Widely celebrated for the visual elegance and wit of his work, Benin-born artist Meschac Gaba’s output lends itself to easy readings, despite its complexity, because it’s simply so enjoyable. Take for example his 2005 show, Tresses, which compromised a series of gorgeous brightly coloured “wig works” woven from artificial hair in the shape of iconic buildings that the New York Times described as “delightful.”

Gabba’s work however is more than just a delight. Underpinning the seductive aesthetic qualities and cheeky humour, is an insistently experimental approach to the medium and a provocative, charged take on the contemporary cultural landscape. Whether trafficking in ambiguity and absurdity or scanning signs of social decay and decline, his works address us in ways that are at once playful and profoundly disorienting.

His new exhibition is no exception. Titled The Street it features a new series of new Tresses, this time in the shape of cars - works including Mercedes, Citroën DS, Studebaker, Jeep, Fire Truck, School Bus, Tractor, Tank, Smart, Picasso and Beetle.

Like the buildings which inspired Gaba's first series of Tresses, cars are potent symbols of progress in the modern era. In the current global economic and environmental crisis, however, in which the bankruptcy of General Motors epitomises the end of an era and an uncertain future, these signs are radically destabilised.

Gabba further complicates the issue by presenting the works along with an accompanying video that shows his wearable sculptures paraded through the streets of Cotonou. Playfully redirecting the viewers attention to the economy as experienced at street level, it reveals how even the most exotic, powerful objects conceal the familiar, and, conversely, that the things closest to home can occasionally reveal themselves to be strange, foreign and unknowable.