TemitayoOgunbiyi_You will make wishes for your neighbor

Temitayo Ogunbiyi: You will wonder if we would have been friends

April 2, 2025 – August 31, 2025

The Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum will present Temitayo Ogunbiyi: You will wonder if we would have been friends, the first solo exhibition in the United States by Nigeria-based artist Temitayo Ogunbiyi (b. 1984) from April 2 to August 31, 2025. Featuring work from throughout Ogunbiyi’s seventeen-year career, the exhibition will include sculptures and drawings installed within the Museum’s first floor galleries and garden. 

Ogunbiyi describes her work as “responding to and forging dialogues between global current events,  anthropological histories, design, and botanical cultures.” Interested in how play can serve humanity, Ogunbiyi has been researching the life and practice of Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) for several years, exploring the ways in which his pioneering work in open-ended, non-directive play expands the civic reach of sculpture. Building on Noguchi’s complex biography and the ways in which it manifests in his play sculpture designs, Ogunbiyi will create site-specific interactive installations for play, sculptures that can be used for music making, and an outdoor installation that features input from the greater museum community.

TemitayoOgunbiyi_You will play in the nuance and grow community.
TemitayoOgunbiyi__You will follow the Rhein and compose play (playground), 2024.
TemitayoOgunbiyi_You will make wishes for your neighbor
  • Temitayo Ogunbiyi, You will play in the nuance and grow community, 2023. Instrument. Brass, wood, stainless steel. Dimensions Variable. Commissioned by the Van Abbemuseum. Photography by Boudewijn Bollmann. Courtesy of Temitayo Ogunbiyi
  • Temitayo Ogunbiyi, You will follow the Rhein and compose play (playground), 2024. Steel, rubber, concrete, manilla rope. Dimensions variable. Commissioned by the Museum Tinguely and the Bundeskunsthalle. Installation view at the Bundeskun. Courtesy of Temitayo Ogunbiyi
  • Temitayo Ogunbiyi, You will make wishes for your neighbor (54 Days), 2024. Copper alloy, laterite, concrete. Dimensions variable. Commissioned by the Middelheim Museum, Antwerp, Belgium. Photo by Léonard Pongo. Courtesy of Temitayo Ogunbiyi

About Temitayo Ogunbiyi

Born in Rochester, New York, in 1984, Temitayo Ogunbiyi grew up in the outskirts of Philadelphia. An artist and curator, her work explores influences ranging from Yoruba hairstyling and Victorian hairwork, to botanical forms and transnational travel. Now living in Lagos, Nigeria, Ogunbiyi’s interest in playground design developed through her experience raising her children in this city of over 20 million people, where she struggled to find public playgrounds. This, coupled with her own experiences growing up as a first generation immigrant in the United States born to Jamaican and Nigerian parents, influences her creation of public play sculptures. These aim to present play and exercise as a right for all children and adults. Past playground projects include You will find Lagos in London Living (2023) at South London Gallery in London, England; You will forge paths beyond your grandmother’s imaginings (2023) at Haus der Kulturen de Welt in Berlin, Germany; You will follow the Rhein and compose play (2023) at the Museum Tinguely in Basel, Switzerland; You will play in nuance and grow community (2022) at the Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands; Giocherai nel quotidiano, correndo (You will play in the everyday, running) and Suonerai nel quotidiano, accelerando (You will play in the everyday, accelerating) (2020) at the Madre Museum in Naples, Italy; and You will find playgrounds among palm trees, playdate (2018) at Freedom Park Playground in Lagos, Nigeria.

Temitayo Ogunbiyi: You will wonder if we would have been friends received major support from The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts. The exhibition is also supported, in part, with public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs, in partnership with the City Council and from the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.