‘Spirit Dance’ at the Stanley is a full-body experience

Experience the Stanley Museum’s newest lightwell installation from contemporary artist Nnenna Okore.
Avi Lapchick, The Daily Iowan, August 1, 2023
In an effort to humanize inanimate objects, such as buildings, I will first identify its eyes, then its mouth and nose. As I enter the building, I will find its brain, lungs, and heart; I do this out of comfort.
 
At the University of Iowa’s Stanley Museum of Art, I found a beating heart in “Spirit Dance,” a 59-foot installation in the Stanley’s lightwell, yet I felt anything but comfortable; this was exactly Nigerian-American contemporary artist Nnenna Okore’s goal in creating her piece and establishing its message.
 
Okore received her MA and MFA from the University of Iowa in 2005 and returned this July to install her piece. The installation took four days, with Okore accompanied by the Stanley’s manager of design, preparation and installation, Steve Erickson, and UI graduate students Agnes Harry Mills, Brant Weiland and Reynold Tawiah-Quashie, alongside members of the Stanley’s collection team.