work McClodden merges her spiritual requirements as a priestess of Ogun and artistic work to repair a period of personal exhaustion.

Tiona Nekkia McClodden [she/her] is a visual artist, filmmaker, and curator whose work often employs a citational practice exploring and critiquing issues at the intersections of race, gender, sexuality and social commentary. Her interdisciplinary approach traverses documentary film, experimental video, sculpture, and sound installations. McClodden has exhibited and screened work at the Institute of Contemporary Art-Philadelphia, the Museum of Modern Art (New York); the Whitney Museum; MOCA LA; MCA Chicago; MoMA PS1; among others. She has been awarded the 2019 Bucksbaum Award. McClodden was chosen from among the seventy-five artists whose works are being presented in the 2019 Whitney Biennial. McClodden has been awarded the 2019 Guggenheim Fellowship in Fine Arts, the 2018–19 Keith Haring Fellowship in Art and Activism, the 2017 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award and the 2016 Pew Fellowship in the Arts in Philadelphia, PA, among other awards. McClodden curated the traveling exhibitions A Recollection. + Predicated. featured within Julius Eastman: That Which is Fundamental, and more recently There Are No Shadows Here: The Perfect Moment at 30 featuring the works of George Dureau and D’Angelo Lovell Williams. She lives and works in North Philadelphia, PA.