Against Tokenism In The Work Of Njideka Akunyili Crosby

Feminist theory has argued that there is a “white-male-position-accepted-as-natural, or the hidden ‘he’,” that is the subject of all scholarly predicates.[1] Despite feminist interventions, the default viewpoint of the white male continues to hold in the visual arts today, especially when the black body is the subject. Stuart Hall argues exactly that when he speaks of ‘the construction of white representation of blackness’ in film being totalizing and harmful.[2] This harmful totalizing view informs attitudes towards black women and art made by them, and often relegates them to a token status. Here, tokenism is applied as a concept to theorize the inclusion of marginalized artists in the dominant canon in a way that highlights their differences rather than dismantling structural hierarchies. According to Elspeth Van Vereen and Natalie Zelt, the artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby seeks to dismantle systemic violence with her work by using a queer method of portrayal and creation, which allows her to disrupt a one-dimensional view of black women.[3]

In this essay, I argue that scholarly analyses of Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work—especially those grounded in the power of the work to contest hegemonic ideas—actually reinforce the Western, male-centered paradigms that the artist seeks to dismantle. By privileging interpretation over the sensory experience of the art, such scholarly approaches push a tokenistic view of her work. I also argue that anti-interpretation could better keep with the work’s intended purpose because Njideka herself has expressed that she wants to create work that you feel ‘in your bones’ rather than interpret intellectually.[4]

FIG. 1. Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Remain, Thriving, 2018. Acrylic, transfers, colored pencil, pastel, and collage on paper 144 x 75.75 in 365.76 x 192.405 cm Remain, Thriving, 2018

Scholars have often used a feminist lens to look at Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work, arguing that her work is disruptive because of its use of collage which can be seen in the background of FIG. 1 . However, this way of looking at it relies on outdated assumptions about the medium itself. Van Veeren posited that going further than representation, Njideka Akunyili Crosby dismantles cultures of violence by challenging the epistemology of art-making and rewriting the rules.[5] Mixed media work itself is, according to the writer, radical, especially collage. This is because collage was known initially as a lesser art, a women’s and folk art practice. By elevating it to high art, respected and revered enough to be at the Whitney, Crosby challenges hierarchies of art making. However, this line of thinking reiterates old-fashioned views of collage. Many collage artists are getting huge recognition in the art world today, such as Bisi Butler, Mickalene Thomas, Wangechi Mutu, and Deborah Roberts. The use of it to empower in these pieces of art is one way that this perspective of collage is squashed. Brett Osborne wrote in his book, Time and Nothingness: An Age of Simulacra and Juxtaposition, that the tenets of modernism included looking for a new object.[6] Artwork that uses collage has now become the new object introduced into the canon. Just like cubism, the initial denial of its place in art has faded. It is now largely seen as another way, or a new way to make art. Therefore, I argue, the scholarly analysis of Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work as breaking the hierarchies of art and elevating ‘low’ art in fact reinforces a paradigm that she tried to break away from.

In addition to this, this analysis uses the Western view of collage as a lesser art and uses Ndjideka’s art as an example to disprove this idea, which still puts the hegemonic dominance on the system that claims collage is a lesser form of art. It does what Linda Nochlin claimed is one of the traps people get into when asked why there are no great women artists: they name great women artists.[7] This practice of defensively naming something to counter a perspective has people stuck in a conversation that is rooted in an old-fashioned belief system. When we are already thinking of collage as a lesser form of art, we will be looking for art that disrupts this theory. A more radical approach would include thinking about the disruptiveness in formal qualities rather than art history and its hierarchies.

Beyond its historical positioning, collage is formally a disruptive practice. In the case of Akunyili Crosby’s work, it is disruptive not because of its place in the hierarchy, which focuses on the white male-dominated history of art making, but because of its formal qualities. According to Edkins, who is referenced in Van Veeren’s paper, collage breaks existing structures of order by “smashing” them and bringing their pieces together (Van Veeren 2019), which is how they open up a world of possibilities for the viewer (Cervenak 2016).[8] Collage skews perspectives and enthralls the viewer in the imagery. It keeps the viewer in frame because there are many discoveries to be made. This way of looking at the art ensures we are not stuck interpreting collage and its place in art history, but rather are more focused on looking at the physical qualities of the art itself.

When we are not interpreting it, Akunyili Crosby’s work allows us to see the world with new eyes. Van Veeren further goes on to argue that because of this new way of art-making, the work gives us a queer epistemology that opens up new kinds of perceptive experience. What we know is presented to us through these “contact zones,” where the familiar is jumbled up with things we do not know and recognize. This interaction with the art creates a wondering and wandering process through the art, which Van Vereen argues is an important part of decolonial and feminist curiosities.[9] I agree that the art of Akunyili Crosby takes us to places unknown that open up our imaginations. This is an important tenet of both decolonial and feminist thought. This new perspective of looking at the art as viewers echoes Barthes’ concept of the “Death of the Author.”[10] There is clearly a creation of multi-dimensional space in which ideas are blending and clashing, which allows the art to exist outside of the dominant white-male-centric narrative. It allows the viewer to bring their own experiences and associations to simply exist with the art, without attaching definitive meaning to it.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby uses photographic transfers, colored pencil, fabric and acrylic paint in her practice to craft artworks very specific to her. They speak to her Nigerian upbringing and her life in the United States of America. These mixed landscapes, Zelt argues, create an “Impossible American,” as suggested by the title of her essay.[11] Zelt is delving into the impossibility of Njideka’s visual world by analyzing how it is built and what is recognizable and what is not.[12] Even though Zelt does not use this language, this is the same queering that is referred to by Van Veeren. Njideka herself wants the viewers to ponder: Where am I? And what am I looking at?[13] She includes different parts of the two worlds she herself straddles, Nigeria and the United States, and in different time periods too, further confusing the viewer. Regarding the piece called Portals, Zelt points out the use of a night sky in California with Cassava plants, which grow in Nigeria (Fig. 2). The juxtaposition is a technique Zelt recognizes that Akunyili has used to create these impossible places. The use of the documents and photographic transfers further pushes us and pulls us in different directions, which makes it hard to locate oneself. Pondering these layered wonderings, the viewer goes beyond merely interpreting the art itself, and begins to question their own positionality in the world.

Akunyili Crosby opposes the one-dimensional view of the hegemonic structures by expressing a transnational identity using the techniques mentioned. She avoids being grounded in one place, existing as an American who holds multiple truths. The multiplicity that Akunyili Crosby shows in these works is what Zelt argues contests assimilationist views of American identity.[14] Assimilationist views tend to inch people closer to a one-dimensionality that Akunyili Crosby rejects by her art-making practice and what she decides to depict. Another rejection Akunyili offers is that of an answer. The artwork has text that is illegible, by layers and by distance from the viewer. One never really knows what they are looking at in the background of her work. With the example of Portals, you can see how this technique is executed. What fascinated me with Zelt and the interpretation of this work is the impossibility of them. This in-depth analysis of the technique of situating the subject in Nigeria and in the United States in different time periods is something I have never pondered in Njideka’s work, especially regarding it being a tool to contest assimilationist views of America. It does this powerfully. It directly challenges the dangers that come with one narrative and one way of making art that is superior to the rest. There is a familiarity blended with something foreign; she is unflattening the black woman, who has for far too long been flattened by the white-male-dominated field of art.

FIG. 2 Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Portals, 2016[15]

Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work does not just oppose assimilationist views, it gives us a future to look forward to. While I agree that the work contests assimilationist views, this way of thinking keeps us focused on assimilation as an expectation. As Van Vereen mentioned, the work offers us a new way to interact with the world, and Zelt is missing this in her analysis. Akunyili Crosby’s artworks pair things that are familiar and those that are not, allowing us to think beyond our limited realities about the different possibilities. Someone viewing Portals at the Whitney Biennale in 2016 could see cassava plants, which they probably had never seen. A closer investigation might lead the viewer into learning about Njideka’s work, but it is impactful even when you do not know the history and data, which is what interpretation entails. Her work teaches us that it does not take letting go of who you are to fit into the hegemonic structure. America is a melting pot in which most people lose their heritage to conform to what it means to be American. Zelt is stating this in her analysis of Akunyili-Crosby, but one thing she could add is how much this work could empower other Americans who have felt they needed to abandon themselves. It resists assimilationist views, but it also encourages uniqueness and pride in oneself and one’s heritage. Thinking about the art as just a contesting piece of ideologies keeps us stuck from recognizing what it is also offering, which is a different way to be American, and that warrants celebration in and of itself. Focusing more on this aspect allows engagement with the work to be expansive rather than limiting.

If we are all potentially impossible Americans, then no one is an impossible American, and we all should celebrate our heritages more. This pushes the debate further by calling on all of our collective histories versus tokenizing Akunyili Crosby’s. I agree that there is a way in which Crosby’s inclusion in the canon, with her queered perspectives, skews hegemonic norms and introduces a new way to think identity. Her art does indeed disrupt viewers’ understanding of what is, which opens them up to more possibilities. It definitely contests assimilationist views, too, by positioning complex intercultural connections without clear resolution. Her work being in the Whitney Biennial in 2016, at a crucial moment when nativist views were on the rise in America, was important for rewriting the narrative on what it means to be American at the time and even now.

However, as powerful as Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work is in breaking down perspectives that are harmful, I argue that the scholarly interpretations of Akunyili Crosby’s work have inadvertently reinforced some of the structures the art itself seeks to dismantle. Her work is important for queer theory in understanding how queering works to open up the viewer’s world to new possibilities; the analysis limits it in its interpretation and mentions the expectation of the Western world for the art and art form. Analyzing the work under the premise of it queering what is reinforces its difference from the canon of Western art history. This way of constructing arguments suggests an exceptionalism that can be likened to tokenism. There is hegemonic dominance that the West has on the art world and art history and this is the view we use when we speak of collage and mixed media practices in the ways that Van Vereen and Zelt have. Such analyses imply that Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work is important because of its difference. However, I argue, that difference is just one facet of why Njideka’s work is important. Its significance is so much more than that; It is work that I can feel better than I can speak about.

The white-male perspective that the artist wants to break away from, unfortunately, also runs the world in which this artwork is located. Said in his essay on Orientalism, named the tradition of the occident to ‘other’ anything that is not occidental.[16] This practice has made it so that there are social or academic institutions that ‘grant, deny, concede, and retract the right to history.”[17] These institutions are the ones that decide what this ‘otherness’ is. The author’s delineation of Akunyili Crosby’s practice as other negates its right to just exist in the archive. It has to exist in opposition to what is. We find ourselves affirming the white-male narrative when we, as art historians, think of art from this perspective. Collage has been practiced, and various art-making practices have existed across the world.

Further, modernism is largely driven by finding the new object, and this is reflected in the art world as the avant-garde. If we think about the art that Njideka is making and how the art-making practices exist outside of the popular canon, we can discern that this is avant-garde art. A tenet of modernism is that the avant-garde joins the institution. So, considering Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s work is being shown in the Whitney and other museums, she has entered the system that is continuously changing and has new interests in the form of the avant-garde. However, these do not change the overall system’s structures; they can allow us to continue to hold the white-male-dominant view while being in the archive.

Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Garden Party, 2019. Acrylic, color pencil, collage, and transfers on paper 63 x 60 inches 160 x 152.4 cm.

Interpretation is a tool of the system to make the art digestible and consumable, and this begins to water down the power of the art or at least cushion it.[18] Evidence of this can be found in Karl Marx’s sentiments on capitalism. He stated that capitalism often absorbs critique to neutralize it.[19] In this context, Njideka Akunyili Crosby’s critique of the presentation of the black female figure is the avant-garde that is then absorbed into the system itself using tools such as interpretation, becoming consumable rather than producing structural change. This is a recurring theme in popular culture, which privileges critiques that generate capital and keeps people satisfied without producing structural change.

The problem in the analysis of Njideka Akunyili’s work only comes with the act of comparison. Zelt thinks about the positionality of Njideka Akunyili Crosby and confines her to being an artist who is contesting the assimilationist views of America in 2016. Should this work have been done by a white person, that would not be a part of the conversation as much as it is with this work. Zelt also misses the opportunity to talk about the expansiveness of Njideka’s work. Van Vereen does a similar thing, where she not only talks about the queering that Njideka does in her work, but she talks about it in contrast to what exists in the canon, which calls in question its legitimacy. A work as beautiful and layered could use analysis without comparing it with what is expected from works of art from a canonical view.

As Audrey Lorde has famously stated, “The masters tools will never dismantle the masters house.”[20]This work showing in the Whitney is important but it is also a temporal recognition that will not withstand the questioning of the institution itself. The future of work that is challenging the status quo such as that of Njideka Akunyili Crosby should be shown in institutions that are organized outside of the paradigm of western power structures. The museum is respected and hierarchically placed at the top of the food chain in terms of desirability of artist placement. However, this dynamic is reinforcing the hegemony that Oguibe talked about when he mentioned institutions that decide who gets to be recognized.

When Njideka saw Wangechi Mutu’s work for the first time, she felt it, she did not interpret it to parse out meaning first. This feeling caused her to create her own work that has similar feminist and decolonial underpinings. “Every once in a while, you come across work you just understand without having to read anything about it,” Akunyili Crosby has said, “ I had that for Wangechi’s art. I was like, I don’t need to read any wall text. I know this work in my bones. And I wanted to make work that would evoke similar feelings in people.”(Onyewuenyi 2025).[21] This sentiment that the artist was sharing aligns more with Susan Sontag’s “Anti-Interpretation” sensibility when it comes to enjoying art. There is a sensual quality to it. Something you can feel and lean into that the analysis of the work, however important, begins to lose. I see Akunyili Crosby’s work, and although I can recognize the techniques that she used to make me feel what I feel when I experience it there is something greater at work. There are layers that I cannot reach that the work is touching in me.

With all the success that Njideka Akunyili-Crosby has achieved in queering art-making practices and creating radically disruptive artworks, the scholarly analysis of her work limits the extent to which her work can challenge dominant power structures. While art historians have presented ideas that are valid and mostly accurate, we find ourselves using the baselines of Western power structures to measure the success of Crosby’s art practice. By doing so, we are giving power back to this dynamic that the artist wants to move away from. Further, the impact of her art as it contests assimilationism is deeply significant within the artworks themselves, but their inclusion in the Whitney Biennial does little in an epistemological way because it is still exists there as the ‘other’. Rather than interpreting Akunyili Crosby’s work through Western frameworks that position it as exceptional or oppositional, we must allow it to exist beyond these structures. We must allow it to be experienced sensorially rather than constantly explained. Only then can her work move beyond token inclusion toward genuine transformation.

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[1] Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: The Linda Nochlin Reader (Thames & Hudson, 2015), 43

[2] bell hooks, Black Looks: Race and Representation (South End Press, 1992), 117

[3] Natalie Zelt,“Picturing an Impossible American: Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Photographic Transfers in Portals (2016)” Open Cultural Studies 2, no. 1 (2018): 212–24; Elspeth Van Veeren, “Layered Wanderings: Epistemic Justice through the Art of Wangechi Mutu and Njideka Akunyili Crosby,” International Feminist Journal of Politics 21, no. 3 (2019): 488–98.

[4] Ikechúkwú Onyewuenyi, “Njideka Akunyili Crosby Endless Returns,” Aperture, no. 258 (March 2025): 32–45.

[5] Van Veeren, 492 - 493

[6] Brett Osborn, Time and Nothingness: An Age of Simulacra and Juxtaposition, a Transparent Look at Postmodernism and the Polycontemporary Age (Anne Whutknot Publishing, 2014).

[7] Nochlin, Women Artists: The Linda Nochlin Reader.

[8] Van Veeren, “Layered Wanderings,” 492; Sarah Jane Cervenak, “Like Blood or Blossom: Wangechi Mutu’s Resistant Harvests,” Feminist Studies 42, no. 2 (2016): 392–425.

[9] Van Veeren, “Layered Wanderings,” 495.

[10] Roland Barthes, “The Death of the Author,” in Roland Barthes and Stephen Heath, Image, Music, Text, Noonday Press (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1988).

[11] Natalie Zelt. “Picturing an Impossible American: Njideka Akunyili Crosby and Photographic Transfers in Portals (2016).” Open Cultural Studies 2, no. 1 (2018): 212–24.

[12] Zelt, 213.

[13] Onyewuenyi, “Njideka Akunyili Crosby Endless Returns.”

[14] Zelt, 214.

[15] Njideka Akunyili Crosby, Portals, 2016, Acrylic, solvent transfer, collage of fabric and paper, and colored pencil on paper, 83 5/8 × 206 in. Whitney Museum.

[16] Edward W Said, Orientalism (Vintage Books, 1994).

[17] Oguibe, 1157.

[18] Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation: And Other Essays, vol. 38 (Dell Pub. Co, 1966).

[19] Paul Cammack, “Marx on Social Reproduction,” Historical Materialism : Research in Critical Marxist Theory (Leiden | Boston) 28, no. 2 (2020): 76–106.

[20] Audre Lorde, “The Master’s Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master’s House,” 1979,

[21] Onyewuenyi, “Njideka Akunyili Crosby Endless Returns,”41.