eye.on.art

February Newsletter

2012-02-25T05:46:00.010Z

February continues in Dakar...

Graffiti in Goree Island. February 2012

Synchronicity II @ Tiwani

The month began with the launch of ‘Synchronicity II’ at Tiwani Contemporary, London. Curated by the collective On the Roof (Elise Atangana, Yves Chatap and Caroline Hancock) and developed in partnership with Galerie Baudouin Lebon, the show features work by Malala Andrialavidrazana, James Barnor, Steeve Bauras, Francois-Xavier Gbré, Em’Kal, Grace Ndiritu, Kapwani Kiwanga, Amina Menia and Abraham Oghobase. A must-see exhibition, presenting up-and-coming artists from Africa and the diaspora. The show runs until 17 March 2012.

Tiwani Contemporary
16 Little Portland Street
London W1W 8BP

Art Moves Africa

After attending the opening at Tiwani, we set off to Dakar for the selection committee of Arts Moves Africa.

Art Moves Africa (AMA) is an independent institution aiming to facilitate cultural and artistic exchanges within the African continent. It offers grants to artists, arts professionals and cultural operators living and working in Africa to travel within the continent in order to engage in the exchange of information, the enhancement of skills, the development of informal networks and the pursuit of cooperation.

Applications from the visual arts sector and under-represented regions, such as East Africa, are very welcomed. The next deadline for grants application is 1^st May 2012.

See here for further information, application forms and guidelines.

*****

Another trip to Dakar, where the forthcoming elections provoked numerous demonstrations and a forceful response from the police, has seen us in a surreal context of curatorial process; making us ponder on contemporary African artists' reaction to moments of unrest through their art. This will reflect in some of the works included in an exhibition to be announced soon.

*****

Remembering Goddy Leye (1965-2011)

February 19^th, our thoughts went out to the memory of Cameroonian artist Goddy Leye, who passed away just one year ago. Back home, doual’art is currently holding a retrospective of the great master of multimedia art with paintings, videos and installations. Leye was the founder of Art Bakery, an international workshop and residency space set up in the artist’s house in Bonendale. His tragic loss has given his close friends and family the will to continue his oeuvre. Five women are now running the project: Justine Gaga (Project Manager, Artist, Douala), Estella Mbuli (Administrator, Douala), Ruth Belinga (Teacher in Cameroonian Art History, Foumban), Adeline Chapelle (Project Manager, Curator, Paris) and Bill Kouélany (Artistic Director, Artist, Author, Brazzaville).

Art Bakery remains an active structure striving to showcase Goddy Leye’s work and sustain his legacy by maintaining an international presence through exhibitions and a programme of activities.

Follow Art Bakery's news here.

'Reflections…' in Lancaster

Back in the UK, ‘Reflections on the Self – Five African Women Photographers’ continued its national tour and opened at the Lancaster Institute of the Contemporary Arts. This show curated by Christine Eyene looks at gendered narratives through the prism of identity, sexuality and displacement. Portraits and self-portraits, beauty contests, street fashion and the veiled body feature as performative elements acting as a means of thinking about the ‘self’ both as subject and as object.

The photographers in the show are Hélène Amouzou, Majida Khattari, Zanele Muholi, Senayt Samuel and Lolo Veleko.

'Reflections on the Self' @ the Lica runs until 17 March 2012.

Roma exhibition project at Autograph ABP

Still focusing on photography but reaching beyond Africa, we are delighted to announce our collaboration with Autograph ABP on a project looking at the condition of Roma communities.

This exhibition will bring together socio-politically engaged photographers and visual artists who have made substantial bodies of work on ‘the largest minority group in Europe’. It will critically question the forms of discrimination that have affected Roma people for centuries across Europe and beyond.

We are keen to connect with individuals and institutions that have long term engagements with issues relating to Roma marginalisation.

The show is due to open at the end of May at Rivington Place, London.

For further information contact: info@autograph-abp.co.uk

Watch this space for upcoming artnews.

January Newsletter

2012-01-09T23:08:00.005Z

Daniel Buren, Projection Diaphane, Galerie le Manege, Dakar

eye.on.art begins 2012 in Dakar with a major symposium, a French art exhibition and a call for papers...

Condition Report

Dakar sets the tone of the New Year with “Condition Report – Symposium on Building Art Institutions in Africa”. Over three days, art professionals from around the world will congregate to the Senegalese capital to take part in this important gathering organised by Raw Material in partnership with the Goethe-Institut and the German Federal Cultural Foundation.

Looking at “the changing role of art institutions on the continent, the symposium will notably highlight the importance of independent organisations “in the construction of a strong cultural private sector” and the forging of “a critical opinion from an open civil society”.

Keynote speakers include Abdellah Karroum and Françoise Vergès who will be joined by some of the most influential curators and administrators from Africa and beyond representing Art Bakery, CCA Lagos, the Centre for Historical Re-Enactment, Dak’Art Biennale, Darb 1718, Doual’Art, Ker Thiossane, Musée National du Mali, Nairobi Art Trust, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Fondation Zinsou, to name but a few.

Condition Report - Symposium on Building Art Institutions in Africa

18 – 20 January, Dakar

For further information visit Raw Material website.

Buren in Africa

Those who can make it to Dakar will get the chance to discover the excellent exhibition programme put on by the French Institute’s Galerie le Manège, the same venue that hosted the first showcase of Women Speak Out.

Le Manège is currently presenting “Projections Diaphanes”, the first ever exhibition in Africa of Daniel Buren. The internationally acclaimed French artist invested the whole gallery and composed with its architectural features. The installation consists of colourful transparent films applied to the arched windows, through which the changing intensity of natural light creates colourful patterns cast on mosquito nets suspended across the gallery’s columns.

This piece was produced in collaboration with the University College of Architecture, Dakar, which students got the chance to assist Buren install the work.

“Projections Diaphanes”

Until 04 February 2012

Galerie le Manège

3 rue Parchappe

Dakar

For further information visit: www.ifdakar.org

Africultures to call for papers

Dakar remains the focus of this newsletter and the announced topic of a forthcoming publication of the journal Africultures. Focusing on the Senegalese capital as a dynamic cultural hub, this issue coinciding with the 20^th anniversary of Dak’Art will look at the history of the longest-established contemporary art biennale in Africa and its curatorial approaches in the light of local and international reviews, as well as recent writings such as Yacouba Konaté’s book La biennale de Dakar – Pour une esthétique de la création contemporaine Africaine : Tête à Tête avec Adorno (Paris, L’Harmattan / Bibliothèque Africultures, 2009). It will also follow the build up leading to the 10^th edition of the biennale, scheduled to take place in May 2012.

Beyond the biennale, the publication will look at independent structures, with an account of some of the key contributions of the symposium “Condition Report”. It will also feature in-depth articles, artists portfolios and exhibition reviews.

A call for papers, open to artists, art historians, critics, curators, as well as research students, will be sent out this month.
More to come on Africultures.com

Watch this space for further information. Until then, Happy New year-long art journey!

Roundtable at Les Hivernales

2012-01-09T15:14:00.001Z

Reveals the state of French-African cultural relationships

To share the table of a debate with a speaker whose political ideas one disagrees with is an uneasy decision to make. Yet it is also a rare opportunity for one to address sites of contention with the aim, at best, to reconcile diverging opinions, at worst, to be comforted in ones political views and maintain them with even stronger convictions. […]

As France is preparing to host the “Year of Africa”, to coincide with the 50^th Anniversary of African Independence, les Hivernales is presenting a line up of some of the finest African choreographers at Avignon’s winter dance festival. In addition to the performances was programmed a roundtable on “The State of Contemporary Art in Africa”. Speakers included Jacques Toubon, right wing politician and Secretary General of the Year of Africa, Yacouba Konaté, President of the Association Internationale des Critiques d’Arts (2008-2011) and Artistic Director of the Dak’Art Biennale in 2006, and myself, in a debate chaired by Bernard Babkine. Philippe Lefait, Journalist and Producer of the famous French cultural programme Des Mots de Minuit, broadcasted on France 2 television channel, was meant to chair the discussion but had to cancel his presence due to a last minute commitment.

The roundtable opened with usual considerations on the art of the continent, the emergence of what is called "contemporary African art", the debate around this term, the groundbreaking exhibitions, collecting practices, art education and so forth. Although the discussion began from the vantage point of what could be seen as legitimate African and diaspora voices, it became soon clear that some still perceive the African continent through the prism of colonialism. This was obvious in the usage of terms such as “black sub-Saharan Africa” or “francophone Africa” – nowadays pejoratively dubbed “Françafrique”, a term encapsulating the neo-colonial ramifications underlying the politico-economic relations between France and its former colonies.

Unsubstantiated claims, put across in a very vocal manner – to say the least – acted as a verbal re-appropriation of the continent, an attempt at “re-scrambling” Africa against irrational fears of the American giant.

And so, we learn that the reason behind the award of the Golden Lion to Malick Sidibé in Venice in 2007 owes to the backing – even lobbying – of South African art galleries. One wonders what Robert Storr would make of such statement.

Forget Pigozzi and Magnin. Whether one agrees or not with their ways of collecting, one cannot deny their role in Sidibe’s international renown. But that is simply dismissed by my interlocutor. Because… America, we are made to believe, is conspiring against French-speaking artists. By that understand French artists.

I attempted to remind my interlocutor, that the object of our discussion was not about the French, nor the Chinese (an other incriminated “threatening” power), but the African art scene.

Toubon’s loss of temper, in the face of counter-arguments based on more than twenty years of close contact with practitioners from the African continent, betrayed worrying signs with regard to the ownership of contemporary African art history by French-based art professionals whose cultural background this is about. As the “Year of Africa” is meant to celebrate 50 years of Independence, maybe it is time for those born in the post-colonial era to reclaim some form of agency. [...]

*****

For a politician, in charge of putting on a major event set to symbolise French-African relationships, to mention the name of Simon Njami as an example of France’s cultural diversity in the fields of arts and culture is quite worrying. If anything it shows an absolute lack of equal opportunities and demonstrates the absence of any plan for the legacy of the “Year in Africa”.

The “Year of Africa” is set to encompass all aspects of French-African relations including politics, economics and culture. With regard to visual arts, Toubon announced projects jotted on a piece of paper: Dak’Art, Afropixel, the touring of the Bamako Encounters, Simon Njami’s exhibition in Johannesburg during the World Cup, exchanges between African and French art schools… Most of the visual arts programme seems to consist of co-opted pre-existing initiatives.

To finish on a positive note, Les Hivernales gave me a chance to catch up with Professor Yacouba Konaté whose latest book La biennale de Dakar - Pour une esthétique de la création contemporaine Africaine : tête à tête avec Adorno (2009) was recently published by L’Harmattan, Collection Bibliotheque d'Africultures.

As for the choreographic experience, since Les Hivernales is all about dance, one of the highlights we were able to see was “Loin…” (“Faraway…”) by L’A./Rachid Ouramdane, a performed self-portrait exploring the dancer’s personal history through his father’s experience of war in the former Indochina. A moving and energetic multimedia performance narrating overlapping histories of colonisation.

Les Hivernales concludes on Saturday 20 February with performances by Opiyo Okach (Gaaraprojects), Michel Papach Kouakou (Daara Dance), Xavier Lot and DeLaVallet Bidiefono (Company Baninga).

Adapted from a piece first posted on Creative Africa Network in February 2010

On Church, Slavery and Black Arts

2012-01-09T11:57:00.009Z

At Church, Barbados, Nov. 2009

Black top, brown skirt, leather shoes, dressed hair, I put the final touch to my preparation. A ritual not performed since what seems like an eternity. Twenty-five years in fact. Since the day I called into question Christianity and its relation to race and class. Later, studying the history of Africa and the role of the Church in slavery and colonisation did not help me reconcile with Christian religion. Clearly, you would never find me at church on a Sunday morning. But today is a special occasion. I have travelled 4,700 miles, to take part in the symposium Caribbean Curatorship and National Identity held in Barbados, on the invitation of David A. Bailey, founder of the International Curators Forum.

Boarding on the plane the day before, at Gatwick Airport (London), the sight of retired British tourists, congregating en force on that bright morning, was somewhat startling. Prompting in me some doubts as to the demographic of the audience I was to encounter in the Caribbean island. To me Barbados has always sounded like a holiday destination. Some faraway place with luxurious resorts, certainly out of my reach. In French we call it La Barbade. Put an emphasis on the second syllable and it sounds even more remote, exotic, heavenly…

A symposium in Barbados with, among other guest speakers, one of the most esteemed curators of contemporary African art, Okwui Enwezor, is enough to make this trip an intriguing one. Intriguing in that: how does one shift from a preconceived idea of Barbados as holiday destination to that of Barbados as centre of artistic production. The centre, I would say, is as unstable a notion as the position from which one sees it. In many cases I have observed my centre being other’s margin.

I had no prior experience of the Caribbean before travelling to Barbados. Apart from Reggae music, Zouk music, Petit Punch and of course being mistaken for a Guadelupean every time I am in France. Not a Martiniquean, because my skin tone is too dark for that, and strangely, never as an African – though both my parents hail from Cameroon –, because in some people’s imagination, Africa equates the deepest of the darkness, which also applies to skin colour. Hence the “sa ka maché?” here and there, to which I am expected to reply in Creole.

Having said that, I am not totally ignorant of Caribbean culture either. Black Parisians interested in their own culture have all explored the history of Négritude of which Aimé Césaire (1913-2008) was a prime exponent. Not at school, that goes without saying, but out of curiosity about what made today’s Diaspora. As for the blackness evoked above, these are not mere anecdotal observations on phenotype, rather they refer to a set of tangible issues, unpacked by Frantz Fanon in Black Skin White Masks (1952), that still get me thinking about the epidermal texture of present day cultural landscape.

Cross the Channel and pioneers in the field of cultural studies, also referred to as post-colonial studies, Stuart Hall, Paul Gilroy, Kobena Mercer and for the visual arts Eddie Chambers, Mark Sealy and David A. Bailey, have been instrumental in shaping the discourses on which is based my understanding of the experience of the Diaspora in the UK and in France.

Of particular interest are the Caribbean Artists Movement (1966-72) to which one the symposium participant, Florence Alexis, had some connections notably in the person of John La Rose (1927-2006) and the Black Art (1980s) of which Keith Piper, another participant, was a founding member. It is with this mix of theoretical readings, personal encounters, imagination and mostly, non-knowledge (to borrow from French author Georges Bataille) that I set foot on Bajan soil.

******

End of Mass, Barbados, Nov. 2009

I am not sure when this crazy idea to go to church formed in my mind but I know for sure where it came from.
Before I carry on, let me clarify that I do not consider churchgoing as an act of lunacy. By “crazy” I refer to the look of surprise on the face of the symposium guests when I greeted them with a “Hi… nice to meet you… I am going to church!”.

The body of knowledge that helped engage with the Caribbean came from writings by UK-based art practitioners and thinkers. In this instance, it is towards Keith Piper’s art and writings that I turned to, since he is an artist whose work I researched, along that of Eddie Chambers and Donald Rodney (1961-1998), years ago, as I looked into Black-British culture, and later for an issue of the journal Africultures entitled "Diaspora: Identité Plurielle" published in partnership with the Musée du Quai Branly (Paris) as part of “Diaspora” (Oct 2007-Jan 2008), an exhibition curated by filmmaker Claire Denis.

In 1991, Keith Piper presented an exhibition called “A Ship Called Jesus” at the Ikon Gallery in Birmingham. The show consisted of installations exploring British first venture into the slave trade. Piper took as point of departure the trip undertaken by John Hawkins (1532-1595), the first English slave trader, in 1564, on a ship provided by Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603), a ship called Jesus de Lubeck. Exploring this history and its legacy, Piper created a multimedia environment examining, through aesthetic means, “the relationship between peoples of African descent and the Christian church.”

In the exhibition catalogue, introduced by David A. Bailey, Piper posited Christianity as “one of the rarely acknowledged sub-texts to the development of Black visual art” in the UK in the 1980s. Shedding light on the dogmatism of the Black Art movement in its early days, Piper’s essay, “Black Art / Black Church”, suggests that Black Christianity formed “part of the totality of ‘authentic’ Black-British experiences”.

“A product of a fundamentalist Black Christian upbringing”, in his own words, just like his peers Eddie Chambers and Donald Rodney, Piper acknowledged that the trio represented an “uneasy alliance between conflicting tendencies towards conformity” – as demanded by religion – and “rebellion” against what their parents stood for. Using an expression coined by Linton Kwesi Johnson, Piper explained that the “brand new breed of Blacks” they were at that time, saw themselves as different from the first generation of migrants, “conned by the mythology of ‘Mother Country’, docile and depoliticised.”
Of relevance to this piece is Piper’s acknowledgment, with hindsight, of the “role of the church as a centre and focus from which many of our parents derived their strength”. Apply that to the African continent, and the rest of the displaced African people and you can only imagine how deeply entrenched Church was, and in some cases still is, in African and Diaspora cultures.

Art practitioners cannot ignore the history and context within which they practise. In my case this implies acknowledging the Caribbean Artists Movement, the Black Art Movement, and the legacy of slavery and church excavated, explored, challenged, deconstructed, subverted by artists and thinkers. My cultural encounter with Barbados did not start on Rockley Beach, but with an immersion into the soul of the community, at church. For, if one is to consider Barbados as a place of cultural production, one has to take into account all aspects of Bajan popular culture, including religion, in its various and syncretic forms.

As Barbados celebrated its forty-third Independence Day on 30 November 2009 (the island achieved independence from Britain in 1966 after more than 300 years as a colony), remembering slavery and the paradoxical role of Christianity – that of oppressor and deliverer – was in no way whimsical. Going to church, was one way, among others, to engage culturally from a point of entry point that differed from the sometimes exclusive world of art.

First posted on Creative Africa Network in December 2009

Black models out of fashion?

2012-01-08T15:49:00.002Z

A response to Hannah Pool's "Why blacking up is the worst kind of fashion crime". The Guardian - G2, 14/10/09.

Model Lara Stone photographed by Steven Klein for Vogue issue 901, October 2009, and Hannah Pool's article in The Guardian - G2, 14.10.09.

Frieze Art Fair drew to a close yesterday evening. Visited the preview and got a free copy of my daily newspaper from one of the booths, courtesy of The Guardian. On the tube, spotted the title of Hannah Pool’s brief note: “Why blacking up is the worst kind of fashion crime”, about a spread in the French Vogue. “What were they thinking?” she asks about the darkening of Dutch model Lara Stone for a photo shoot styled by Carine Roitfeld. A shoot she sees “as perplexing as it is offensive”.

Vogue Paris October 2009 is a “Special Top Models” in which, Pool observes, “no black women feature”, safe for stamp-size pictures of Naomi Campbell. “There is no Alek Wek, and no Liya Kebede” she continues, neither Channel Iman nor Jourdan Dunn. She also quotes Shevelle Rhule, fashion and beauty editor at Pride deploring that “it’s as if we’ve stepped back in time”. A good reason for me to get the October issue of the glossy magazine!

Arrival in Paris on a Thursday afternoon. “Remember to buy Vogue”, I keep saying to myself between two meetings. A stack of the glossy laid on the floor of one of Chatelet underground newspaper shops. I get one of the remaining copies and go through the pages one by one, all three-hundred-and-twenty-three of them. Probably the first time in my life I have ever gone through a fashion magazine so meticulously.
Along the pages I spot the black presence: brief news about a Miles Davies retrospective at the Cité de la Musique, singer Raphael Saadiq at the Grand Rex and Jay-Z’s latest album Blue Print. Black representation as we know it in France, synonymous with music and entertainment. All along, I am thinking this cannot be true. No black model in a “Top Models Special”? None, indeed, in the pages that interest us: “Kate, Claudia, Eva, Lara, Yasmin, Kristen…Vogue a Rendez-Vous avec la Légende”!

Naomi Campbell photographed by Peter Lindbergh, Vogue 1990. Reproduced in Vogue October 2009.

Contrary to what Pool says though, Naomi Campbell is mentioned alongside her peers in a section dedicated to fashion “Légendes” called “Tops en Or” (p.184). But she is introduced in the “Légendes” section in rather clichéd, if not pejorative, terms. Campbell is said to impose an “animal sensuality” and the text accompanying her photograph reads the following statement: “I am entirely ethnic and proud of it”.

There are reasons to wonder whether the London-born top model is not simply repeating the sort of statement the fashion industry has employed to frame the black presence in this exclusive environment. Indeed it is a well-known fact that in the 80s and 90s Black models were mostly signed when announcers needed “ethnic” models. Not so much to challenge ambient racism. The description continues with the words “exotic beauty”, “feline” and again “animal sensuality”. If that does not say enough about the French gaze on black female body, the blackened face of Lara Stone says it all.

I am not so much offended by the blacking up of the white model. This performative act has been recurring in history since the days of the infamous Minstrels.

We also know of famous controversial examples in the South African visual art scene in the mid-nineties, when white female artists appropriated black “ethnic” bodies. So, in a way, one could regard the choice of the French Vogue editor as one aesthetic approach that is no more offensive than South African artist Beezy Bailey transcending race and gender in his series developed with Zwelethu Mthethwa. What is shocking though, is that this racial impersonation reveals the marginalisation of black models.

In an article published in Afrik.com, Congolese journalist Natacha Mikolo observes that: “Vogue has …. ignited wrath across Britain and the United States for what is considered a highly racist campaign. In France, where the Black community rarely reacts, SOS Racisme, an association dedicated to the fight against racism, believes that the magazine has shown a lack of tact.”
“Notwithstanding the clamour this latest edition of Vogue has caused in the English speaking media, the French stand aloof”, she adds. This does not surprise me either and in fact reminds me of the “Agathe Cléry” case.

******

Poster of Agathe Clery (2008) a film by Etienne Chatiliez produced by Produire a Paris

I remember being in Paris last summer when I saw on a popular magazine a black face unknown to me. “One of these new TV talents show”, I thought. Only to discover that the photograph in question was that of French actress and comedian Valérie Lemercier cast in the role of Agathe Cléry, a white racist marketing director of a cosmetic line who discovers she is affected by an illness that will turn her skin black.

What a shocking way to address French racism! Why did film director Etienne Chatiliez not confront the issue head on by casting a black actress? Some would retort that the supporting act is black comedian Anthony Kavanagh. That does not stand as a valid counter-argument.

Once again it seems there was no reaction from black French intellectuals. Critics from Télérama, a mainstream French cultural magazine, said the following: “How could Etienne Chatiliez ignore that within a media world and middle class that worship Barack Obama, nobody would ever contemplate being seen as racist? Therefore Agathe Cléry does not exist.”

Film critic Olivier Barlet, founder of Africultures, expressed more critical views on a film he described as a politically-correct approach to an infuriating topic, fraught with soft evocations of the difficulties faced by Blacks on matters of employment and police harassment, as if these were outdated concerns. Barlet spoke of the superficial treatment of racism, as if in an advert depicting an illusory world where discrimination would be erased the minute one would realise the stupidity of it. By brushing at the surface of racism, concluded Barlet, Chatiliez delivers the avatar of a French society content with itself, as it feigns to address the legacy of colonisation and consequently exonerates itself form the task of challenging its own colonial history. […]

Adapted from a piece first posted on Creative Africa Network in October 2009.

Black Beauty or Illegal Immigrant?

2012-01-06T18:42:00.003Z

Gambian-born Fatou Cham modelling for a UK store clothing range

Britain gives and takes. Yesterday, while some of us enjoyed the last sunny days the British weather had to offer, others were caught up by the reality that illustrates the divide between the "rich" country and the "poor" continent. Britain, land of opportunity and freedom! A freedom it has assigned itself the mission to implement in faraway lands, but to which not all are entitled on its soil.

It is with the dream of a better life that Gambian-born Fatou Cham, 32, came to the UK to study banking, economics and finance at London Metropolitan University. A resident in the country since 1998 on a student visa, her mother and eldest child were allowed to join her in 2000. When her visa expired in 2001, she applied to stay in the UK but was refused permission. A mother with parental obligations, Cham took up a position as a checkout staff in one of UK’s leading stores in 2002. Working as an overseas citizen was then a simple formality. But in 2004, toughened measures on immigration meant that she was required to hold a valid working permit. A further application submitted in January 2009 was yet again rejected, leading her to appeal to the High Court.

The future seemed brighter for Miss Cham when she took her chance at an opportunity – and was indeed selected among hundreds of hopeful – to model for a clothing range as part of an ad campaign to be featured in women’s magazines. But the appearance of her beautiful silhouette in magazines, billboards and newspapers also brought attention to her status. A tip-off led to her being questioned by immigration police, turning her dream into a nightmare. Fatou Cham, a mother-of-three, a would-be model who could potentially live her dream to begin a new career and provide for her family, now faces deportation.

Fatou Cham was put in the limelight by the store in an attempt to “ditch models for real women”. With reality came a whole set of contradictions. Indeed Cham’s image embodies this contradictory attraction to black feminine beauty and sensuality: acknowledged on glossy paper but rejected because of her foreign or other status.

For a brief moment Cham’s portrait conveyed the positive image of an immigrant’s achievement, only to be tarnished by the tag of “illegality” resulting from ever more restrictive immigration measures. Measures “having a damaging effect on the UK's … economy” as well as “people's personal and social lives”, to quote activist Manick Govinda.

Adapted from a piece published on Creative Africa Network on 28 Sept. 2009.

Manières de vivre: relecture

2012-01-05T14:47:00.003Z

African designers ponder on aesthetics and distribution

Dresses by Cameroonian Designer Anggy Haif. Photo: Christine Eyene

“Manières de vivre: relecture”, an exhibition curated by Zoubir Hellal, features a dozen of designers from Africa presenting pieces of furniture, fashion and jewellery. Far from claiming to introduce new aesthetic trends in African design, the show revisits objects for a large part previously seen in major African gatherings – from the workshops held in Dakar in 2003 to the touring exhibition “Design Made in Africa” (2004-2007). “Relecture” though, as its translation indicates, proposes to the visitor a “re-reading” of African lifestyles.

Questioned about his practice, Cameroonian designer Jules-Bertrand Wokam said he appreciated the fact that the curator gave the designers the freedom to select the four or so items each of them wanted to show. But he also expressed his concern that these exhibitions, by showing pieces seen in so many different contexts, run the risk of reifying what is assumed to be an “African” design. While in fact, most of the large pieces of furniture are prototypes. Although their shapes, functionalities and norms are indeed inspired by, and correspond to, an African environment, the objects are not necessarily part of everyday African lifestyles for the very reason that they are prototypes and still have to go through tests of norms, chain of production and distribution.

These questions were raised during a one-day debate held at the School of Fine Arts in Algiers on Monday 6 July. The discussion, coordinated by Zoubir Hellal and chaired by Cameroonian Noumsi Nadege Kenmenge, Design Teacher at Yaounde University, explored four topics: education, computer-aided design and manufacturing (CAD/CAM), the terminologies and identities of “African” design, and practice within a business environment. The invited speakers were Togolese designer Kossi Assou, Mauritian jeweller Ravi Jethan, Congolese sculptor Andre Lukifimpa and South African artist and New Media Lecturer at Michaelis School of Fine Art (Cape Town) Johann van der Schijff.

A number of participants expressed their frustration at the fact that the questions raised during the debates were not new and had already been discussed at other gatherings on the continent. However it was suggested that the participating designers, artists, and cultural workers from Africa and the Diaspora exchange ideas and information, network and commit to raise an interest in African design in their region of influence.

“Manières de vivre: relecture”, 8 July – 20 August 2009, Société Algérienne des Foires et Expositions (Safex), Algiers.

Adapted from a piece published on Creative Africa Network in July 2009.

African Artists “Making Worlds”

2011-12-24T12:43:00.007Z

Thoughts on the African presence at the 53rd Venice Biennale
George Adeagbo, La Creation et les Creations (2009). Installation in 3 parts with found, bought and commissioned objects from West Africa and Europe. Photo: Christine Eyene.

“Perhaps new worlds emerge where worlds meet.”

Daniel Birnbaum

When questioned by Frieze website Editor Sam Thorne about “the controversy surrounding the African Pavilion in 2007”, Daniel Birnbaum, Artistic Director of the 53rd Venice Biennale, stated that he would be “working with artists from African nations, as well as elsewhere, but… not call certain sections ‘pavilions’”. The show, he said, would consist of “a single articulated exhibition”. (1)

Two years ago, I travelled to Italy to review the much talked about African Pavilion of the Venice Biennale. (2) This year I visited Venice to find out how African artists would be integrated in the International Exhibition. Although my gaze does in no way limit itself to identity, for the purpose of this piece, I choose to solely focus on the continent’s participation.

“Making Worlds”, the 53rd International Art Exhibition takes its cue from American philosopher Nelson Goodman’s Ways of Worldmaking (1978), “a book full of relevant observations that has been an inspiration when preparing this project”, Birnbaum writes in his introduction to the Biennale catalogue.

The rationale foregrounding the exhibition, he explains, is that: “a work of art is more than an object, more than a commodity. It embodies a vision of the world, and if taken seriously must be seen as a way of making a world.”

These words are an invitation for the viewer to look at the creative processes and environment that inform and inspire the artist. They also acknowledge art’s ability to create a world of its own. Art is to be apprehended as a product from the world, but also, by its very presence, or materiality, as an intrinsic agent of the permanent alteration of the world.

Announced along those lines, Birnbaum’s proposal offered visitors license to interpret the work beyond the artist’s specific localism, that is to say, through the prism of globalisms that combine the dual immediacy of lived experience and the remoteness of the spectacle of a world brought to us by the ever-evolving information technology.
While the International Exhibition was successful in aligning the selection along the proposed theme, national emphases remained the structure governing the Arsenale. In fact, despite the ongoing questioning on the relevance of national displays at the Venice Biennale, Paolo Baratta, President of the Venice Biennale Foundation, writes that: “The old, unique formula of an exhibition with various countries’ Pavilions now seems more vibrant than ever”.

This view reflects the politics behind the new Italian Pavilion, which presents an exhibition directly organised by the Italian Ministry for Cultural Affairs and Activities, curated by conservative critics Luca Beatrice and Beatrice Buscaroli.

Thorne asked Birnbaum his opinion of the Italian curators refusal to “show any Arte Povera artists, as they are ‘alien to our art history’”. Birnbaum clearly replied that he was not involved with the National pavilions. […]

******

One of the challenges faced by the Venice curators, and viewers alike, is for the former to maintain the alertness of the senses throughout such a large-scale exhibition, and for the latter to allow themselves mental space for this lengthy sensorial experience. Quite a challenge for the compulsive art consumers we have become, performing the prowess of fast-pace viewing of intense and abundant fluxes of visual and sound. A phenomenon against which Steve McQueen’s time-suspending Giardini (2009) acts as an antidote.

Pascale Marthine Tayou, Human Being @ Work (2007-2009). Mixed-media installation. Photo Christine Eyene.

It seems to me that, the layout of the International Art Exhibition took this factor into account by pushing the senses to their paroxysm with Pascale Marthine Tayou’s. Human Being @ Work (2007-2009). This installation combines objects, materials, mixed media techniques, sound and video, to recreate human activity in what is set to evoke “a small African village”. This work clearly challenges preconceived idea of a passive continent in constant need of international aid. Tayou’s display consists of a mix of objects that form part of Africa’s cultural heritage. As for the videos, they present relentless activities, amplified with hammering sounds that testify to Africa's contribution towards the production of goods aimed at a global market.

Tayou’s intervention speaks beyond the local context and is a good example of how contemporary African art practices perfectly blends in current artistic idioms. Human Being @ Work has received rave reviews from many international visitors, including French critics Harry Bellet and Philippe Dagen from Le Monde. (3)

Moshekwa Langa, Temporal Distance (with a criminal intent), you will find us in the best places (2009). Mixed-media installation. Photo Christine Eyene.

Among the French critics observations were a sense of "déjà-vu" concerning Michelangelo Pistolleto’s broken mirrors entitled Twenty-two Less Two (2009). The same feeling occurred to me in front of Moshekwa Langa’s Temporal Distant (with a criminal intent), you will find us in the best places. The piece took me back to the installation I saw at the South African National Gallery (Cape Town) during the Second Johannesburg Biennale in 1997, making me wonder why the label indicated 2009 instead of 1997-2009. That being said, the landscape and architecture composing Langa’s imaginary world worked pretty well both in the exhibition space and as a response to the theme.

On the other hand, the national African pavilions raised, in my view, a whole set of issues in terms of aesthetics, exhibition design and “national” narrative.

Egyptian Pavilion. 53rd Venice Biennale. Photo Christine Eyene.

It was somehow difficult to discern the curatorial intention behind the Egyptian and Moroccan pavilions. "Lightly Monumental” curated by Adel El Siwi, featuring himself and Ahmad Askalany dwelled on the coexistence of the past and present in today’s Egyptian life. Egypt is a country from which hails a number of groundbreaking art practices but this did not reflect in the pavilion.

As for the Moroccan Pavilion, it was disserviced by the overwhelming architectural features of the Church Santa Maria della Pieta. Neither did the work blend in, nor engage in an aesthetic or spatial dialogue, with either the iconography or the architecture of the church.

Moroccan Pavilion. 53rd Venice Biennale. Photo: Christine Eyene.

Spanish curator Fernando Fancés, Director of the Centre of Contempoary Art (Madrid) faced the same issue with ‘Go Noge Mene’, the exhibition of Gabonese artist Owanto. But he certainly had more room to play with, and produced an exhibition allowing the work breathing space, without being affected by the architecture of the venue. One has to note though, that Owanto’s exhibition is more relevant within the frame of a personal narrative than as a national pavilion. Which, in a way, illustrates Birnbaum’s thought that artists are not representing their nations, but “solely their own visions”.

Owanto’s iconography refers to sculptures she has created over the past twenty years and evokes her personal history as a woman of Gabonese descent.

Owanto, Gabon Pavilion of the 53rd Venice Biennale. Photo: Christine Eyene.

Likewise, Djahazi, the Comoros Pavilion by Italian artist Paolo W Tamburella reflects the artist’s “on going interest and research on modernity and postcolonial conditions”. As Octavio Zaya explains, Tamburella centered “his project on the Djahazi, the Comoros Island’s traditional vessels, which were used to transport heavy cargo through the Mozambique Channel and the wider world of western Indian Ocean, and also served as the main means of transportation by Arab slave traders in past centuries.” When Paolo W Tamburella travelled to Comoros, he soon found out that the Djahazi had been abandoned in the port and were sinking in the water.

Zaya continues: “Paolo W Tamburella has fixed and restored five of the twenty-eight boats forsaken at the port, with the help of workers from Moroni, but not as an antiquarian and nostalgic affectation. On the contrary, in Venice, this vessel, which will be loaded with the regular shipping containers used in most of today’s trade, will stand as a metaphor for an ambivalent globalization [...].” (4)

Should this work be presented as a Comorian pavilion? I am not sure. But the project certainly touches on the limits of the national pavilion.

Paolo W Tamburella, Comoros Islands Pavilion. 53rd Venice Biennale. Photo: Christine Eyene

*****

Africa succeeded in making its mark at the 53rd Venice Biennale but only once nation and continent became irrelevant. Likewise, the personal narrative of Owanto, an artist of mixed heritage, and the socio-historical engagement of Tamburella, reached beyond the limits of fixed cultural identity.

Paradoxically, I left Venice with a sense that, somehow, the African pavilions failed to give African curators a voice. And when it did, these fell short of curatorial vision. […]
Does Africa need a stronger presence in Venice? Some argue for, others argue against.(5)

What is sure is that if more African countries were to participate, it is essential for national commissioners to value the experience of the curators hailing from the continent and allow them to make a significant contribution to this grand artistic Mass.

Adapted from a piece published on Creative Africa Network in June 2009.

1. Sam Thorne, “53rd Venice Biennale”. Frieze, Issue 120, Jan-Feb 2009.

2. Read “Africa’s ‘first official pavilion’ at the 52nd Venice Biennale” and Christine Eyene, “Exeunt Aesthetics: Africa at the Venice Biennale”. Third Text, Volume 21, Issue 6, November 2007. London, Routledge.

3. Harry Bellet and Philippe Dagen, "La Biennale de Venise en panne de directions". Le Monde, 5 June 2009, p. 22.

4. Octavio Zaya, “The Djahazi: sailing trough the ambivalent seas of globalization”, in Daniel Birnbaum (cur.), “Making Worlds – 53^rd International Art Exhibition. Venice: Marsilo, 2009, p. 166.

5. See Mario Pissara, "Death to Venice! A South African perspective on the irrelevance of representation at the Venice Biennale", Asai, 07 May 2006.

Africa's 'first official pavilion' at the 52nd Venice Biennale

2011-12-23T19:48:00.002Z

El Anatsui, Dusasa I, Venice Biennale 2007. Photo: Christine Eyene.

The 52nd Venice Biennale of Contemporary Art opened to the public on 10th June. A 112-year-old institution, one of the most important events in the international art calendar, the Biennale showed signs of engagement with a fast changing twenty-first century art scene.

‘Think with the Senses, Feel with the Mind. Art in the Present Tense’, is directed by Robert Storr, the first American ever invited to curate the Biennale. With his appointment follows a string of first-time participating countries. But arguably, the most talked about newcomer is Africa. The continent, is officially included under an ‘African Pavilion’, which Storr sees ‘at the centre of, and not peripheral to, the Venice Biennale’. A statement reinforced by his recommendation to award the Golden Lion for Lifetime Achievement to Malian photographer Malick Sidibé.

The Venice Biennale has always been closed to Africa. The few exceptions being Egypt, South Africa (before the international boycott) and, in 1990, ‘Five Contemporary African Artists’ were invited to represent the continent. Since then, the art scene has considerably changed. Dak’Art, the Senegalese contemporary art biennale, has sustained itself since 1992. South Africa hosted two biennales, in 1995 and 1997, the latter curated by Okwui Enwezor who subsequently was appointed artistic director of Documenta 11 (2002). And, in 1999, with the support of the Ford Foundation, the Forum for African Arts, was created, with the mission to secure and sustain an African presence in Venice. Headed by Salah Hassan, the Forum put on two successful exhibitions: ‘Authentic/Ex-centric’ (2001), curated by Salah Hassan and Olu Oguibe and ‘Faultlines’ (2003) curated by Gilane Tawadros.

These are but a few examples of shows that demonstrated contemporary art practices from Africa and the diaspora. Yet, apparently, it took an ‘African tour’ to Senegal, Mali, Burkina Faso and South Africa, to convince Robert Storr to make a rather belated call for proposals for an African Pavilion.*
In February 2007, a jury composed of Meskerem Assegued, Ekow Eshun, Lyle Ashton Harris, Kellie Jones and Bisi Silva selected ‘Check List – Luanda Pop’, by Simon Njami , curator of the acclaimed ‘Africa Remix’ and Fernando Alvim , director of the Luanda Triennale. The project consisted of art works belonging to Congolese-born, Luanda-based collector Sindika Dokolo. The fact that a private collection was chosen to represent the continent prompted some controversy. Were added to that allegations about the source of the collector’s wealth.

‘Check List – Luanda Pop’ is presented at the Artiglieri dell’Arsenale and features 30 artists, with a mix of established and emerging names. The show was conceived as a manifesto around collecting practice in Africa and the uncompromised will for the continent to engage with the international art scene on its own terms. The Sindika Dokolo Collection is the first private African collection of contemporary art and, following the withdrawal of financial support from the Biennale – on the grounds that the selected project was coming from a private collection – 'Check List’ was entirely funded by Angolan partners.

In terms of curatorial vision, the exhibition does not articulate any particular theme besides the intention ‘to represent the most significant panorama of today’s African creation’. It has been argued, though, that such an exhibition cannot claim to represent the whole continent. Apart from a few exceptions, the absence of recent South African creations was deeply felt. So was the imbalance in regional representations. To such extent that during the presentation held by the curators on 9th June, Olivier Sultan, director of Musée des Arts Derniers (Paris), noted that given the number of Angolan artists, and those whose work engaged with Angola, like Chilean Alfredo Jarr and American Dj Spooky, the show might have well have taken a national focus. This would have clarified the curatorial rationale. Indeed, the Angolan selection is one of the highlights of the exhibition featuring new signatures such as Ihosvanny, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Nastio Mosquito, Ndilo Mutima and Yonamine, who explore a variety of media and provide insights into a country recovering from almost three decades of civil war (1974-2002).

Other highlights of the pavilion include Bili Bidjocka, L’Écriture Infinie #3 (2007), a participative project inviting visitors to write their comments on a book simultaneously projected on a screen; Mounir Fatmi, Save Manhattan 03 (2006-07), a ‘sound architecture’ using speakers to reproduce a pre-9/11 Manhattan; Kendell Geers, Seven Deadly Sins (2006), totem-like fluorescent neon lights; and Yinka Shonibare MBE, How to blow up two heads at once (2006), an installation of two characters, dressed in batik-like Victorian-fashioned clothes, pointing their gun at each other’s decapitated head.

‘Check List – Luanda Pop’ is one of the many flavours of contemporary art from Africa. It is hoped that the next editions of the Venice Biennale will give voice to other curatorial visions in order to reflect the artistic diversity of the continent. For Njami and Alvim, the ‘first official African Pavilion’ is not an achievement as such, but a significant step towards a long overdue recognition by such influential institution as the Venice Biennale.

First published by Africa Beyond in June 2007. See the photogallery here.

* The debate around the call for an African Pavilion was made public on ASAI website.

For a more comprehensive review, read: Christine Eyene, “Exeunt Aesthetics: Africa at the Venice Biennale”. Third Text, Volume 21, Issue 6, November 2007. London: Routledge.

December Newsletter

2011-12-02T13:21:00.006Z

Resetting before the New Year…

There are times when one should not say too much. When developing projects, with all the uncertainties inherent to the process. Or while writing articles and essays progressing at a necessary slow pace.

Of course the fact that one’s voice is temporarily voluntarily mute does in no way mean that one is completely shut out from the world around. Sometimes internet interferences filter through. Feeding into notes-to-self and items to add to one’s diary.

Exhibitions

“The Tie that Binds Us”

Tiwani Contemporary, the new London hotspot for contemporary African art, created by Ayo Adeyinka, Bisi Silva and Maria Varnava, inaugurates its first exhibition with “The Tie that Binds Us”. The show “features the work of five artists; Mary Evans, Oyekan Lawson, Emeka Ogboh, Adolphus Opara and Ben Osaghae who though share a common heritage reveal a diverse artistic practice. Using a diversity of media including paper, painting, photography, sound and video art, their works poignantly engage with diverse social and cultural issues including questions of history, of memory as it manifests across time and geographical boundaries as well as themes that foreground on one hand nature as a source of healing and the environment as a victim of man’s destructiveness.”

“The Tie that Binds Us”

Private view: Tuesday 6 Dec. 2011, 6pm – 9pm

Show continues 7 Dec. to 21 Jan 2012

Tiwani Contemporary

16 Little Portland Street

London W1W 8BP

www.tiwani.co.uk
Tel. +44 (0) 20 7631 3808

info@tiwani.co.uk

Iniva launches “Abdoulaye Konaté: Window Commission 2011”

“Malian artist Abdoulaye Konaté merges political commentary and traditional craftsmanship in Iniva's fifth annual window commission this December. A new large-scale textile work, created especially for the vast window space of Rivington Place, will communicate global diversity issues directly to the street.

In this new work he has drawn on the striking plumage of the guinea fowl as his starting point. He also draws upon its significance south of the Sahara where it appears in tales, legends, theatre and literature.”

“Abdoulaye Konaté: Window Commission 2011”

Preview: Tuesday 6 Dec. 2011, 6.30

Exhibition continues 7 Dec. 2011 to 3 Jan. 2012

Iniva (Institute of International Visual Arts)

Rivington Place

London EC2A 3BA

Tel. +44 (0)20 7729 9616

www.iniva.org

Still running: Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou

Until 17 Dec. 2011

Jack Bell Gallery

13 Mason’s Yard

St James

London SW1Y 6BU

Tel. +44 (0)207 930 8999

www.jackbellgallery.com

Online

Recently browsed on the web, articles dealing with current debates on curatorial practice:

Hans Ulrich Obrist on His New Art Movement, "Posthastism" by Coline Milliard on artinfo.com and “To Show or Not To Show” two perspectives on curating by Jens Hoffmann and Maria Lind in Mousse Magazine.

Calls for artists

Frieze Art Fair calls for entries to the Emdash Award 2012. Click here for more information.

Dak’Art Biennale call for African and Diaspora artists has been extended to 20 Dec 2011. Download application here.

Watch this space for forthcoming art news and projects!

Dak'Art 2012 - Call for Artists

2011-11-30T09:44:00.002Z

Dak’Art 2012 - Biennale of Contemporary African Art is accepting applications from African and African Diaspora artists.

Dak'Art 2012 will take place in Dakar, Senegal, from May 11 until June 10 2012.

Applications must reach the General Secretariat of the Biennale by: 20 December 2011

The duly completed applications must be sent to the following address:

Secrétariat Général de la Biennale de Dakar
19, Avenue Hassan II (ex Avenue Albert Sarraut)
B.P. 3865 Dakar – RP. Sénégal

Interested artists can download the application form and regulation:

Click here for an English version.

Click here for a French version.

the application form (.pdf) to be filled in Acrobat and sent back by email.
the general regulation (.pdf) (COMING SOON in English).

How to fill this form and send it:

For details on how to fill the form, please refer to the Dakar Biennale website.

Application portfolio:

Application portfolio must include the following digitized documents burnt on Cd-rom or DVD:

Application letter mentioning the acceptance of the regulation
Detailed curriculum vitae: civil status, studies, exhibitions, awards, residencies, publications, links on the web.
Two recent portrait photographs passport size (printed AND digitized)
Five color copies of recent works (less than 2 years old).
The duly filled form to send by email (add a printed copy of this form in your portfolio).
Some copies of published articles in art magazines and art critic articles on the artist’s work, one or several statements from well-known experts (optional).

Important:

- The works submitted to selection must not have been shown at an international exhibition.

- Text documents (CV, articles, letter, descriptions) must be sent only in RTF or PDF (text format, no scanned texts).

- Pictures and photo documents, including passport photos must be JPEG, TIFF or PNG files in high resolution, 300 dots per inch (necessary for catalogue).

- However, artists unable to give digitized documents are allowed to send application documents printed on paper.

- Each picture file must be named with an explicit title and joined to each one, a text file with name of the file, name of the artist, title of the work, technical description, year, size, name of the photographer of the work (compulsory).

- For photographs printed on paper, these details must appear on the back of each picture.

- INSTALLATIONS: join to the application a detailed description of the installations, if necessary a plan and sketches.

- VIDEO WORKS / DIGITAL ART: Join to the application a Cd-rom or DVD of the works and any useful information to install the work in the exhibition space.

- These documents will not be returned to the artist after the deliberations of the selection committee. They will be added to the Documentation Centre of the Biennale.

- Incomplete applications will not be considered.

Monaco explores heritage, patronage and audience

2011-11-14T16:07:00.038Z

"3 Exhibitions + 1 Film" at NMNM's Villa Paloma

Late October, Nice Airport, the shuttle transporting us from the plane to the terminal is interrupted in its route by a line of diplomatic cars. Sight of the cortege immediately prompts comments from fellow passengers on the G20 summit about to take place in neighbouring Cannes. As we approach Monaco, the presence of police forces is unusually heavy. Security is heightened as, word has it, demonstrators are planning to march in protest against tax havens. With its liberal approach to income tax and its culture of entertainment and gambling, one can easily imagine the Principality being the target of anti-capitalist movements.

A hotspot for tourists in search of the glamorous lifestyle to which it is associated, the enclave is a less likely art destination. But looking for a break from the African sphere, I trade Bamako for Monaco and set out to visit a couple venues in the South of France.

Although the French Riviera has never been a region relevant to the cultural field in which I practice, I seem to have visited most of the exhibitions presented at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco (NMNM) since the appointment of its director Marie-Claude Beaud in 2009. Up to now I had never felt inclined to comment on the art on show. But the current display raises quite a number of interesting questions on exhibition process from a museum’s perspective, namely: heritage, collecting, transmission of sensory experiences and modes of interaction with the audience.

The NMNM exhibition space is split up in two venues, Villa Sauber and Villa Paloma. The latter launched the Autumn season with “3 Exhibitions + 1 Film”, each project managed by one of the four members of the curatorial team.

By way of introduction…

The visit begins on the ground floor with La Table des Matières (Work in Progress…) by Jonathan Olivares Design Research. Curated by François Larini, this project consists of a 46 square-metre room functioning, in this initial phase, both as a flexible exhibition space showcasing furniture by the Boston-based award-winning designer and a laboratory making public the process leading up to the final design.

Photo © NMNM / Mauro Magliani & Barbara Piovan, 2011

The room contains four large benches reflecting Olivares’ distinctive interest in questions of practicality and multiple functionalities. Responding to their basic function, the benches shift from user-centred objects to becoming display surfaces on which are placed art and design magazines, books, newspapers, and other printed materials providing an insight into Olivares’ practice. These are complemented with tablet computers giving the visitor access to digital resources on the designer’s work, two examples of which are presented in the room.

La Table des Matières which title evokes an “entrée en matière” (an introduction) seems to be visually translated through the linear layout of the benches, with rows recalling a “table of content”. For the visitor, the cognitive experience is threefold and plays on both our relation to the bi- and tri-dimensional, it also leads us to a virtual (i.e. digital) dimension. The space is conceived from the outset as an environment to be appropriated by members of the public. Objects, surfaces and resources lend themselves to tactile examinations and manipulations. A short but sufficiently informative wall text avoids this encounter with interior design from being too prescriptive or didactic. For instance, although visitors are guided in their consultation of the publications with a post-it applied on the pages featuring Olivares or relevant to his approach, one can leisurely flip through the pages of resources that broaden our understanding of product and interior design.

Photo © NMNM / François Larini, 2011

All these elements give a sense of the multiple parameters taken into account by Jonathan Olivares Design Research. La Table des Matières is an interactive space drawing the visitor inward, from the realm of palpable object to that of thinking process. As opposed to objects and furniture formatting or dictating a fixed usage of the space, Olivares is giving form to a flexible user-centred environment capable of adapting to the evolving, shifting and sometimes immaterial experience of art.

The room successfully manages to convey the NMNM’s ambition to find new ways of engaging with its publics. Its strategic location within the Villa Paloma – the entrance – gives it a double position in the course of the visit: as an introductory space before proceeding to the exhibition or as a concluding element. La Table des Matières will in fact be much more than that. It is planned to become “a library, workshop and multi-purpose social space, scheduled to open in January 2012”. A project to look out for next year.

On medium, history and heritage

Moving on to the main show of the season, “Du Rocher à Monte-Carlo – Early Vintage Photographs of the Principality of Monaco, 1860-1880”, curated by Nathalie Giordano-Rosticher, retraces the history of Monaco both through its landscape alterations and architectural developments. Set over two floors, the exhibition is presented in a fashion that I personally found much more readable than the no less interesting shows I have had the occasion to visit at Villa Paloma. The photographs are displayed in a linear transition verging on repetition for those not familiar with Monaco and its topography. This is a deliberate choice of the curator who opted for a layout that follows the geographical features of the Principality. And so the visitors are presented with “geographic and diachronic sequences”, ranging from late nineteenth century images by Charles Nègre, Luigi Crette, Durandelle, Le Normand and de Bray, to name but a few, to actual views given by the windows. The walls of Villa Paloma almost act as transparent membranes setting apart reality and exhibition space, cityscape and two-dimensional visual narrative.


Miguel Aleo (attribued to), The Rocher and the Prince’s Palace, 1866 28 x 39 cm Collection of the Prince’s Palace © All Rights Reserved


Exhibition view

Oculus-shaped view of The Rocher.

The crane in the middle ground illustrates Monaco's continued urban development.

From The Rocher, to La Condamine, Monte-Carlo and Fontvieille, adorned with architectural vestiges like the Casino (1863) and the Opera (1879), Monaco as a topic or figure is depicted through a variety of media, ranging from stereoscopic views to digitised images of the collection. The recourse to technology – with tablet computers – echoes the latest developments in the field of photography. Indeed beyond the geographical subject, this exhibition also deals with the history of a medium which arrival in Monaco marks a twenty-year delay after the announcement of its invention in Paris. This owed to the “the Principality’s isolation until the arrival of the railway (1868), at a time when the only land access was by mule track”. Pictures from this period are literally shown as carriages on train tracks. While photography as a technique is illustrated by the inclusion of stereographoscope and the projection of André Martin and Michel Boschet’s Invention of Photography (L’invention de la photographie), 1964, 23’ (© Argos).

Exhibition view: Eckenrath, Stereo-graphoscope. Collection NMNM

Exhibition view

The presentation of a large number of the vintage prints in antique display units enhances the archival value of an exhibition which opening coincided with Heritage Day. The collection was set up over twenty years by Monegasque researcher and antique dealer Christian Burle who was passionate about Monaco’s history and botany. This archive is all the more important as it was gathered at a time when photography raised scarce interest. Still today, the fact that only ten of the pieces on show belong to Monaco’s national collection, out of the three hundred pieces recently acquired by the Prince’s Palace, begs serious questions about heritage and acquisitions. Answers to these can be found one floor above.

Beyond mere vanity

The top floor of Villa Paloma pays homage to H.R.H. Princess Caroline of Hanover with “Caroline of Monaco, Portraits by Karl Lagerfeld, Helmut Newton, Francesco Vezzoli, Andy Warhol, Robert Wilson”. This selection shows black and white, and colour photographs, as well as a video, dating from the early eighties up to 2009.

Each artist used their sense of creativity and their signature style to push the boundaries of official or media portraiture, as suggests writer Jim Palette in his introductory text. Newton’s photomontages (1983) feature the Princess in surreal settings, Warhol colourful portraits (1983) give her a hint of pop glam, while Lagerfeld’s fictional scenes (1985) conjure up Hollywood movies and reveal the Princess’ sense of performance.

Photo © NMNM / Mauro Magliani & Barbara Piovan, 2011

This approach is taken further by Francesco Vezzoli, known for his peculiar reinterpretations of artistic and cinematographic classics, and his sometimes satirical yet playful take on celebrity culture. Vezzoli’s Portrait of H.R.H. Princess of Hanover (Before and After Salvador Dali), 2009, shows Princess Caroline as Queen Christina of Sweden played by Greta Garbo in Robert Mamoulian’s film Queen Christina (1933). She is also photographed in the manner of old masters paintings. Both parts of the double portrait, especially the latter, are charged with iconographical elements and art historical references worth expending on. But the interpretative material fails to guide the visitor through these highly symbolical images.

The exhibition culminates with a video portrait by Robert Wilson (1985) showing the silhouette of the Princess in the dark, until light slowly discloses her back, hands and face profile.

Photo © NMNM / Mauro Magliani & Barbara Piovan, 2011.

Exhibition view featuring Francesco Vezzoli, Portrait of H.R.H. Princess of Hanover

(Before and After Salvador Dali) 2009.

On first impression, an exhibition honouring the aristocracy may raise a few eyebrows. One could see it as a safe choice, a self-celebratory statement which artistic discourse, were it not for established names, could be put into question. But the sobriety of the closing portrait, revealing only parts of this iconic figure reduced to a shadow in a black dress, as well as a breathing layout avoiding visual over-abundance, narcissism and vanity, make it a much more humble project. In the absence of specific press release, the rationale of this exhibition only becomes clear in an interview of Marie-Claude Beaud by a local television channel.

In it the Director of the NMNM explains that Princess Caroline, who is President of the national institution, has been involved with the art world for quite a long time and has “passionately and generously collaborated with artists”. We learn that not only did she lend photographs from her own collection, she also donated the NMNM prestigious art works like Wilson and Vezzoli’s. The Princess’ keen interest in, and genuine support for, the arts is a trait she holds in common with Queen Christina whom she embodies in Vezzoli’s portraits.

For a national institution that, like any other museum in the world, has to cope with the economic downturn and adapt to the current waves of budget cuts, acquisitions become a serious issue. Add to that the challenges faced by the NMNM to bring local audiences to contemporary art, when other forms of leisure seem more readily available, and the position of Monaco clearly contradicts the misconception that art is only for the elite.

It is against this background that one is to make sense of this exhibition dedicated to Princess Caroline. This show leads us from the notion of heritage to that patronage which, just like in the Renaissance, remains a much-needed form of support both for practicing artists and art institutions.

Shifting senses

The last exhibit – it is in fact located on the second floor in the video room, but stands out from the other projects focused on the venue or Monaco – is one of NMNM’s latest acquisitions. Letter On the Blind – For The Use Of Those Who See (2007) by Javier Tellez is a proposal by Cristiano Raimondi. This documentary conceived for the 2008 Whitney Biennial is in my view the most compelling piece in the Villa Paloma’s current display.

The film is set in McCarren Pool, a disused swimming pool in Brooklyn, New York. The sun is shining, adding bright luminosity to the footage. A group of visually-impaired participants walk in line to a designated spot. As they pass in front of the camera, and the moment of a long travelling across the face of each protagonist, the hierarchy imposed by the sense of sight is overwhelming. The visually-abled suddenly become aware of their gaze over the visually-impaired. This ability taken for granted translates into a one-way engagement with the scene. In fact our ability to view the scene, to describe it, the architecture, the graffiti, initially comforts us in our position.

Javier Téllez, Letter on the Blind, For the Use of Those Who See, 2007
Still from video installation
(Super 16mm film transferred to high-definition video, black and white,
5.1 digital dolby surround, duration 27'36'')
Commissioned by Creative Time as part of Six Actions for New York City
Courtesy the Artist, the NMNM and Galerie Peter Kilchmann, Zurich

The shift happens when a majestic elephant passes the main gate. Viewers see the big mammal approaching at slow pace. As it comes closer, we realise the limitations of our sensory experience. The virtuality of the moving image that tricks us into experiencing remotely prevents us from getting a sense of the impressive size of the animal and numbs the fear most city dwellers would probably feel at the proximity of an elephant.

We hear it trumpet, we hear its legs tread on the sandy ground, we get a circular view of its body, we see it move, our eyes follow the lines on its skin, they look like cracks on the soil of barren land, but that stops here. The ultimate experience is lived through touching, a privileged sense while sight is relegated to the backseat.

We look at the blind people touch the elephant and it is through their perception, by proxy, that we share this encounter. They talk of its thick skin and warm body, they feel its bones, its size, its strength. They can even smell it. From then on unfolds an array imagined forms and textures sight could never allow. The skin of the elephant is likened to tyres, lizard skin, a plastic wall, a coat, falling curtains, a strange fabric, goat skin like the one used to make drums, a carpet, a piece of furniture, a hairy couch material.

Its morphology is translated in terms of front and back. Its size is gauged in storeys. The elephant is associated to popular stories, Babar, Horton, and embodies nature.

This work, the blurb says, was inspired by the Buddhist parable of the “Blind Men and the Elephant”, as well as Diderot’s controversial “Letter on the Blind For the Use of Those Who See, 1749” in which Diderot takes issue with Descartes’ statement on “the existence of innate ideas in man, independent of any experience.” The project follows Tellez’ consistent line of inquiry on forms of marginalisation owing to disability and mental illness.

With Letter on the Blind, Javier Tellez shows us that imagination is an unbounded phenomenon and that perception cannot be limited to visual references nor does it have to conform to the physicality of forms or materiality of textures. Not only does the film succeed in toppling the unchallenged privileged position of the viewer, it also opens the gaze to subjectivity and metaphor.

(All images courtesy of Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, except uncredited exhibition views by the author)

Nouveau Musée National de Monaco

“3 Exhibitions + 1 Film”

Villa Paloma

56 Boulevard du Jardin Exotique

Monaco

16 October 2011 - 8 January 2012

“Looking up...™ : ON AURA TOUT VU revisits the Galéa Collection"

Villa Sauber

17 Avenue Princesse Grace

Monaco

22 June 2011 - 29 January 2012

For further information, visit NMNM website.

November Newsletter

2011-11-14T14:49:00.010Z

All good things must come to an end...

November announced the final days of the 3^rd edition of Photoquai, while Galerie Imane Farès hosted a performance by IngridMwangiRobertHutter as a part of the closing week of the exhibition ‘En Toute Innocence : Subtilités du Corps’ running until 19 November. These shows have taken place in a very dynamic Parisian art scene that has seen an array of events gather around the Biennial of World images, the Fiac and lately Paris Photo.

Biennials and fairs brought an international audience to France making it the ideal context to announce that acclaimed photographer Françoise Huguier, Artistic Director of Photoquai 2011 and initiator of the Bamako Photography Biennial in 1994, was awarded the distinguished Prix de la Photographie de l’Académie des Beaux-Arts – Marc Ladreit de Lacharrière. The prized project is entitled “Vertical / Horizontal, Interior / Exterior, Singapore – Kuala Lumpur – Bangkok ‘Middle Classes’ in South-East Asia at the Eve of 21^st Century”.

Huguier will be honored with a retrospective at the Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris, in 2014. Find out more on Francoise Huguier here.

African photography / Photographed Africa

Although not an official season à la française, African Photography has been particularly present in the French cultural programme. The symposium “The Studio and The World” held at the Musée du Quai Branly last month was followed by the 9^th edition of the Bamako Biennial in Mali, then Paris Photo with this year a focus on Africa. Previews and reviews have been published in printed press and online media.

Taking its time to digest this African frenzy, eye.on.art will soon feature an article framing African photography within a French context, from a curatorial and critical perspective. In the meantime a podcast of the MQB symposium is available here.

Reviews

Trading Bamako for Monaco, eye.on.art features a review of the exhibitions opened last month at the Nouveau Musée National de Monaco. ‘3 exhibitions + 1 film’ presented at the NMNM’s Villa Paloma look at heritage, patronage, sensory experience and audience engagement.

The piece outlines some of the challenges faced by an institution which latest involvement with the African art scene materialised in the form of a important partnership with the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 54^th Venice Biennial and, prior to that, a major exhibition of Yinka Shonibare, MBE in 2010.
Read the article 'Monaco explores heritage patronage and audience' here.

Touring exhibitions

‘Reflections on the Self – Five African Women Photographers’continues its journey with a stopover at the Peacock Gallery, Reading (5 to 26 November) before launching at Peter Scott Gallery, Lancaster early 2012.

Finally, we are delighted to confirm that ‘Women Speak Out’, the exhibition gathering some of the finest contemporary women artists from Africa and the US will tour the African continent in 2012, and hopefully beyond. The show that opened at Galerie le Manège in Dakar, Senegal, in March 2011 includes Safaa Erruas, Justine Gaga, Ayana V. Jackson, Fatou Kandé Senghor, Ato Malinda, Pascale Obolo, Kara E. Walker and Billie Zangewa. It is accompanied by a special issue of the journal Africultures entitled “L’Art au Féminin: approches contemporaines”.

Edited by Christine Eyene this issue includes essays, articles and interviews by Virginie Andriamirado, Meriam Azizi, Adeline Chapelle, Julie Crenn, Nadira Laggoune-Aklouche, Erika Nimis, Marian Nur Goni and Laure Tarot. It also features exceptional colour portfolios by the artists of ‘Women Speak Out’ and ‘Reflections on the Self’.

“L’Art au Féminin: approches contemporaines”, Africultures issue 85, can be found online at L’Harmattan and Amazon.

Call for Artists

The call for submission to the 10th Dak'Art Biennal (11 May to 10 June 2012) is still on until 5 December 2011. Applications can be downloaded on the Dak'Art Biennale website.

Watch this space for further art news.

Visual Century - South African Art in Context: 1907-2007

2011-10-21T13:53:00.002+01:00

Visual Century is an ambitious four-volume publication that reappraises one hundred years of South African visual art from a post-apartheid perspective. It is the first wide-ranging survey of South Africa’s contemporary art to incorporate multiple writers and perspectives. By contextualising the art within broader historical currents, Visual Century makes a major contribution towards the construction of an inclusive national archive, as well as to the development of an inclusive international art history. Wide-ranging and in-depth essays by over 30 contributors, including many of South Africa’s leading art historians, cultural commentators and artists, make it an indispensable resource for curators, historians, students and artists. Lavish full colour illustrations, often of rare or seldom-seen artworks, make this collection a treasure for all art lovers with an interest in South African art.

Project initiator and director Gavin Jantjes is a South African artist currently based at Norway’s National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design. Jantjes, together with Mario Pissarra of Africa South Art Initiative (ASAI), commissioned and oversaw the process of writing the book. Pallo Jordan, former Minister of Arts and Culture, supported the development of the manuscript with seed funding.

Editor(s): Gavin Jantjes, Jillian Carman, Lize van Robbroeck, Mandisi Majavu, Mario Pissarra, Thembinkosi Goniwe

Contributor(s): Andries Oliphant, Christine Eyene, Colin Richards, Elizabeth Rankin, Emile Maurice, Federico Freschi, Gabeba Baderoon, Gavin Jantjes, Hayden Proud, Hazel Friedman, Jillian Carman, Judy Seidman, Juliette Leeb-du Toit, Kathryn Smith, Lize van Robbroeck, M. Mduduzi Xakaza, Mandisi Majavu, Mario Pissarra, Melanie Hillebrand, Mgcineni Sobopha, Nessa Leibhammer, Rasheed Araeen, Roger van Wyk, Ruth Simbao, Sandra Klopper, Sarat Maharaj, Sipho Mdanda, Thembinkosi Goniwe, Uche Okeke, Vonani Bila, Z.P. Jordan, Zayd Minty.

The four-volume boxed set will be launched on 10^th November 2011 by Minister Paul Mashatile, Department of Arts and Culture, at 18:00 at Wits Professional Development Hub. The launch follows a one-day seminar at the same venue, chaired by Andries Oliphant, UNISA.

Volume 1: 1907–1948 edited by Jillian Carman

Volume one begins after the South African (Anglo-Boer) War. In terms of art history, it begins with the appropriation of South African art into the lexicon of Western modernism, and ends with growing evidence of the magnetism of European and North American art production for South African artists, white and black. This volume provides critical perspectives on the ideological and institutional frameworks for white and black artists of the period, and the art they produced. Discussions of public art and architecture, traditionalist African art, and Western style painting and sculpture are complemented with consideration of the roles played by museums, art education, art societies and exhibitions, art historical writing and patronage. Fresh perspectives on the art of the first half of the twentieth century highlight complexities that still resonate today.

Volume 2: 1945–1976 edited by Lize van Robbroeck

Volume two addresses the fertile cultural ambivalences of this period. These include the relationship between Afrikaner nationalism and the emergence of an 'official' South African art, which would come to be challenged by the steady increase in the number of modern black artists and new informal art centres. The impact of white patronage, the responses of migrant workers to rapid change, and artists’ responses to the repressive political climate of apartheid, as well as to emerging black nationalism, are all canvassed. The allure and impact of European and American art, along with modernist discourses, for South African artists both at home and in exile, not least the struggles of black and white artists to define an African identity, are also explored.

Volume 3: 1973–1992 edited by Mario Pissarra

Bracketed by porous transitional moments in the early 1970s and 1990s, this volume covers a period characterised by a deepening of the struggle for democracy. Unprecedented internal and external pressure resulted in both heightened introspection and action in and through the visual arts. The essays in this volume address a multiplicity of ways in which artists responded directly and indirectly to the challenges of this period, mostly as individuals, but also through organisations. Resistance and complicity, and the spaces in between, found expression in the use of everyday themes, biblical sources, ethnically derived themes, subtle and extreme forms of humour, as well as through representations of conflict. Challenging art was produced in community arts centres, universities and in public places, at a time when the cultural boycott simultaneously united and polarised artists, and exiles mediated the ambivalences of ‘home’.

Volume 4: 1990–2007 edited by Thembinkosi Goniwe, Mario Pissarra and Mandisi Majavu

The essays in this volume critically address some of the most notable developments and visible trends in post-apartheid South African art. These include South Africa’s entry into the international art world, its struggle to address its past, and artists’ persistent and often provocative preoccupations with individual and collective identity. The widespread and often unsettling representation of the human body, as well as animal forms, along with the steady increase of new technologies and the development of new forms of public art are also discussed. While much of the art of the period is open-ended and nondidactic, the persistence of engagement with socially responsive themes questions the reductive binary between resistance and post-apartheid art that has come to dominate accounts of before and after South Africa’s democratic election.

For further details, visit Wits University Press.

October Newsletter

2011-10-15T20:35:00.004+01:00

The successful opening of the third edition of Photoquai – Biennial of World Images, which African selection received critical acclaim from the press (see for instance features in Libération and Paris Match, two major French mainstream media) led up to an international symposium on photography in Africa at the Musée du Quai Branly.

Organised by the MQB and Université Paris 1, Panthéon-Sorbonne and coordinated by Christine Barthe, Vincent Godeau and Michel Poivert, ‘The Studio and the World: Stakes of African Photography Creation’ looked at recent research on the subject, such as that led by Jeanne Mercier, Marie Moignard and Erika Nimis. The event also brought to Paris some of the continent’s major photographers: Akinbode Akinbiyi, Omar D., Samuel Fosso and Guy Tillim as well as curators Yacouba Konaté, Mark Sealy and Bisi Silva. Topics explored over the two days (6 - 7 October) included the history of photography in Africa, current practices, contemporary forms of promotion and publication.

See full programme (French) and audio recording (English and French) here.

Crossing the Channel to the Institute of International Visual Arts, we joined the ‘Venice Zim Team’ for a half-day professional meeting on 10 October.

‘In the Spotlight: Zimbabwe in Venice – Developing Opportunities in Sub-Saharan Africa’, an event organised by inIVA and the British Council, provided a platform to share and reflect on the establishment of a pavilion for Zimbabwe at the 54^th Venice Biennale and examine future developments in the visual arts in Zimbabwe and Sub-Saharan Africa.

Presenters included the Zimbabwe Pavilion Curator Raphael Chikukwa; Commissioner Doreen Sibanda, Director of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe; Artists Berry Bickle and Misheck Masamvu; Independent Curator Christine Eyene, Co-Editor with Katrina Schwarz of the Zimbabwe Pavilion catalogue; François Larini, Curateur Publics & Communication, Nouveau Musée National de Monaco, one of the partners of the Pavilion; and Kerryn Greenberg, Curator International Art, Tate Modern.

The series of talks continue throughout October in parallel to ‘Reflections on the Self – Five African Women Photographers’ presented at The Gallery @ NUCA with lectures at Norwich University College of The Arts (13 October) and Sotheby’s Institute of Art, London, at the end of the month.

Online

‘Females Doing Art’ review featuring ‘Reflections on the Self’ by lipstickandteeth - Sex and gender. Media and politics. Gloss and bite.

Watch this space for forthcoming art news and projects!

September Newsletter

2011-09-02T07:56:00.006+01:00

September starts in earnest for eye.on.art with the launch of a number of exhibitions and publications on the Afro-Euro art scene.

New exhibitions

Opening on Wednesday 7 at Galerie Imane Farès, in vibrant Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris, “En Toute Innocence: subtilités du corps” presents Pélagie Gbaguidi, IngridMwangiRobertHutter and Billie Zangewa. Curated by Christine Eyene, this exhibition looks at women’s body and narratives through various aesthetic positions and propositions. It also proposes to explore the intricacies of commonly accepted concepts of femininity. The show consists of works previously unseen in France including artist’s notebooks, tapestry, photography, video and sound installations.

The exhibition runs from 8 September to 19 November.

Visit Galerie Imane Farès for further information.

One stone throw from the Eiffel Tower, on the river bank, the Musée du Quai Branly is preparing to launch the third edition of Photoquai – Biennial of World Images. Placed under the artistic direction of acclaimed French photographer Françoise Huguier, Photoquai brings together nearly fifty photographers from Africa, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. The African section curated by Mouna Mekouar (North Africa) and Christine Eyene (Sub-Saharan Africa) features: Hélène Amouzou (Togo), Andrew Esiebo (Nigeria), Hassan Hajjaj (Morocco), Sameer Kermalli (Tanzania), Nicène Kossentini (Tunisia), Mwanzo Milinga (Tanzania), Michael Tsegaye (Ethiopia) and Christian Tundula (Democratic Republic of Congo).

Photoquai is an outdoor exhibition accessible to the public 24/7. It runs from 13 Septembre to 4 December.

For more information contact Heymann, Renoult Associées by email at info@heymann-renoult.com or by phone on (33) 1 44 61 76 76.

Touring exhibitions

Five African women photographers continue to roam England…
The Hayward Touring exhibition inaugurated at the Royal Festival Hall in March will be hosted by The Gallery @ Norwich University College of the Arts.

“Reflections on the Self” is one of the threefold women’s project curated by Christine Eyene. The photographers are Hélène Amouzou, Majida Khattari, Zanele Muholi, Senayt Samuel, and Nontsikelelo Veleko. The work presented engages with the gaze and politics of representation through gendered identity, sexuality and displacement and looks at the notion of ‘self’ as both subject and object.

The exhibition opens on 27 September and runs to 15 October. It will be accompanied with an educational pack and an essay authored by the curator.

Find out more on the touring schedule on the Southbank Centre website.

Publications

The latest issue of French journal Africultures is out now. Titled “L’Art au Féminin: approches contemporaines”, this publication accompanies “[Kaddu Jigeen]: Women Speak Out”, the touring exhibition launched at Galerie du Manège in Dakar, in March this year. “L’Art au Féminin” is edited by Christine Eyene and includes essays, articles and interviews by Virginie Andriamirado, Meriam Azizi, Adeline Chapelle, Julie Crenn, Nadira Laggoune-Aklouche, Erika Nimis, Marian Nur Goni and Laure Tarot. It also features an exceptional colour portfolio of works by the artists of “Reflections on the Self”, and “[Kaddu Jigeen]”: Safaa Erruas, Justine Gaga, Ayana V. Jackson, Fatou Kandé-Senghor, Ato Malinda, Pascale Obolo, Kara E. Walker and Billie Zangewa.

The launch of Africultures, issue 85, will take place at Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, on Wednesday 7 September were it will be available during “En toute Innocence” exhibition. It can also be found online at L’Harmattan publishers and Amazon.

Online

eye.on.art visited “Thin Black Line(s)” at the Tate Britain. Curated by Paul Goodwin and artist Lubaina Himid MBE, this display showcases a selection of pieces drawn from three major exhibitions of Black women artists curated by Himid in the early 1980s: “Five Black Women”, Africa Centre (1983); “Black Women Time Now”, Battersea Arts Centre (1983-84); “The Thin Black Line”, Institute for Contemporary Art (1985). The artists presented at the Tate are Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan and Maud Sulter.

The article “Tate Britain highlights the legacy of Black Women Artists” revisits the history of Black British Art in the 80s and the legacy of identity-based curatorial practice. Read the full article here.

“Thin Black Line(s)" runs to 18 March 2012. Visit the Tate Britain website.

There are more news to come and projects in store, including forthcoming talks, exhibitions touring and publications…

Watch this space until the next newsletter!

Tate Britain highlights the legacy of Black Women Artists

2011-08-25T13:25:00.009+01:00


"Thin Black Line(s)" exhibition, Tate Britain, Gallery 5

The Tate Britain unveiled a thought-provoking display on Monday 22 August. Put together by Tate curator Paul Goodwin and artist Lubaina Himid MBE, “Thin Black Line(s)” presents a selection of pieces drawn from three major exhibitions of Black women artists curated by Himid in the early 1980s: “Five Black Women”, Africa Centre (1983); “Black Women Time Now”, Battersea Arts Centre (1983-84); “The Thin Black Line”, Institute for Contemporary Art (1985).

These exhibitions, reads the introductory text panel, “marked the arrival on the British art scene of a radical generation of young Black and Asian women artists who challenged their collective invisibility in the art world and engaged with the social, cultural, political and aesthetic issues of the time.”

Press release and poster of "Five African Women" exhibition at the Africa Centre in 1983

The display includes works by Sutapa Biswas, Sonia Boyce, Lubaina Himid, Claudette Johnson, Ingrid Pollard, Veronica Ryan and Maud Sulter. Drawings, paintings, sculptures and photographs are showcased alongside a video documentary on the Black art scene and archival documents comprising of exhibition posters, invitations, letters, etc.


Poster of "Thin Black Line" exhibition, ICA, 1985

Lubaina Himid in the video documentary on the Black Arts

While most works are well known to Black Art aficionados, a new piece by Himid epitomises the historical moments and facts underlying this show. Thin Black Line(s) Moments and Connections (2011), pencil and crayon on paper, maps out the ramifications of the history of the Black Art by creating a network which architecture resembles a tube map. One transversal line, named after the abovementioned three seminal shows, intersects with Other Artists, Showing Spaces, Education, Exhibitions, Creative Groups, and Texts and Publications lines.

Lubaina Himid, Thin Black Line(s) Moments and Connections (2011), pencil and crayon on paper

Drawing on the metaphor of the underground, one could associate Himid’s drawing to the marginalisation (or invisibility because under/ground) of the Black British art scene in the early 1980s. It also recalls both the roots of Black art practice in the UK and by extension, the family tree linking Black professionals in the country.

The mapping and framing enclosing these moments and facts also bring in the notion of time and beg the question of legacy of Black women beyond the frame.

Visitors connected to this story will be inclined to situate themselves on the map. As a British-based art worker I playfully tried my rootedness against the map. I managed to locate my first job at the Brixton Art Gallery, then the Africa Centre (alas well after their heydays); found names of artists and institutions I engaged with: Houria Niati, Gavin Jantjes, Rasheed Araeen… Third Text, Autograph…

Each of these encounters are valued as personal highlights because they inform my practice as an art writer and curator.

Any Black art professional educated on the other bank of the Channel knows all too well that endeavours to historicise the Black presence on the European art scenes is scarce. Rarely is the story being told by its actors. Quite often the case is that we are talked about rather than talking for ourselves.

To practise in an environment where black history, intellectual thought, written material, and archival documents are readily available and kept in public institutions is not to be taken for granted.

For what it is worth, if one were to compare the Diasporia experience on both sides of the Channel, one could argue that whereas in France the vanishing impact of Negritude in the 1970s marked the end of a Black French intellectual flagship movement, in Britain, the Caribbean Artists Movement (1966-72) and the Black Art (1980s) have enabled Black British artists and intellectuals to retain ownership of the discourse on their arts and cultures.

One striking example can be found in the difference between the emergence of the Black Arts in the early 1980s and that of “contemporary African art” in the late 1980s.

In 1981, Eddie Chambers, one of the instigators of the Black Art movement organised the first exhibition of the kind. “Black Art an’ done” (Wolverhampton Art Gallery), was unique in its political intent. First of all, as Chambers writes, as a group, the artists came together themselves, rather than being gathered by a curator (1). Second of all, the manifesto-style of this show was emphasized by its non-commercial orientation. Chambers’ introductory text clearly mentioned that “most of the pieces of work in this exhibition [were] not for sale” (2), which was quite unusual.

This approach differs completely from the one characterising “contemporary African art”. For instance, “The Magicians of the Earth” (Pompidou Centre, La Vilette, Paris, 1989), marks the beginning of a trend that partakes in what Chambers would have called “conciliatory acts of white art administration liberalism or political expediency” (3).

Tinted with a much-criticised exoticism, this show introduced a shift in our understanding of Black art practice. Whereas in the UK the term black encompassed African, Caribbean and South Asian cultural backgrounds, and bore a political connotation, in France, Africa was isolated as an ethnic group, almost as a country. In the early 1990s, African art shows were usually curated by Westerners, supported by public funds, and the (somewhat irrelevant) discourse on authenticity often validated by self-proclaimed specialists backed by art collections granting them discursive authority.

The bid to reclaim the discourse on African arts and cultures has seen the emergence of some of the most prominent African curators who can be commended for having given visibility to otherwise marginalised artists. However it does not take long to observe that most of the large-scale exhibitions remained the preserve of male curators. Prompting one to wonder whether or not this condition has any bearing on the exposure of women artists, and the mediation of their work from the studio to exhibition space. In other words, in contexts where female practitioners are blatantly under-represented is there not ground to argue for a gendered-focussed practice?

Back in the 1980s, Lubaina Himid explored similar questions and took the initiative to challenge the double marginalisation experienced by Black women both within the Black Art movement and in mainstream institutions. She put on exhibitions opening up discussions from a woman’s perspective. While she is credited by Rasheed Araeen for this role (4) and for deconstructing an essentialist definition of the term "black" by bringing together artists of African and Asian origins (5), she, in turn, credits Claudette Johnson.

“I must mention here, she writes, that Claudette Johnson was in the BLK Art Group … It was Claudette Johnson who decided to take the women at the Black Art Conference into another space, in order for us to engage with the issues most important to us.” She also adds that: “ In visual terms, she said things about black women’s bodies, experiences, and aspirations…” (6).

Marlene Smith and Keith Piper, two pioneers of the Black Art movement visit the Thin Black Line(s) exhibition. In the background, Sutapa Biswas' Housewives with Steak Knives (1985).

In many respects the concerns of Johnson, Himid, and their peers live on in today’s art practices in the Diaspora and Africa. Recent examples include exhibitions like “Innovative Women – Ten Contemporary Black Women Artists” (Johannesburg, 2009) curated by Bongi Bengu; “Like a Virgin…” (CCA, Lagos, 2009) curated by Bisi Silva; and the trio of women’s exhibitions I developed in Dakar, London and Paris.

“Thin Black Line(s)” does not claim to be exhaustive in scope, rather it encourages further investigation on black women’s iconography in British art. This exhibition contributes to frame gendered art practices from a black perspective and highlights narratives quite often overshadowed by the quest for the new in current curatorial trends.

Notes:

1. Eddie Chambers, "A History of Black Artists in Britain", The Artpack, 1988, p. 9.

2. Eddie Chambers in "Black Art An' Done", 1981, np.

3. Eddie Chambers, "A History of Black Artists in Britain", op. cit.

4. Rasheed Araeen, "The Success and the Failure of Black Art", Third Text, Vol. 18, Issue 2, 2004, p. 140.

5. Ibid., p. 142.

6. Lubaina Himid, Inside the Invisible: For/Getting Strategy, in Bailey, Baucom, Boyce (eds.), Shades of Black: Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain. Durham, London: Duke University Press, Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) and African and Asian Visual Artists' Archive (Aavaa), 2005, p. 43.

"Thin Black Line(s)" runs until 18 March 2012

Tate Britain
Gallery 5
Millbank
London SW1P 4RG
020 7887 8888

Free Entry

For further information visit the Tate website

Houria Niati - a profile

2011-08-25T11:03:00.003+01:00

In the 1980s, Britain witnessed the emergence of a movement that was to change the face of its art scene; a movement born out of – or more justly in reaction to – a conservative socio-political environment that denied Black artists access to mainstream art institutions.

The birth of the Black British art movement, Rasheed Araeen writes, is to be found in The Destruction of the National Front (1980), by Eddie Chambers, then an art student at the Lancaster Polytechnic in Coventry. This work, Araeen claims laid the “foundation stone for a radical agenda”. (1) Chambers, alongside a number of artists (among which Keith Piper), went on to put on an exhibition championing the cause of Black artists, first in Wolverhampton in 1981, then at the Africa Centre, London, in 1982. Within this marginalised group, emerged the voice of women artists, notably Claudette Johnson and Lubaina Himid, who had developed a black feminist approach and organised, in 1983, “Five Black Women” (Africa Centre) and “Black Woman Time Now” (Battersea Art Centre). These “two highly important shows”, in the words of Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock (2), introduced Houria Niati to British audience.

Houria Niati was born in Algeria in 1948 and trained in Community Arts from 1969 to 1971 at the Ministry of Youth and Sports in Algiers. She moved to the UK in 1977 and took up an art course at the Camden Arts Centre (1978-79) before studying at the Croydon College of Art and Design (1979-82). Niati made her mark in the 1980s as one of the first artists to have challenged the representation of Algerian women in Western art, notably in French Orientalism. Her seminal piece No to the Torture (first executed between 1982 and 83) reinterpreted Delacroix’s Women of Algiers in their Apartment (1834). In this installation composed of five paintings, drawings, photographs and sound, Niati interrogated Delacroix’s depiction of the harem. She challenged both the passivity attributed to women, and the veracity ascribed to Delacroix’s painting by bringing to the fore, the abuse and hardship experienced by Algerian women under the French colonial rule.

Houria Niati, No to the Torture, detail (1983). Mixed media on canvas. Courtesy the Artist.

Another famous work by Niati addressing similar issues is Bringing Water from the Fountain has Nothing Romantic About It (1991), first presented in “Four x Four” (1991), an exhibition curated by Eddie Chambers at the Harris Museum in Preston. Jars representing busts of naked women painted in a classical genre, sound of running water, plaster moulds of the artist’s feet, paintings and old photographs displayed on the floor and wall, served as a counter-discourse to the objectification and exoticizing of Muslim women.

Both works were conceived and enriched in a lengthy creative process throughout 1990s.

Houria Niati, Calm, Beauty and Voluptuousness (1992). Oil Pastels on Card. Courtesy, the Artist.

Houria Niati, The Beauty (1988). Oil Pastels on Card. Courtesy the Artist.

Since the 2000s, Houria Niati has been experimenting with digital photography and video. One of the most accomplished of her digital works is entitled Integration Disintegration (2006), a five-minute piece combining Niati’s skills as a visual artist, poet and singer of Arab-Andalusian tradition. The work includes the mesmerising soundtrack Delirium co-produced with British artist Pete Ardron in 1994. As her portrait disintegrates in front of the viewer’s eye, through a progressive enlargement of pixels recalling the materiality of painted pigments one recognises some of the lyrics of her poem No to Torture.

Houria Niati, Integration Disintegration (2006). 5' video. Courtesy, the Artist.

Likewise, id/Entity an experimental piece executed a year before, stages the alteration of Niati’s identity photograph to the sound of There is Nothing Romantic About Bringing Water From the Fountain told in English and French.

Houria Niati, Alien from Autoportrait Interrogatif series.

Computer manipulated portrait. Courtesy, the Artist.

In 2007, Niati gained an MA in Fine Arts from Middlesex University, where artist Keith Piper lectures Fine Arts and Digital Media.

Distanced from her country of birth because of the political unrest of the 1990s, she has now been able to travel back home and explores this reconnection in her work.

Notes:

(1) Rasheed Araeen, “The Success and Failure of the Black Arts Movement”, in Bailey, Baucom, Boyce (eds.), Shades of Black. Assembling Black Arts in 1980s Britain. Durham: Duke University Press; London: Institute of International Visual Arts (inIVA) and the African and Asian Visual Artists’ Archive (Aavaa), 2005, p. 22.

(2) Rozsika Parker and Griselda Pollock, Framing Feminism. Art and the Women’s Movement 1970-1985. London: Pandora Press, 1987, p. 64.

Suggested reading on Houria Niati:

Salah Hassan, “Nothing Romantic About It! A critique of Orientalist Representation in the Installations of Houria Niati”, in Salah Hassan, “Gendered Visions. The Art of Contemporary Africana Women Artists”. Trenton, NJ; Asmara, Eritrea: Africa World Press, 1997, pp. 9-18.

South African artists give talk at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe

2011-08-18T15:38:00.001+01:00

Photo: Mbali Khoza

The National Gallery of Zimbabwe is pleased to announce Harare Conversations with South African photographer Mbali Khoza and video artist Breeze Yoko on Friday 19 August at 10.30 am. Khoza and Yoko’s work feature in Pimp my Combi – Gwanza 2011 curated by Christine Eyene.

Eyene was invited by Calvin Dondo founder GWANZA, Zimbabwe’s month of photography, and Raphael Chikukwa, Curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe to bring a new curatorial vision to this long-established photography event. This year has seen dramatic changes with a more selective list of participants based on the documentary relevance, the technical qualities, and the creativity of the work submitted to Gwanza. Eyene also proposed to include video art and sound pieces to enrich the visitors experience.

Pimp my Combi explores the combi (commuter omnibus) as a local visual and cultural symbol, as well as a means of transport defining both urban landscape and social space throughout the African continent.

The exhibition showcases twelve photographers: Berry Bickle, Christopher Hunt, Angela Jimu, Mbali Khoza, Remmy Marimo, Anne Mpalume, Nancy Mteki, Bethule Nkiwane, Believe Nyakudjara, Resta Nyamwanza, Nyadzombe Nyempenza, and Zinyange Ruzvidzo.

In line with its multidisciplinary approach the show also includes installation artist Chido Johnson, poet Ignatius Mabasa and Breeze Yoko.

Still from Breeze Yoko's video A Short Ride on the Rat Race (2011)

Pimp my Combi will tour to the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in Bulawayo and Mutare. A photo-gallery of the exhibition is available online here.

Khoza and Yoko’s visit to Zimbabwe is made possible by Hivos.

Gwanza 2011 is supported by: Gwanza Arts, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, British Council, Culture Fund, Hivos, Spanish Embassy, Cuban Embassy.

Harare Conversations

A presentation by Mbali Khoza and Breeze Yoko

Friday 19 August at 10.30 am.

Pimp my Combi

GWANZA 2011 – Month of Photography

4 August – 4 Sept 2011

National Gallery of Zimbabwe

20 Julius Nyerere Way

Harare

Zimbabwe

Website: www.nationalgallery.co.zw

For further information contact:

gwanza2011@ymail.com

Pimp my Combi - Virtual Gallery

2011-08-11T09:15:00.007+01:00

Pimp my Combi

National Gallery of Zimbabwe

4 Aug - 4 Sept 2011

Exhibition entrance

Courtauld Gallery


Abstract of poem by Ignatius Mabasa played in the combi installed in the Courtauld Gallery

Exhibition view from the Courtauld Gallery. The combi is fitted with sound system playing Mabasa's poem

Below: stickers inside the combi with comments revealing commonplace derogatory views on women.

Here the combi reproduces the social space and acts as a place reflecting power relations defined by gender.

The Playboy rabbit already present on the minibus reinforces the commodification of women evoked above


Left: Photograph by Angela Jimu. Right: Panoramic taxi rank by Bethule Nkiwane

Below: Believe Nyakudjara, from the series Living in Limbo (2010)

Below: Nyadzombe Nyampenza

Courtauld Gallery viewed from the upper level of the National Gallery

South Gallery

Herald poster relating recent combi accident juxtaposed to Zinyange Ruzvidzo's photograph of dismantled vehicle.

Left: Resta Nyamwanga's documented bus accident

Below: Taxi series by Berry Bickle

Left: Berry Bickle. Right: video by Breeze Yoko

Below: Stills from Breeze Yoko's video A Short Ride on the Rat Race (2010)

Mbali Khoza, Untitled, triptych, 2011

View from the South Gallery

East Gallery

View revealing the NGZ architectural features and East Gallery in the background

Work by Nancy Mteki

Nancy Mteki, Sequence 1

Nancy Mteki, Sequence 2

Below: Christopher Hunt, from the series A Pimp and his Combi (2011)

Below: WAWAD (Wire-car Auto Workers Association of Detroit) presented by Chido Johnson.

WAWAD is a collaborative project involving 13 artists

GWANZA 2011 Opening

2011-08-05T15:54:00.012+01:00

Opening of Pimp my Combi: GWANZA 2011 - Month of Photography

Thursday 4 August 2011

National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare

Opening speech by Ambassador Aldo DELL’ARICCIA

Head of Delegation, European Union to Zimbabwe

Pimp my Combi features the work of Berry Bickle, Christopher Hunt, Angela Jimu, Chido Johnson, Mbali Khoza, Ignatius Mabasa, Remmy Marimo, Anne Mpalume, Nancy Mteki, Bethule Nkiwane, Believe Nyakudjara, Resta Nyamwanza, Nyadzombe Nyempenza, and Zinyange Ruzvidzo, Breeze Yoko.

Conceived by Christine Eyene on a theme proposed by Raphael Chikukwa, Curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, this exhibition explores the combi (or minibus) as a local visual and cultural symbol, as well as a means of transport defining both urban landscape and social space throughout the African continent.

Based on works selected from an open call to local photographers and visual artists, Eyene has created a three-part exhibition spread out over the Courtauld, South and East Galleries.

These are some exhibition views taken during the opening that took place on Thursday 4 August 2011. (Click on the images to enlarge.)

Courtauld Gallery

Visitors and minibus fitted with sound system playing Yadhakwa Nyika (2007), a musical poem by Ignatius Mabasa dealing with the dangers of the combi.

South Gallery

Juxtaposition: recent newspapers poster alongside Zinyange Ruzvidzo's photograph of abandoned bus

Photographs by Berry Bickle

Calvin Dondo, founder of Gwanza Arts with guests. Mbali Khoza's photographs in the background

Visitors viewing Breeze Yoko's video piece, A Short Ride on the Rat Race (2011)

View of the East Gallery taken from the South Gallery


Guests socializing between the South and East Galleries

East Gallery

Ambassador Aldo DELL’ARICCIA

Head of Delegation, European Union to Zimbabwe, among other guests

Visitors discovering Nancy Mteki's work

Young girls checking pictures taken at the opening

Visitors in front of Christopher Hunt's Pimp series (2011)

Chido Johnson (right) presenting WAWAD (Wire-car Auto Workers Association of Detroit), a collaborative piece involving 13 artists.

Pimp my Combi - Gwanza 2011

2011-07-30T16:28:00.006+01:00

Photo: Nancy Mteki (Zimbabwe), 2011

Gwanza Arts in partnership with the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, is pleased to announce Gwanza 2011 – Month of Photography.

Entitled Pimp my Combi a theme proposed by Raphael Chikukwa, Curator at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Gwanza 2011 presents 14 photographers and artists selected by London-based curator Christine Eyene.

Pimp my Combi proposes to explore, the combi (or minibus) as a marker of vernacular aesthetics and cultural codes, as well as a vehicle defining both urban landscape and social space throughout Africa.

This year’s selection has paid close attention to the documentary relevance, technical quality and aesthetic value of the work submitted by local photographers who have shown great creativity and originality in their approach of the theme.

The photographers and artists selected for Gwanza 2011 are: Berry Bickle, Christopher Hunt, Angela Jimu, Mbali Khoza, Remmy Marimo, Anne Mpalume, Nancy Mteki, Bethule Nkiwane, Believe Nyakudjara, Resta Nyamwanza, Nyadzombe Nyempenza, and Zinyange Ruzvidzo.

Christopher Hunt (United Kingdom), The Act, 2011

Also featured are US-based Zimbabwean installation artist Chido Johnson and South African video artist Breeze Yoko.

In addition to the main exhibition, Gwanza 2011 also includes a public programme developed in partnership with the British Council, launching the Bulawayo Conversations on 26 July at the National Gallery, Bulawayo, and hosting the Harare Conversations on 6 August, at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, alongside workshops and portfolio reviews.

A presentation of Gwanza 2011 will be held on 7 October 2011, at the Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, as part of the round table “The Studio and The World”, in conjunction with Photoquai – Biennial of World Images co-curated by Christine Eyene.

Photo: Mbali Khoza (South Africa), 2011

Finally, for the first time, Gwanza will be followed up by a more comprehensive exhibition at the National Gallery of Zimbabwe in January 2012, featuring visual artists and photographers from across the African continent.

Founded in 2002 by acclaimed Zimbabwean photographer Calvin Dondo, Gwanza Arts is a non-for-profit organisation dedicated to the development and promotion of photography. Gwanza hosts the biggest annual photography exhibition in Zimbabwe and provides a platform for interaction between local and international photographers.

Gwanza 2011 is supported by: the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, British Council, Culture Fund, Hivos, Spanish Embassy, Cuban Embassy.

Pimp my Combi

GWANZA 2011 – Month of Photography

4 August – 4 Sept 2011

Opening Thursday 4 August 5.30 p.m.

Harare Conversations

Curating and Art Criticism: current trends from an international perspective

A talk by Christine Eyene

Saturday 6 August, 10.00 a.m.

National Gallery of Zimbabwe

20 Julius Nyerere Way

Harare

Zimbabwe

Website: www.nationalgallery.co.zw

For further information contact:

gwanza2011@ymail.com

Coming soon at Galerie Imane Farès, Paris

2011-07-07T18:03:00.003+01:00

Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, is pleased to announce its forthcoming exhibition entitled “En toute innocence : subtilités du corps” (In all innocence: body's subtleties).

In all innocence presents works by Pélagie Gbaguidi, Billie Zangewa and INGRIDMWANGIROBERTHUTTER. Based on a long-term interest in the female body, this exhibition looks at a variety of positions and propositions on women’s identities and forms of representation.

The show echoes the slow and discreet revolution that has seen the emergence of African women on the international art scene. It also relates to the dialogue forged between women artists and a gendered curatorial practice concerned both with aesthetics and discourses on cultural identity.

The title “in all innocence” refers to the “invisible struggle” evoked by Senegalese curator N’Goné Fall in her essay published in the exhibition catalogue of “Global Feminisms” (Brooklyn Museum, New York, 2007) to describe women’s struggle to gain their rights in African societies. The notion of “subtlety” partly draws on the concept of “negofeminism”, a form of African feminism identified and defined by US-based Nigerian scholar Pr. Obioma Nnaemeka. Negofeminism aims at overturning male domination by way of measured femininity. In this context, the preconceived idea of “weak gender” happens to be utterly deceptive and forms the oxymoron underlying this exhibition.

On show will be exclusive photographic reproductions of pages of Pélagie Gbaguidi’s notebooks gathering sketches and thoughts on women’s experiences. Also presented will be Billie Zangewa’s sensuous tapestries conveying overt desire doubled with an awareness of the power a woman’s body may have on the opposite sex. While INGRIDMWANGIROBERTHUTTER will take the viewers to points of extreme bodily experiences.

In all innocence ends the series of the exhibitions dedicated to women artists, developed in Dakar and London by Christine Eyene, Curator of the African selection of the 3^rd Photoquai – Biennial of World Images (Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, Sept-Dec. 2011).

This project, featuring three important contemporary artists, launches the new programme of Galerie Imane Farès, Paris, which mission statement is to represent the cream of the African art scene both in France and internationally.

En toute innocence : subtilités du corps

(In all innocence: body's subtleties)

Artists: Pélagie Gbaguidi, Billie Zangewa, INGRIDMWANGIROBERTHUTTER

Curator: Christine Eyene

8 September – 19 November 2011

Opening 7 September 6.00 to 9.00 pm.

Galerie Imane Farès

41 rue Mazarine

75006 Paris

France

Tel: 00 1 46 33 13 13

galerie@ifgalerie.com

http://www.ifgalerie.com

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS - GWANZA 2011

2011-06-29T19:33:00.004+01:00

The National Gallery of Zimbabwe in partnership with Gwanza Arts is calling for applications to take part in Gwanza 2011 – Month of Photography (4 August – 4 Sept 2011).

Gwanza Arts is a non-for-profit organisation dedicated to the development and promotion of photography locally and abroad. It was founded by internationally acclaimed Zimbabwean photographers, who envisioned a gap in the development of this art in the country.

Gwanza Arts hosts the biggest annual photography exhibition in Zimbabwe and provides a platform for interaction between local and international photographers. It is also set to build an alternative forum to communicate with communities on various social, economic and political issues.

Entitled, Pimp my Combi a concept proposed by Raphael Chikukwa - Curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Gwanza 2011 is placed under the curatorship of Christine Eyene.

Bringing together for the first time photography, video, and sound installations, Gwanza 2011 proposes to look at the combi (or minibus) as a marker of vernacular aesthetics and cultural codes, as well as a vehicle defining both urban landscape and social space throughout Africa.

This call is aimed at Southern and East African photographers, video and sound artists to submit works addressing the theme of the festival along the abovementioned lines, from a literal to metaphorical interpretation.

Deadline 18 July 2011

Download the application here.

GWANZA 2011 - Month of Photography

2011-06-29T17:12:00.001+01:00

The National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare, in partnership with Gwanza Arts is pleased to announce Gwanza 2011 – Month of Photography.

Entitled Pimp my Combi, a concept proposed by Raphael Chikukwa – Curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and of the first Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 54^th Venice Biennale – Gwanza 2011 will bring together photography, video, and sound pieces exploring the combi (or minibus) as a marker of vernacular aesthetics and cultural codes, as well as a vehicle defining both urban landscape and social space throughout Africa.

The 2011 festival is set to be different from the previous editions. After having founded and run Gwanza for more than ten years, award-winning photographer Calvin Dondo, a featured artist at the 54th Venice Biennale, and Raphael Chikukwa, have invited guest curator Christine Eyene to respond to the theme of Gwanza 2011 and bring a new curatorial vision to the festival established in 1999. Eyene ambitions are to create a festival that will open up a platform to practitioners who have been isolated for a decade, and encourage a participative approach to local audience.

Pimp my Combi will highlight works by Southern and East African photographers short-listed following a public call to participate in Gwanza 2011. They will be joined by international photographers selected by the festival curator to foster a dialogue within and beyond Zimbabwean borders.

In addition to the main exhibitions, Gwanza 2011 will also include a public programme consisting of talks with the Harare Conversations, workshops, portfolio reviews, and outreach projects.

Notes on the curator

Christine Eyene is a London-based curator of Cameroonian background. She is Curator of the African selection of the third edition of Photoquai – Biennial of World Images, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris, France (Sept.-Dec. 2011). Her current and recent exhibitions include "Reflections on the Self - Five African Women Photographers", (Hayward Touring Programme), Royal Festival Hall, London and touring the UK (2011-2014); "[Kaddu Jigeen] Women Speak Out", Galerie le Manège, Dakar and touring (2011-2012) and “The Gig: artists’ compositions”, as part of FOCUS11 – Contemporary Art Africa, Basel, Switzerland, 15-19 June 2011).

Eyene is a contributor and co-editor, with Katrina Schwarz, of "Seeing Ourselves" (Milan: Charta Art Books, 2011), catalogue of the Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 54th Venice Biennale. As an art critic she has contributed articles to Africultures, Art South Africa, Basler Zeitung, Manifesta Journal, Third Text, and written essays in books and exhibition catalogues. She is member of the editorial boards of Africultures, Paris, since 2002 and Third Text, London, since October 2010.

Pimp my Combi

GWANZA 2011 – Month of Photography

4 August – 4 Sept 2011

National Gallery of Zimbabwe

20 Julius Nyerere Way

Harare

Zimbabwe

Tel - +263 4 704666

Fax - +263 4 704668

Website: www.nationalgallery.co.zw

For further information contact:

gwanza2011@ymail.com

En toute innocence : subtilités du corps

2011-06-24T13:22:00.001+01:00

La Galerie Imane Farès est heureuse d’annoncer sa prochaine exposition intitulée

« En toute innocence : subtilités du corps ».

« En toute innocence : subtilités du corps », présente l’œuvre de Pélagie Gbaguidi, Billie Zangewa et du collectif INGRIDMWANGIROBERTHUTTER. Tirée d’une réflection sur l’image du corps féminin, cette exposition a pour objet d’examiner une variété de positions et propositions sur l’identité féminine et ses formes de représentation.

« En toute innocence » fait écho à la lente et discrète révolution qui voit s’affirmer la place des artistes africaines sur la scène internationale, ainsi que le dialogue s’inscrivant entre ces plasticiennes et un commissariat genré, tant sensible aux questions esthétiques qu’aux discours sur l’identité culturelle.

Ce titre fait aussi référence à la « lutte invisible » évoquée par la commissaire sénégalaise N’Goné Fall pour décrire le combat mené par les Africaines pour la reconnaissance de leurs droits dans la société.

La notion de « subtilité du corps » s’inspire en partie du concept de « négoféminisme », type de féminisme africain identifié par Professeur Obioma Nnaemeka, consistant à déjouer la position dominante masculine par voie d’une féminité mesurée. Ainsi, l’idée de « sexe faible » se pose ici comme véritable tromperie, oxymore qui sous-tend cette exposition.

Pélagie Gbaguidi nous propose une variété de récits incarnés, dans une série d’images inédites tirées de ses carnets de notes. Derrière la sensualité des tapisseries de Billie Zangewa se cache un désir assumé, doublé d’une conscience du pouvoir que le corps féminin exerce sur le sexe opposé. Tandis qu’INGRIDMWANGIROBERTHUTTER mènera le visiteur aux confins de l’expérience féminine.

« En toute innocence: subtilités du corps » clôt la série d’expositions de plasticiennes africaines développée à Dakar et Londres par Christine Eyene, commissaire de la sélection africaine de la troisième édition de Photoquai – Biennale des Images du Monde (Musée du Quai Branly, sept-dec. 2011).

Ce projet, figurant trois des plus grandes artistes contemporaines, ouvre un nouveau chapitre dans la programmation de la Galerie Imane Farès dont la mission est de représenter la crème de la scène africaine en France et sur les grandes plateformes internationales.

En toute innoncence : subtilités du corps

Pélagie Gbaguidi, Billie Zangewa, INGRIDMWANGIROBERTHUTTER

Commissaire : Christine Eyene

7 septembre – 19 novembre 2011

Galerie Imane Farès

41 rue Mazarine

75006 Paris

Tel: 00 1 46 33 13 13

galerie@ifgalerie.com

http://www.ifgalerie.com

Visual Century to launch in September 2011

2011-06-21T01:14:00.009+01:00

Visual Century: South African art in context, 1907-2007 is a research project that situates one hundred years of South African visual art within historical and art historical contexts, nationally and internationally. Visual Century will produce various resources, including four books to be published by Wits University Press and STE Publishing in 2011. Conceived by Gavin Jantjes, the project director, Visual Century is project managed by ASAI, and is funded by the Department of Arts & Culture, and the American Center Foundation. Visual Century is based within the Department of Historical Studies, University of Cape Town.

See Gavin Jantjes' article on the Visual Century project in Art South Africa.

Visual Century art history books consist of 4 volumes: Vol 1 (1907-1948) edited by Jillian Carman; Vol 2 (1945-1976) edited by Lize van Robbroeck; Vol 3 (1973-1992) edited by Mario Pissarra; Vol 4 (1990-2007) edited by Thembinkosi Goniwe, Mario Pissarra and Mandisi Majavu.

Essays have been written by, in alphabetical order: Gabeba Baderoon, Vonani Bila, Jillian Carman, Christine Eyene, Federico Freschi, Hazel Friedman, Melanie Hillebrand, Gavin Jantjes, Sandra Klopper, Juliette Leeb-du Toit, Nessa Leibhammer, Emile Maurice, Sipho Mdanda, Zayd Minty, Anitra Nettleton, Andries Oliphant, Mario Pissarra, Hayden Proud, Elizabeth Rankin, Colin Richards, Judy Seidman, Ruth Simbao, Kathryn Smith, Mgcineni Sobopha, Lize van Robbroeck, Roger van Wyk, and Mduduzi Xakaza.

Pallo Jordan, Uche Okeke, Rasheed Araeen and Sarat Maharaj have contributed prefaces. Gavin Jantjes has written the foreword.

Source: asai.co.za

Further details on the book launch to come soon.

PHOTOQUAI 2011

2011-06-20T23:58:00.007+01:00

3e biennale des images du monde

Créée en 2007 par le musée du quai Branly et consacrée à la photographie non occidentale, PHOTOQUAI, la biennale des images du monde se déroule du 13/09/11 au 04/12/2011 sur les quais longeant le musée du quai Branly et dans le jardin du musée, en partenariat avec des institutions culturelles parisiennes. La direction artistique de la troisième biennale PHOTOQUAI est confiée à Françoise Huguier, photographe et réalisatrice, qui, avec 15 commissaires, a sélectionné 46 photographes du monde entier.

29 pays exposent près de 400 photographies.

L'Afrique est représentée par :

Helène Amouzou (Togo)
Andrew Esiebo (Nigeria)
Hassan Hajjaj (Maroc)
Sameer Kermalli (Tanzanie)
Nicene Kossentini (Tunisie)
Mack Magagane (Afrique du Sud)
Mwanzo Milinga (Tanzanie)
Michael Tsegaye (Ethiopie)
Christian Tundula (République Démocratique du Congo)

Pendant près de trois mois, l’ensemble de la sélection est présenté, en accès libre, de jour comme de nuit.

Relations avec la presse : www.heymann-renoult.com
Annabelle Floriant / a.floriant@heymann-renoult.com
Tél. : +33 (0)1 44 61 76 76 / www.heymann-renoult.com

FOCUS11 Announces Curator's Talk

2011-06-16T14:32:00.000+01:00

Raphael Chikukwa, Curator of the Zimbabwe Pavilion, 54th Venice Biennale

FOCUS11 is pleased to announce: “Curating in Africa and the diaspora: from network to collaborative practice” a talk by Raphael Chikukwa and Christine Eyene on Friday 17 June at 6.00 pm.

This presentation will begin with an introduction to The Gig: artists’ compositions, FOCUS11 exhibition curated by Christine Eyene and will continue with an overview of her current and forthcoming projects, including [Kaddu Jigeen] Women Speak Out, (2011-2012, Dakar and touring) a show featuring among other artists Kara E. Walker, and Reflections on the Self – Five African Women Photographers (2011-2014, Hayward Touring Programme).

Eyene will also present the forthcoming issue of Africultures (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2011) entitled “L’Art au Féminin: approches contemporaines” and “Seeing Ourselves” (Milan: Charta, 2011) the catalogue of the first Zimbabwe Pavilion of the 54^th Venice Biennale co-edited by Eyene and Katrina Schwarz.

Raphael Chikukwa, will expand on the Zimbabwe Pavilion, its challenges, achievements and the importance of Africa to be present at major art events such as the Venice Biennale and Art Basel. Chikukwa will also talk about the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and the contemporary art programme currently being developed, including Gwanza – Month of Photography (August 2011) and Harare Conversations, a series of talks bringing international art practitioners to Zimbabwe.

Raphael Chikukwa’s participation to FOCUS11 is supported by the British Council Zimbabwe.

FOCUS11 aims at showcasing the latest productions by artists from Africa and the diaspora. This event is part of Art|42|Basel Public Programme. Also featured are galleries Peter Herrmann (Berlin), Imane Farès (Paris), Strip of Gaza (Lagos) and doual’art (Douala).

FOCUS11 is supported by: SudKulturFonds, Pro Helvetia Cape Town, iaab, Sparck, Lowave, Africa Centre, Sportmuseum Schweiz, Hamburg/Kulturbehorde, Barubude Basel, Centre for African Studies Basel.

Media partners: Africultures.com, Africancolors.net, Piclet.org

FOCUS11 – Contemporary Art Africa

15 – 19 June 2011

Rheingasse 33

Basel

Switzerland

Full programme on www.focus11.ch

FOCUS11 launches the Gig!

2011-06-12T10:50:00.008+01:00

Photograph by Graeme Williams presented in The Gig: artists' compositions

The Gig: artists’ compositions presents Nirveda Alleck, Steve Bandoma, Nathalie Bikoro, Jan-Henri Booyens, Ntando Cele, Ato Malinda, Mohau Modisakeng, Rowan Pybus, Youssef Tabti, Fabrice Wamba and Graeme Williams. Part of FOCUS11 – Contemporary Art Africa, this exhibition consists of a selection of works, chosen by curator Christine Eyene, from artists’ submissions.

Located in Rheingasse 33, in a non-art-dedicated venue, one stone throw from the picturesque Rhine river, and 15-minute walk from Art Basel main fair, FOCUS11 aims at giving a highlight of current and emerging trends from Africa and the diaspora. In an informal setting, nearing the artist’s studio, The Gig showcases new or recent pieces ranging from painting, photography, photo-etching, collage, installation, video, sound, transient art, performances and outdoor artistic interventions.

The title chosen for this exhibition draws from late US curator Walter Hopps’ idea of the curator as “something like a conductor striving to establish harmony between individual musicians”.*

Through The Gig, Eyene aims to question the notion of curator as author and the power relations between curators and artists. As such, her intervention is to be seen as a mere harmonising of artists’ compositions within a set environment, added to some mediation between the art works and the visitors.

The emphasis is therefore placed on the non-gallery-represented artists who have shown a great interest in taking part in FOCUS11, and see this event as an opportunity to be present in Basel during one of the world’s most important art fair, Art Basel.

The show promises to give art collectors and aficionados little gems of high aesthetic and conceptual value.

* Hans Ulrich Obrist, A Brief History of Curating. Zurich, Dijon: JRP|Ringier & Les Presses du Réel, 2009, p. 10.

*******

FOCUS11 also features galleries Peter Herrmann (Berlin), Imane Farès (Paris), doual’art (Douala) and Strip of Gaza (Lagos).

Packed with a series of performances, workshops, and artists’ talks, FOCUS11 will host on Friday 17 June “Curating in Africa and the diaspora: from network to collaborative practice”, a talk by Christine Eyene and Raphael Chikukwa, Curator of the National Gallery of Zimbabwe and of the first Zimbabwe Pavilion at the 54^th Venice Biennale.

The Gig: artists’ compositions

15 – 19 June

Opening Tuesday 14 June from 6.00 pm until late.

Curating in Africa and the diaspora: from network to collaborative practice

Christine Eyene and Raphael Chikukwa

Friday 17 June at 6.00 pm

FOCUS11 – Contemporary Art Africa

Rheingasse 33

Basel

Switzerland

Full programme on www.focus11.ch

FOCUS11 is part of Art|42|Basel Public Programme.

FOCUS11 is supported by: SudKulturFonds, Pro Helvetia Cape Town, iaab, Sparck, Lowave, Africa Centre, Sportmuseum Schweiz, Hamburg/Kulturbehorde, Barubude Basel, Centre for African Studies Basel.

Media partners: Africultures.com, Africancolors.net, Piclet.org

"Reflections On The Self" tours to Norwich

2011-06-08T09:55:00.006+01:00

After launching at the Royal Festival Hall, London, in March 2011, Reflections on the Self tours to Norwich University College of the Arts.

This show is curated by Christine Eyene, Curator of Gwanza - Month of Photography 2011, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare (Aug. 2011), and the African section of the third edition of Photoquai – Biennial of World Images, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris (Sept. 2011). Full press release available.

Reflections on the Self - Five African Women Photographers

Norwich University College of the Arts

24 September – 23 October 2011
Visit The Gallery at NUCA

This exhibition is part of the Hayward Touring Programme.

For further information, visit the Southbank Centre website.

More on the Southbank Centre Visual Arts Highlights Summer 2011 to Spring 2012 here.

SOUTHBANK CENTRE VISUAL ARTS HIGHLIGHTS SUMMER 2011 TO SPRING 2012

2011-06-07T12:40:00.008+01:00

INCLUDES HAYWARD GALLERY, HAYWARD TOURING AND ARTS COUNCIL COLLECTION EXHIBITIONS

HAYWARD GALLERY

PIPILOTTI RIST

28 September 2011 – 8 January 2012

This exhibition, the first major survery show of the work of the Swiss artist, Pipilotti Rist in the UK, presents single channel videos, sculptures, photographs, wallpapers and video installations spanning her career from the 1980s to today. Highly accomplished technically and employing dazzling colour, Rist’s practice fuses sensual images, music and text to create mesmerising installations. Rist creates a total sensory experience for her audience by showing her works within architectural installations conceived specially for particular spaces.

The exhibition features some 40 works from Rist’s 30 year career including I am not the girl who misses much (1986) Selfless in the Bath of Lava (1994) Ever is Over All (1999) Suburbain Brain (1999) Gina's Mobile (2007) Lobe of Lung (2009). There will also be a major new work for the exhibition and an outdoor light installation.

GEORGE CONDO: MENTAL STATES

18 October 2011 – 8 January 2012

Curated by Hayward Gallery Director, Ralph Rugoff, this will be the first major retrospective of the American artist George Condo. Since his emergence in New York’s East Village in the early 1980s, George Condo has developed a provocative body of work that, for all its outlandish humour and outrageousness, is deeply engaged with European and American traditions of painting. Focusing on his ‘imaginary portraits’, which conjure varied mental states with a mixture of absurdity and pathos, the exhibition will showcase Condo’s inventive approach that has influenced two generations of painters, including John Currin and Glenn Brown. It opened at the New Museum, New York in January 2011 and will tour to Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam (25 June – 25 September 2011), the Hayward Gallery, London (18 October 2011 – 8 January 2012) and Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt (22 February – 28 May 2012).

DAVID SHRIGLEY

1 February – 13 May 2012

British artist David Shrigley is best known for his humorous drawings that make witty and wry observations on everyday life. Trained as a fine artist, his deliberately crude graphic style gives his work an immediate and accessible appeal, while simultaneously offering insightful commentary on the absurdities of human relationships. This exhibition, his first major survey show in London, will cover the full range of Shrigley’s diverse practice which extends far beyond drawing to include photography, books, sculpture, animation, painting, and music. Spanning the upper galleries of the Hayward Gallery, the show will also include new artwork and site specific installations. The exhibition is curated by Dr Cliff Lauson, Curator, Hayward Gallery.

JEREMY DELLER: LIFE IS TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING

22 February – 13 May 2012

A hugely influential artist for much of the past two decades, Turner Prize winner Jeremy Deller has helped to rewrite the rules of contemporary art in many respects. This mid-career survey – the first in the artist’s career – will provide a fresh overview of his multi-faceted work, in which he explores compelling social and cultural territories while alternately taking on the roles of artistic producer, publisher, filmmaker, collaborator, curator, parade organiser, and cultural archivist. The exhibition will incorporate almost all of his major works to date, including installations, photographs, videos, posters, banners, performance works, and sound pieces. In addition, it will feature a reconstruction of Open Bedroom, the artist’s first exhibition held in his parent’s bedroom in 1993, and a new presentation devoted to his many public interventions and non-gallery projects. The exhibition is curated by Ralph Rugoff, Director, Hayward Gallery.

HAYWARD TOURING

BRITISH ART SHOW 7: IN THE DAYS OF THE COMET

Glasgow: Centre for Contemporary Art, Gallery of Modern Art and Tramway

27 May – 21 August 2011

The British Art Show is the world's largest and most ambitious survey of contemporary British art. Presented in different cities across Britain every five years, this Hayward Touring exhibition is unrivalled in its scope and outreach. British Art Show 7 opened in Nottingham in October 2010 before touring to the Hayward Gallery (February – April 2011). Curated by Lisa Le Feuvre and Tom Morton, it features 39 of the most exciting artists working in the UK today and has been widely acclaimed as the ‘best British Art Show ever’. After Glasgow, BAS 7 can be seen in venues across Plymouth (17 September – 4 December 2011). Full press release available.

OUTRAGEOUS FORTUNE: ARTISTS REMAKE THE TAROT

Opening at Focal Point Gallery, Southend-on Sea, before touring nationally

4 July – 27 August 2011

Tarot playing cards originated in Italy in the 15^th century. Used in most of Europe to play games, in the English-speaking world the tarot is generally associated with divination. The tarot is a rich source of imagery, including such archetypes as The Fool, The Magician, The Wheel of Fortune and The Hanged Man. Curated by Focal Point Director, Andrew Hunt, 78 artists, including Anna Barriball, Adam Chodzko, Susan Hiller, Mike Nelson, Lindsay Seers, Tris Vonna-Michell and Cerith Wyn Evans, have been drawn a card from the classic Tarot de Marseilles deck, reinterpreting it in their own way. Full press release available.

JOHN CAGE: EVERY DAY IS A GOOD DAY

Hayward Project Space

12 August – 18 September

Following a national tour, a selection from this major exhibition of the visual art of the American composer, writer and artist John Cage (1912–1992) can be seen in the Hayward’s Project Space. John Cage was one of the leading avant-garde composers of the twentieth century, most famous perhaps for his silent work of 1952, 4'33". Cage was closely connected with art and artists throughout his long career. He collaborated frequently with Robert Rauschenberg and the dance choreographer

Merce Cunningham, was a friend of Jasper Johns and Marcel Duchamp, and was a major influence on the Fluxus artists of the 1960s and '70s. This exhibition includes prints, watercolours and drawings made during the final fifteen years of his life, including his extraordinary Ryoanji series. Conceived by artist Jeremy Millar and inspired by John Cage's own practice, the exhibition is hung according to chance operations, using a computer-generated random number programme based on the Chinese oracle, the 'I Ching'. Full press release available.

REFLECTIONS ON THE SELF

Five African Women Photographers

Norwich, University College of the Arts and then touring

24 September – 23 October 2011

Reflections on the Self presents women’s visual narratives, as told through self-portraits and portraits of other women within Africa and the diaspora. The photographers are Hélène Amouzou (Togo; lives and works Belgium); Majida Khattari (Morocco; lives and works France); Zanele Muholi (South Africa); Senayt Samuel (Eritrea, lives and works in the UK); and Nontsikelelo Veleko (South Africa). The images engage with issues such as identity, sexuality and displacement and act as a means of thinking about the ‘self’, both as subject and as object. They reveal some of the ways in which women see themselves, and also how the female gaze is informed by the politics of representation. This exhibition is curated by Christine Eyene, Curator of Gwanza - Month of Photography 2011, National Gallery of Zimbabwe, Harare (Aug. 2011), and the African section of the third edition of Photoquai – Biennial of World Images, Musée du Quai Branly, Paris (Sept. 2011). Full press release available.

ARTS COUNCIL COLLECTION

HENRY MOORE

In the Arts Council Collection

Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park

26 March – 26 June 2011

Henry Moore (1898 – 1986) is a key figure for the Arts Council Collection. He was an important advisor to the acquisitions committee during the early 1950s, shaping the sculpture collection by advocating the acquisition of a significant group of post-war British sculpture by artists including Kenneth Armitage, Lynn Chadwick and Barbara Hepworth. Moore’s representation in the Collection is also strong with sculptures and works on paper spanning five decades. This display celebrates the work of Henry Moore in the Collection, bringing together our complete holdings of 11 sculptures and 15 works on paper. Seen together, the works provide a succinct history of Moore’s practice between 1929 and 1962, with key creative developments and themes visible in both two and three dimensions.

TRANSMITTER / RECEIVER

Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

22 July – 6 November 2011

A new touring exhibition traces the use of collage in British art, from the first influences of the Parisian avant-garde in the early work of Ben Nicholson and Surrealists Eileen Agar and Roland Penrose through to present day artists such as Steve Claydon, David Noonan and Idris Khan. It will include

traditional collage on paper, alongside painting, sculpture, film and slide projections, all drawn from the Arts Council Collection. It tours to The New Art Gallery, Walsall (4 May – 1 July 2012); Usher Art Gallery, Lincoln (August – October 2012) and Tullie House, Carlisle (16 March – 12 May 2013).

STRUCTURE & MATERIAL

Spike Island, Bristol

8 July – 4 September 2011

A new touring exhibition drawing on the Arts Council Collection brings together work by three British artists Claire Barclay, Becky Beasley and Karla Black, who each investigate the meaning generated by materials. Barclay, Beasley and Black’s chosen media and techniques are very diverse, though in each case familiar materials are often made unsettlingly strange. Unlikely sculptural materials such as cosmetics, sugar paper, blackboard paint and brass hinges, or craft in the form of turned wood and tapestry, are co-opted by all three to diverse and distinctive effect. The exhibition features significant recent acquisitions from the Arts Council Collection that exemplify the continued support offered to young and emerging artists in this country, alongside new works either made especially for Longside Gallery, or borrowed directly from the artists and private collections. The exhibition opened at Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park in March and will tour to New Art Gallery, Walsall (30 September – 24 December 2011). Full press release available.

ARTS COUNCIL COLLECTION PRESENTS

ANISH KAPOOR: FLASHBACK

Sculpture Court, Edinburgh College of Art

4 August – 9 October 2011

Flashback is a major series of touring exhibitions from the Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre. Taking as its starting point the Collection’s founding principle of supporting emerging artists through the purchase of their work, the series showcases internationally renowned British artists whose works have been acquired by the Collection. The monographic exhibitions combine works from the Collection with new pieces borrowed directly from the artists, giving a unique insight into the evolution of these key figures in British art. Following on from the success of the first Flashback exhibition of work by Bridget Riley, the second artist in the series of monographic exhibitions is renowned artist and Turner Prize winner, Anish Kapoor. The show brings together two works – one early piece and a major recent sculpture selected by the artist in close dialogue with the Arts Council Collection. White Sand, Red Millet, Many Flowers (1982) demonstrates Kapoor’s early interest in applying raw pigment to a range of organic forms is a seminal work purchased by the Collection in the same year it was made.Untitled (2010), on loan from the artist, is a monumental blood-red wax bell form standing more than five metres tall, displayed for the first time in the UK. The exhibition tours to Nottingham Castle Museum & Art Gallery (19 November 2011 – 11 March 2012) and Longside Gallery, Yorkshire Sculpture Park (16 June – 4 November 2012).

Source: Southbank Centre

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or email: helena.zedig@southbankcentre.co.uk

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Sarah Ragsdale

Press Manager Visual Arts

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