This interview makes clear that any parcours during Berlin Art Week must begin with Christelle Oyiri’s “Dead God Flow” at LAS Art Foundation, presenting at CANK in Neukölln. Here, darkness draws one closer to the divine, the ghosts of the city manifest, and music becomes a vessel of philosophical renewal. Opening simultaneously with “Heaven’s worth, Hell on earth” at Galerie Buchholz, Oyiri creates immersive spaces where neon light and sound become conduits for reflection on the city’s own heavy fate.
I biked to CANK here in Neukölln, thinking of your show at MMK in Frankfurt. It was just so soaked in presence. The way you use materials, the way you stage darkness, and at the same time allow light to enter through color. I was also reminded of that show when I saw some of the surfaces that appeared in the films here and in CEL’s project, how rainbows emerge from this thickness, from this density. Something you said, or something that was said here—that you come closer to God in darkness, I wondered: how Nietzschean, versus how Oyirian, is this?
I feel like it’s a bit of both. If I have to speak materially, I’m very familiar with dark spaces for the simple fact that much of my background is in nightlife. So, a lot of my relationship with light, sound, and darkness stems from the fact that every weekend, this is where I am. My way of treating space might not be the same as, let’s say, a painter, where you absolutely need light. I share my studio with a painter, and we barely cross paths because she’s there when the sun is high and I’m there whenever it gets darker.
For me, nightlife is one aspect, but darkness is also where you can regroup with yourself. When you close your eyes, you don’t see nothingness; you see darkness. There’s a real sense of sitting with your feelings and with yourself that I appreciate about working in the dark—there’s less distraction. Somehow, the work pops up here and there, and it becomes very focused. I really like that about dark spaces.
As for Nietzsche, what interests me about him—as I told a previous journalist—is that he was a witness of his time. Every philosopher is, to some degree, but I feel he explained his time in a way that makes the most sense. In French, we say l’ère du soupçon—the era of suspicion. When we speak of Nietzsche, we use that. Many philosophers refer to that time as suspicious, because reality itself, and what you see, you always interrogate. You always question the dynamics at play. I think there’s something deeply poetic about his philosophy that responds both to the desire to make sense of things—the rational aspect—and, at the same time, to the poetic, almost mythological aspect. When you read Thus Spoke Zarathustra, for instance, much of it is rooted in mythology.
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Let’s get into philosophy later. You said you belong to the club—that you have a very specific relationship to Berlin through club culture. The club economy and the art world economy—the so-called “art world”—operate with different logics, even if they constantly bleed into each other. How do you navigate those overlapping realities?
I think they have nothing to do with each other.
The economy of the club is, let’s say, less exclusive and more community-driven. Ironically, the art world isn’t, or is still struggling to become something like that. How do you deal with the fact that these economic dynamics play such a strong role, especially since you inhabit different roles and create both spaces?
My life is divided between different chapels of, let’s say, economic logic. Entering the gallery world is just entering a commercial space, if I can be honest. Because I already have a job—as a DJ and music producer—I wasn’t rushing to fit in that space. I made it a point to take my time with it, to really dive deep into research and into my work on institutional shows. Because once money gets involved—when you have people in your ear, when you have galleries and people you need to satisfy—the logic, and sometimes even the quality of the work, can get…
Unfocused?
It can shift widely. So for me, I try to approach it in a multifactorial way. For my economy and my well-being, I need to conjugate all of this together. I cannot solely rely on “community”, because then I wouldn’t be able to pay my rent. And I know it’s a buzzword now—people use “community” even in brand briefs. You open a brand brief that has nothing to do with it—they’re trying to sell you sneakers—and they talk about community. So I try to find a balance, to conjugate and find solace in different aspects. In the community-driven space of DJing—where a lot of promoters are DJs themselves, often from marginalized communities—I find solace because I find true, genuine connections. Connections through frequencies, through music. Unspoken connections. That really goes beyond voice. When I DJ, I don’t talk. I barely interact with people.
I guess this is the actual misunderstanding: the way “community” gets used as a discourse-driven word. In the club, the economy is clear—everyone gets a fee according to their actions.
Community needs to be driven by action. That doesn’t mean you evacuate dialogue, but it means: what do you actually do for it? How do you sustain it? How do you water it? Because, in my opinion, community is a living thing. It’s not an inanimate object—it’s something you need to water, feed, and foster.
And there are aspects of my practice where the two worlds—community and art—have overlapped. At the MMK show, they collided. The work was rooted in community, because I shot the video at Les Fauvettes, a community in the north of Paris. In full transparency, when MMK acquired the work, I gave part of the money from the acquisition to that community. Because [community] can’t just be a buzzword. You have to show you mean it: if you sell an artwork based on a community, give back to that community. If you don’t have money, give resources.
What I did was give them resources, and I also found additional funding to bring kids from Les Fauvettes to Germany—to Frankfurt—so they could actually go to a museum and experience a culture different from their own. Some of them took a plane for the first time. It was really powerful to bring ten kids with us, walk through the city, and go to the museum. For many, it was their first encounter with contemporary art. A lot of very interesting discussions came out of that—bringing the two worlds together, not in an artificial way, but genuinely.
Thank you for bringing us out of the idealization of community, back to its lived reality.
Yeah—show your check! I’m getting tired of this idealization of community. If you know you’re getting 10K from something, what does it cost to give 2,500 to someone you know will make good use of it? Or give half? Just do it. Just do it. For me, one of the issues I’ve had sometimes with the Paris creative scene is that I’m not there often. So people start building narratives about who you are—because now you’re in the art world, and so on.
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That alienation is tempting, like making everything public, like you say in Hyperfate. It also brings me to the mythologization of capitalism, and how people get lost in it. You deliberately engage with that myth-making when you reference rappers, or reflect on fandom. How did you come to this idea? The juxtaposition between you and Tupac is so bold—the fact that you share the same birthday, and that you put that right at the start of Hyperfate. It’s just lit.
I like the fact that we share a date—that’s low-key why I used it.
So, how do you hold critique and learning together? It’s so strong—just the juxtaposition, your voice, and you’re holding this critique while capitalism profits from the afterlife of rappers.
I wish I did it more with Hyperfate. My work evolves a lot—friends have seen it in earlier forms, like Collective Amnesia, and there’s always another version, a director’s cut. I keep reworking things. With Hyperfate, what I originally wanted to add was exactly this “afterlife effect” you mention. Because for a lot of rappers, even in France—we had this rapper, the most prolific of the past three years, who sold more records than anyone else—he died in June. He was 28 or 29. He was hospitalized and then mysteriously died. Nobody knows how. There was huge controversy in France: some of his family members wanted all his music withdrawn from streaming platforms. Fans disagreed. It became a debate in mainstream media and on social media, and also a spiritual one, because he was Muslim. Some argued that by keeping his music online, he would continue “accumulating sins” after death. But others pointed out that removing his music meant his family wouldn’t receive anything from it.
So there’s both a spiritual aspect and a capitalist one: the family being cut off from revenue. And then, another phenomenon: when rappers die, streaming skyrockets.
We saw it with Juice WRLD three years ago, when he died of an overdose. He’s not in my film because, for me, it was a different story, but his death raised suspicions. People started saying that record labels now take out insurance contracts on rappers. That’s actually the second part I’d like to work on: labels contracting insurance on rappers. There’s this label, Empire—many of their rappers have died in recent years. People started asking: Let’s see the paperwork. What did you make them sign?
Because think about it: if you go to the South Side of Chicago, find an 18-year-old who dropped out of school at 14, and hand them a contract they can’t really read—you’re exploiting administrative illiteracy. That exploitation of Black artists is deeply rooted in American history. And not just America. It’s the same in France—labels go to extremely marginalized communities, tell kids they’re talented, that they’ll take care of their family, and give them an advance. But then they take out insurance, knowing these kids are in gangs. They don’t guide them. They encourage beefs with other rappers, because that raises streams, raises stakes, raises media attention. And when violence escalates and someone dies, the label cashes in the insurance, recoups the advance, and moves on.
It’s so bad. That’s the real shit I also want to talk about. But I needed to mourn first. I needed to look inward, to do this flickering editing, to circle back to my own personal history—my brothers, where I grew up—in order to channel and understand what was at play. And grief has stages: first, you cry, then you get angry. Who knows? Maybe I’ll make that next part, maybe not. Sorry, that was long—but it’s really important.
No, I’m with you. And I can’t wait to see the Hauntology of the OG, Part II! I’m also thinking of Walter Benjamin, since he was mentioned earlier today. He stated every document of civilization is also a document of barbarism. I see this monument you just built and relate it to that haunting tension he spoke of.
There’s a controversial idea in Hyperfate: many of the rappers who appear in it died from gunshots fired by people who looked just like them. People often call this “Black-on-Black crime”, which is a very controversial idea, because what does that even mean?
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When it’s about struggling for survival within the same infrastructures of oppression?
Exactly. If you look at white people, the ones killing them most are white people, too. So you could just as easily say “white-on-white crime”. For me, highlighting rappers whose destinies were cut short by gun violence was also about exposing the systemic violence of America itself.
Violence takes many forms. When you OD, like Juice WRLD, that’s tied to opiates, which is a whole subject in the US, too. But in Hyperfate I really wanted to show the envy rappers generate.
And envy is intertwined with crowning and chaining—both words that describe positions within a hierarchy: the condensation of power. But at the same time, in Western Christian iconography, the crowning of Jesus is through absolute punishment. And chaining is unavoidably connected to slavery.
The “chaining day” has a lot in common with knighting, when a bigger rapper—maybe an A&R or label founder—gives you a chain as a token of appreciation. I was listening to this Clipse album [Let God Sort Em Out], they have a song called “Chains & Whips”. A “whip” is slang for a car, and a “chain” is jewelry—a diamond VVS chain. But then they play on words: “chains and whips.” There’s a double entendre there. Rap as a subculture is full of tension and contradiction. That tension isn’t coming from me—it’s in the culture itself. Hip hop is built on the rags-to-riches narrative. And I’d even go as far as to say that hip hop saved modern capitalism.
How so?
Because if you look at Black communities in America and Africa of the 1970s, there was a strong appeal to communism and dismantling capitalism. You had [Kwame] Nkrumah, [Thomas] Sankara, [Aimé] Césaire, [Frantz] Fanon. Césaire was in the Communist Party. In Africa, you had anarchist traditions, especially in Nigeria. In the US, the Black Panther Party wasn’t just about guns and “fuck the pigs”. It was about dismantling capitalism, building structure, believing in community—like their breakfast programs—going to the root. But in the ’80s, with Reagan, everything shifted. Even in Africa, suddenly it was all about money. Rap emerges at that time, and with it the rise of the drug-dealer rapper. Jay-Z is the epitome of that figure—the drug dealer rapper crowned king. Then he crowns Kanye.
I love Jay’s music, I won’t lie. But he’s also become the closest thing Black people have to a Rockefeller, a Rothschild. He’s a modern-day Black Rothschild. He’s just the avatar of that role. People put their animosity on him, but really, he was just trying to get out of the hood. He didn’t invent the system—he embodies it. The rags-to-riches narrative, the whip, the chain, the money—it’s bigger than him. And, yes, jewelry also comes from West African traditions of adornment, but here it’s about the accumulation of wealth. Being a mogul. Being like Diddy. If you don’t have money as a rapper today, you’re not considered a rapper.
Have you ever seen a modest rapper? You have to wear designer clothes. I was born in Paris, so I see this firsthand when rappers come for fashion. They want the wealthiest, whitest spaces. They don’t want to connect with poor Black French communities or experience a more authentic Paris. They want to stay at the Bristol, go to the Louis Vuitton runway show. That tells you everything.
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You said, “You’re not a rapper if you don’t have money.” But then you deliberately enter this liminal space of criticism, like when someone says, I have more money than all those rappers here, and then someone else replies, is that the goal?
In today’s society, you open social media and… We’re all guilty of it. I don’t know anyone who says they’re not, and if they do, they’re lying. We all hate it, but we all do it. Scrolling. When I should be working, I’m scrolling. And I realized we’re consuming more than we create. We get sucked into other people’s perceptions, enslaved by validation, endlessly sharing opinions with no substance.
I’m present online because I’m native to the internet. I love it—I love the culture, immersing myself in subcultures. But I also think the next generation must step back. Take a week off social media. Enjoy the silence.
Notions of hauntology don’t go back to Nietzsche, but to Marx. Marx spoke of the specter haunting Europe, and this is what later comes back as hauntology. Thinking of hauntology as carrying a utopian potential, I wonder—how did you come to this idea, especially in a city like Berlin, which is also living with its mouth full of ghosts?
There’s a massive ghost. I feel like when you are Black, there’s an inherent affinity for that kind of thing. Whenever you want to separate yourself from your past, people tend to bring the past back to you, or push you into a kind of time machine. And when it comes from you—when you want to interrogate the past—people say: You’re dwelling. Why talk about slavery again? It was 400 years ago.
I feel like anyone who has gone through severe acculturation, oppression, deportation, and enslavement always has to be in dialogue with that past. Always. Whether it’s a glorious one or, more often, a tragic one. In a city like Berlin, it’s easy for me to lean into that because, first of all, Germany has very strong philosophers—France, too—but Germany definitely has a deep philosophical corpus. It’s easy here to read and really let myself think. And, of course, this is a place that, unfortunately, is also tied to something very dark.
It’s interesting to listen to you while looking at this eclipse turned black hole on the screen, slowly being covered by these two Raphael-esque hands, as they let light come through.
There’s definitely a yin–yang aspect to my work. We’re talking about darkness, but as you saw in the MMK show, there’s this clair-obscur. It’s not just obscurity—it’s darkness and light together. And I think, low-key, when we think about Nietzsche, we also have to remember how much he was inspired by Eastern philosophies. Compared to Marx or Freud, I think he was the one most connected to precolonial spirituality and Eastern religions.
There’s also the presence of the Pyramid of Giza in your film.
Exactly. That’s so on brand for that philosopher. And for me, as someone of African and Caribbean descent who grew up in the Western world—I was born in France—I always move in and out of these two worlds. I studied philosophy, so I have a bunch of white men in my head—
Haunting you.
Haunting me. And, at the same time, I have my ancestors, to whom I owe everything. So it’s this eternal dialogue. And I wouldn’t say one is inherently dark and the other inherently light. It’s more a shimmering, an exchange between the two. I think that’s what really characterizes my work.
You’ve also brought up Nietzsche’s notion of eternal return in our conversation. Thinking of the canonization of dead philosophers and dead rappers—echoing the making of new saints—I wonder: is fandom inventing a new religion, or just repeating the failures of old ones in contemporary form?
Both. We live in the age of idolatry. The age of the star. It’s pretty clear. There’s something deep and peculiar about how people form parasocial relationships with celebrities. I think celebrities have replaced saints. And I’d say the real shift happened in the ’90s. Michael Jackson is probably the one who redefined the whole thing.
Hauntology is also a term from the ’90s.
Yes. And people need something to believe in. They’ve been fed tabloids. They’ve been fed the death of Princess Diana, which, in my opinion, is one of the last truly historical events we’ll still read about in books. And people talked about it far more than the death of Queen Elizabeth. So yes, there is a newborn religion. I don’t know if it has a name, but I would call our present the age of micro-celebrity. The mainstream is collapsing. People like us—CO and I are late Millennials—still go to Beyoncé concerts, sure, but in a few years, she won’t be able to perform at that scale anymore. That’s why she’s sending her daughter to carry it on. She’s the last of a particular kind of celebrity, one rooted in talent. Whether you like her or not, the artistry and dedication—the singing and dancing together—that’s rare. It barely exists anymore.
Today, celebrity is rooted in relatability. That’s why a lot of Gen Z don’t connect with Beyoncé. They go to her concerts because they saw it on TikTok and want to dress in gold, but they don’t fully grasp what’s at play. Now celebrities are influencers. People will go to war for a YouTuber or a podcaster. They know what they ate in the morning, what they did at night—they’re with them. Before, we had pop stars, but we knew very little about them. When I was a kid, it was Britney Spears. There’s still so much I don’t know about her. Same with Beyoncé—I don’t even know where she lives. That sense of mystery is gone. Now people need to know what you’re doing at all times. You constantly have to document your life. We’re always entering a new age of idolatry. And honestly, I love watching it unfold.
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Christelle Oyiri: Dead God Flow is on view at LAS Art Foundation, presenting at CANK in Neukölln throughout October 18, 2025
Free admission with ID or registration certificate with the postal codes 12043 or 12053.
- Images:
Cover: LAS Art Foundation, Christelle Oyiri, Portrait
Fig.1/2/3/4 Christelle Oyiri and Neva Wireko, Hauntology of an OG, video still, 2025. Courtesy the artists, LAS Art Foundation, Amant, and Pinault Collection. © Christelle Oyiri and Neva Wireko.
