Exhibition

BRANDON NDIFE
Clearance

8th Floor

Brandon Ndife unsettles distinctions between daily life and its surrealist lining. Organic shapes are nested within sculptural shells that resemble domestic furniture, hand-built to evoke the mass-produced items that order our private lives. Drawers and bureaus drift in suspended states of ripening and rot, as artificial vegetation threatens to overtake the built environment. With elements cast in resin or modeled in foam and painted in a sly trompe l’oeil, Ndife’s low-slung altars are rife with near-alchemical transformations. The encroaching foliage also points up the social dimension of nature itself: his botanicals favor Indigenous plants whose histories are entangled with human migration. Cast tubers and gourds read as exotic shapes to some and as staple foods to others, with a material uncanny that nods to broader systems of uneven distribution.

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Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife
Untitled (Jaboticaba), 2024
Wood, foam, polyurethane resin,
oil paint, enamel paint, gold leaf, scenic moss
40 x 51 x 28 in (102 x 130 x 71 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Untitled (Jaboticaba), 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife
Extra #9 (For books, etc.), 2024
Wood, enamel paint, concrete, gold leaf
29 x 59 1/2 x 20 in (74 x 151 x 51 cm

Brandon Ndife, Extra #9 (For books, etc.), 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife, Extra #9 (For books, etc.), 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife, Extra #9 (For books, etc.), 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife, Extra #9 (For books, etc.), 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife
Extra #10 (Altar), 2024
Wood, enamel paint, gold leaf, root
39 3/4 x 30 3/4 x 17 1/2 in (101 x 78 x 45 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Extra #10 (Altar), 2024 (detail)

Ndife’s exhibition design embeds the works in a theatrical space that recalls a city street, with sculptures perched on a cement curb as if discarded—now vulnerable to weathering and prying eyes. Yet that exposure lends them a cryptic agency, like relics that summon their own past lives. This sprawling environment is also strewn with “decoys” Ndife has placed among the artworks, highlighting the hierarchies we tacitly assign to all that we encounter. Those questions of value resurface in the exhibition’s title, as Clearance denotes what has been marked down because left unsold. In Ndife’s hands, objects positioned as “jettisoned and unclaimed” become conduits to more structural exclusions, and their wild growth alludes to a political order that fosters rampant surplus and deprivation alike.

Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife
Frighteningly, I wasn’t afraid, 2024
Wood, foam, polyurethane resin, oil paint, enamel paint,
gold leaf, scenic moss, light sockets, pine tree
28 x 24 x 32 in (71 x 61 x 81 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Frighteningly, I wasn’t afraid, 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife
Masquerade, 2024
Wood, foam, polyurethane resin, oil paint,
enamel paint, gold leaf, sisal
62 x 50 x 24 1/2 in (158 x 127 x 62 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Masquerade, 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife

Under the side table in the north-facing room, 2024

Pastel and linseed oil on paper

Paper: 30 x 22 3/8 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 32 x 24 3/8 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 62 x 4 cm)

Brandon Ndife

Three mahoganies, 2024

Pastel and linseed oil on paper

Paper: 30 x 22 3/8 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 31 7/8 x 24 3/8 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 62 x 4 cm)

Brandon Ndife

Under the side table in the north-facing room, 2024

Pastel and linseed oil on paper

Paper: 30 x 22 3/8 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 32 x 24 3/8 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 62 x 4 cm)

Brandon Ndife

Three mahoganies, 2024

Pastel and linseed oil on paper

Paper: 30 x 22 3/8 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 31 7/8 x 24 3/8 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 62 x 4 cm)

A group of drawings offer a more classical counterpoint to the sculptures. Dusky pastels depict household furnishings intact—still in a state of unsullied coherence before entropy sets in. That anachronism only heightens the temporal unmooring of Ndife’s assemblages, which appear like remnants of a distant past or envoys from a dystopian future.

Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife
Two in mint condition, 2024
Pastel and linseed oil on paper
Paper: 30 x 22 3/8 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 32 x 24 3/4 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 63 x 4 cm)

Brandon Ndife

South-facing wall (Semaan), 2024

Pastel and linseed oil on paper

Paper: 29 3/4 x 22 1/4 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 32 1/16 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 62 x 4 cm)

Brandon Ndife
Two in mint condition, 2024
Pastel and linseed oil on paper
Paper: 30 x 22 3/8 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 32 x 24 3/4 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 63 x 4 cm)

Brandon Ndife

South-facing wall (Semaan), 2024

Pastel and linseed oil on paper

Paper: 29 3/4 x 22 1/4 in (76 x 57 cm)
Frame: 32 1/16 x 24 1/2 x 1 1/2 in (81 x 62 x 4 cm)

Brandon Ndife

Extra #11 (Onion), 2024

Foam, plastic bag, Aqua-Resin, wire, concrete, enamel paint

40 1/2 x 32 x 26 in (103 x 81 x 66 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Extra #11 (Onion), 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife
Backsplash, 2024
Wood, foam, concrete, polyurethane resin, oil paint,
gourd, enamel paint, sisal, tile, gold leaf
30 1/2 x 73 x 19 1/2 in (78 x 185 x 50 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Backsplash, 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife

Easter Basket, 2024

Plastic, concrete, polyurethane resin, oil paint, enamel
paint, gold leaf, colored leafing, scenic moss, aluminum

75 x 20 3/8 x 25 3/8 in (191 x 52 x 65 cm)

Brandon Ndife

Easter Basket, 2024

Plastic, concrete, polyurethane resin, oil paint, enamel
paint, gold leaf, colored leafing, scenic moss

68 1/2 x 25 x 26 1/2 in (174 x 64 x 67 cm)

Brandon Ndife

Easter Basket, 2024

Plastic, concrete, polyurethane resin, oil paint, enamel
paint, gold leaf, colored leafing, scenic moss, aluminum

75 x 20 3/8 x 25 3/8 in (191 x 52 x 65 cm)

Brandon Ndife

Easter Basket, 2024

Plastic, concrete, polyurethane resin, oil paint, enamel
paint, gold leaf, colored leafing, scenic moss

68 1/2 x 25 x 26 1/2 in (174 x 64 x 67 cm)

Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife
Golden Buffet, 2024
Wood, foam, polyurethane resin, oil paint, sisal,
enamel paint, gold leaf, scenic moss, plastic
67 x 60 x 32 in (170 x 152 x 81 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Golden Buffet, 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife

Untitled, 2024

Wood, foam, plastic, polyurethane resin,
oil paint, enamel paint, electric wiring

71 x 27 x 32 in (180 x 69 x 81 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Untitled, 2024 (detail)


Brandon Ndife, installation view, Clearance, Greene Naftali, New York, 2024

Brandon Ndife

Extra #1 (The brown understudy), 2024

Foam, plastic bag, Aqua-Resin, wire,
concrete, wood, enamel paint

40 1/2 x 32 x 26 in (103 x 81 x 66 cm)

Brandon Ndife
Rugburn, 2024
Wood, foam, polyurethane resin, oil paint, sisal,
enamel paint, scenic moss, concrete, plastic
40 x 42 x 42 in (102 x 107 x 107 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Rugburn, 2024 (detail)

Brandon Ndife

Extra #7 (Garage), 2024

Wood, concrete, oil paint, enamel paint,
gold leaf, foam, Aqua-Resin
36 x 24 x 35 in (91 x 61 x 89 cm)

Brandon Ndife, Extra #7 (Garage), 2024 (detail)

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