At 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair

The Cinematic eye of West African photographer Paul Kodjo: The Ivorian Miracle in the 1970’s

Saturday May 4, 2019, 6:30 – 7:30pm

Forum Room/1-54 at Industria, 775 Washington Street, New York City

Panelists:

Ananias Leki Dago (photographer and founder of Les Rencontres du Sud)

Antawan Byrd (art historian and assistant curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago).

Moderator:

Claude Grunitzky (media and culture entrepreneur, founder of TRACE and the media platform TRUE Africa).

During this panel, we will look at what makes Paul Kodjo’s photographic practice different from other West African studio photographers of the same period. Ananias Leki Dago has worked for the last ten years at preserving Kodjo’s photographic archive and will describe the artist’s journey, while Antawan Byrd will speak of Kodjo’s cinematic approach and aesthetic engagement with visual art and popular media, in particular the photo-novel. Claude Grunitzky will bring his own experience with popular media while highlighting this unique record of Abidjan being reshaped by social cultural changes and modernist design and architecture.

To register click on the link

It is October 2017, in Merti, Kenya, a town in the middle of a desert-like landscape where the temperatures average up to 100 degrees under a blistering and relentless sun. Dee Belliere, the founder of MEAK, has gathered a scout, a male nurse and a couple of other volunteers to search for more patients that might need eye care, those that might have been missed at the first round up.

This is happening while at Merti’s hospital the medical team is screening patients and operating on the ones that need surgery. During the week 2652 patients will be screened, 201 cataract operations and 578 teeth extractions will take place. An outstanding success! I am so honored that through my fundraising campaign I was able to participate and help MEAK make such a difference in so many lives.

I am one of the volunteers for that afternoon expedition and we all climb into the truck that will take us North from the town, deeper into the desert. Merti is located in the eastern part of the Isiolo district in Northern Kenya.

During the drive I stand in the truck, and lean out of the window to better take in the azure sky dotted with small white clouds, and the flat sandy barren landscape that unfolds around us. There is very little to look at. There are no exotic leafy tree, nor the ubiquitous acacia tree, no bush or plant and no distant mountain to admire. In the very far distance and only seen with binoculars trees with weaver nests hanging on their branches, like fluffy decorations are possible points of interest.

The emptiness is deceptive however; it is mirage-like. When we stop for a photography moment the emptiness slowly becomes alive.  A tiny spot in the distance is actually moving.  I wait, and as time unfolds and my eyes adjust, the image expands. The dot metamorphoses itself into a human figure . I discern one donkey, then two, then three! I am intensely aware of time, space, and movement. I smile.

I find myself strangely happy! This landscape devoid of seductive luxuriousness feels so freeing. I feel at peace. Maybe it is in this bareness that I can truly be in my own skin, no longer compulsively distracted; Nothing to cling to, to romanticize, or to ruminate about.

I remember ten years ago the first time I felt like that. My then lover and I were driving north to go to Marsabit. We drove in silence, his attention solely focused on the treacherous road and mine on the increasing desert like landscape. We were in synch, I remember feeling. A Kenyan safari guide, farmer and conservationist who thrives on harsh conditions, he could feel I liked the bareness, the starkness and harshness of the land with the occasional herdsman and camels appearing along the road. I have no idea why it felt right perhaps because both of us had so much to let go of: He, a deceased wife, and I, a failed marriage and loss of family life. That stark landscape suited our broken hearts. I have since gravitated towards the North of Kenya during my yearly visits where conditions are harsh and the land can be unforgiving yet so deeply moving.

We did meet a little boy who has one malformed foot and Dee immediately gets on her phone and makes arrangements for him to be seen in Nairobi. She will have to find the money to pay for this.

During this time in Merti I am mostly a witness. I observe the MEAK medical team screening, giving care, doing surgeries and MEAK leadership making plans for the next eye missions. I offer my help where needed. Accompanying us are a photographer, Tom Munro and a video maker in charge of documenting the mission.

We all sleep in the same make shift camp, in the middle of the town and eat at the same table in the mess. The mission is going well, no unexpected complication has cropped up. However something is making me uncomfortable. At each meal the medical team, all black Kenyans, sit together at one end of the table and the rest of us, all white women and men from England or the US sit at the other end. Granted, many (the team and us) are on our cell phones, the team prefers to speak Swahili, and this is not a social occasion, but still I feel uncomfortable with this racial, cultural, and hierarchical divide and distance. I express my discomfort but lethargy prevails on both sides until the video artist starts to interview each member of the medical team and their stories become heard. That is the beginning of a slight change, a relaxation of that distance.

The real shift happens when a snake appears while we are all hanging in the yard. It slithers quietly towards one of the huts where a tent had been erected. I notice it and ring the alarm. Mayhem ensues. Everyone is searching for the snake, first in the hut and tent then in the adjacent huts and tents! I ask: Do snakes go up walls? Can it have really traveled to another hut?

Nobody knows but every one is acting as if there is nothing stopping this snake. The driver refuses to sleep in the doomed hut and decides to sleep in the Land Rover. Some of the female nurses decide to sleep in the bus parked in the yard. All of us are talking to each other, laughing and forgetting our differences, united in our fear of the snake!

By the last day we are sharing stories about dating in different cultures and communities. We have not become best friends but we feel closer, we shared something. We are more ready to sit next to each other and inquire about each other’s lives.

I also watch the comings and goings of the people who live in Merti. They belong to the Borana tribe. I learn that they have more in common with people in Ethiopia then other Kenyan tribes. 99% of the Borana tribe lives in Ethiopia! It sure brings home the craziness of the original partitioning of the region by the Western powers. The people from Merti feel a bit forgotten by the government in Nairobi. Very little government medical funding reaches them and with the endless nurses strike in the country, there is almost no activity in the hospital. They are extremely grateful for MEAK’s medical help.

I discover a peaceful community. It wasn’t always so I am told. Three years ago you could regularly hear gunshots. Today the sounds I hear – crying children, the occasional motorcycle or car passing by, the yellow weavers chirping away, the sounds of goats and obviously the call for prayers, as it is a Muslim town – suggests that times are better. However, the relentless heat and drought are a big strain; during three days of our time there the charity organization Action against Hunger was distributing food to mothers and children. Life is precarious here.

On our last day the community and its dignitaries express their gratitude to all of the team and the elder women of the town sing and dance for us. We all get scarves, tunics and wraps!

Thank you all of you who have helped!

The next day we fold camp and wait for the plane from Tropic Air  to take us further north in the Ndotos mountains where we will hike for the next 7 days. It took us a while to  find the airstrip! Another adventure! Check out my next post for more images of the hike .

Salon designed by Hassan Hajjaj ash entrance including his photographic work.

Labyrinth by Youssef Limoud, and the upside hanging house by Pascale Marthine Tayou

Photographic installation Ouakam Fractals by Simon Baloji

Safaa Mazirh, Sans titre, Maroc

Safaa Mazirh

,

Joel Andrianomearisoa,

Mimi Cherono Ng’ok

William Kentridge, a wonderful installation/film.

Outside in the park some of the photographs were displayed for all to see.

Aida Mulaneh,

Mario Macilau.

I WISH YOU ALL A PEACEFUL, PRODUCTIVE, AND JOYFUL NEW YEAR !

Here are a few photographs  from my walk in the Ndotos in Norther Kenya that made me wonder in front of nature.

My attention during the end of the year 2016 has been focused on the election and post election circus in the USA where I live. At times I fantasize moving away!  Most of the times  I feel it is time to get more involved here where I live and do my bit in “my backyard”.

On the Africa front, the last couple of years I have wondered if some readers may view my postings and my perspective with some skepticism as I am a white woman from New York city with a good knowledge of art but I am not a professional in the field of African art and I am not from African descent.   This did not worry me much when I started the blog as so little was being written about African creativity and I felt that sharing my enthusiasm and encounters could only be positive. I was also quite clear that this blog was a personal undertaking and I often spoke of my experience as I encountered a different artistic approach to the one I was trained  in. I acknowledged my perspective and spoke of how I navigated this difference that at times challenged my preconceived ideas. I loved the challenge, learned a lot from this process and  became a better person for it. I learned to understand and respect and value another person’s perspective and experience  while at the same time standing in my own shoes. More then anything I met wonderful people, shared unforgettable moments and had a lot of fun.

The context has changed today. There are many experts in African contemporary art  based on the African continent or in the diaspora that are doing a fantastic job speaking, and writing about African art.  The word is out: Africa is a continent rich in creative talent.

Going forward, I thought it would be useful to list here several web based platforms that speak of African contemporary  topics such as art and culture, fashion, music, and current events. The emphasis of most of them are on latest trends in creativity in Africa and further illustrate its dynamic quality. Some of the sites are more focused on a young audience and aim to be “cool” , others provide more in depth analysis. Many of them were started about the same time I started my blog which is about 5 years ago with the same intent of changing the conversation around Africa.  Most of the writers are from African descent or based in Africa.  These platforms are a rich source of information and I highly recommend following them.

• Contemporary And (C &)
• Another Africa

These two are the closest to my blog in their focus on art and culture.

• Africa is a country

This platform has a much longer history, a much broader mandate and excellent writing. It’s focus is on writing, media criticism, video and photography.

• TRUEafrica
• OKAYAfrica

These two  have been very successful in reaching a broad young African audience, the fastest growing demographic segment in Africa. They have a content that aims to be “cool”  and covers the new trends in culture, art, music, fashion, sports, politics, tech innovations. They are a bit short in in-depth reporting.

• IAM-Intense

This is the web version of the new art magazine IAM.  It celebrates women in the fields of visual arts, fashion, design, and architecture in Africa ( mostly West Africa).  The bilingual content is directed to readers who speak French or English.

• Lagosphotofestival
• Dynamic Africa

With a singular focus on photography, these two sites provide valuable insight on the new developments in photography and video.

I hope you enjoy perusing them! I will not be posting as  much on this website but you can follow my art adventures and explorations on instagram @isabelshappeningafrica. I have joined the Tate Modern Africa Acquisition committee so expect some good stuff!!!

After my meeting with at ARTLabAFrica with artist Beatrice Wanjiku and David Thuku, I went with  David to check out Kuona Trust which I had heard so much about and where David had a studio space. Set in a green part of town the artists’ studios are housed in long metal sheds/ hangars organized around a central gathering area. Most artists share small studios. Indeed David Thuku shares his space with another artist. I asked him if they got in each other’s way but he said no. They each have their corner. He works mostly from a large table set in the corner of the room.

These are open studios and I found the artists either working away in a variety of mediums – Dennis Muraguri was welding metal for one of his mixed media sculptures – many were painting  or milling around and chatting with each other. It was very informal and congenial. Some had held a studio for close to ten years, others were newcomers. Here artists are mentored, and Kuona Trust provides support, ressources and opportunities to experiment. There are technical workshops taught by senior artists, internships, residencies, and rented studio spaces. Artists sell their work from the studios and often are commissioned work.

Since art and art education sadly were never priorities for the Kenyan government – it was eliminated from the primary schools – and formal art training at the college level only happens at either Kenyatta University or the Buru Buru Institute of art most art teaching happens in workshops. This dates as far back as the 80’s. Kuona Trust is very much a reflection of that collaborative tradition and was instrumental in the development of the model.

Kuona Trust is part of the Triangle Arts Trust, which had been set up by Anthony Caro and Robert Loder in 1982 in England to create networks of artists, visual art organizations and artist led workshops in over 30 countries. It had the mission to  “counterbalance the tendency of the Western art world to put the emphasis on the object and its marketing rather than on the creative process itself.”

“ It was particularly successful in Africa” says Danda Jaroljmek, director of Circle Art Agency. “ It started off in South Africa where there was little connection between black and white artists and then it spread. Artists would go back to their home countries and say: ‘I want to do this as well!’ It was an extraordinary forum, I loved that it was artists doing it. It was not curators or collectors dictating who could get opportunities but it was artists talking to each other.”

Some other workshops worth noting are the Wasanii workshops, which happened during the 1990’s to 2011. In those workshops Kenyan artists would meet artists from around the world. Twenty-five artists – half from the host country half from around the world – would work together for 2 weeks in a remote place. Finally but no less important are the workshops led by the Kuona Trust artists that are held in the local communities where they teach art to the youth.

I liked this feeling of community and exchange. I also like that artists despite the lack of governmental support are out there helping themselves and others and are determined to make art a game changer.

Sadly since I wrote the first draft of this essay things have changed for the worse. Because of budgetary problems and lack of funding Kuona Trust is closing. It is very disappointing news but knowing the resilience and determination of some people in Nairobi I am optimistic that some new platform will take shape.

I love that even though I now spend my summers in Provence in an adorable house in the foothills of the Luberon I don’t have far to go to see good African art. The Photography Festival at Arles – Les Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie d’Arles – is an hour away and this year South African artist and activist Zanele Muholi curated with artist Walead Beshty the exhibition Systemically open?New Forms of Production of the Contemporary Image, which among other artists showed her latest body of work Somnyama Ngonyama (Hail, the Dark Lioness).

I encountered Muholi’s work in 2009 in South Africa and met her in Bamako during the Rencontres de Bamako. She was just starting to get known internationally for her work on the LBGTI community. Already an activist she was speaking up for this community that was greatly suffering from hate crimes in South Africa and beyond. At the time she was getting attention for a body of work, the Miss D’vine series. She photographed black queens and drag artists set in an “African” landscape.

“The photos examine how gender and queer identities and bodies are shaped by – but also resist, through their very existence – dominant notions of what it means to be black and feminine”. (Zanele Muholi, 2009). This series was visually alluring and conceptually provocative. I fancied more her photographs of gay women in their own homes. I liked how she captured these quiet private moments with tenderness bringing the viewer into their private world.

Simultaneously she was already working on a long term project, the series Faces and Phases where she documents members of the South African LBGTI community. The work is very different formally. Color had been reduced to black and white. All theatricality had been removed in favor of a formal and deadpan approach. Intent on giving visibility to a community that has suffered from being invisible her focus is unwavering as she imbues the women with a pregnant dignity. This series has received much international attention and praise.

I was familiar with the body of work being shown at Arles– a work of self-portraiture – but I was not expecting the huge scale of the display. Installed in one of the recently renovated Ateliers of the Luma space Zanele had had some of her photographs printed the size of the huge walls. Wow! There was no way of avoiding her unflinching gaze.

In this new body of work she turns the camera on herself. The work is essentially autobiographical. Born in Umlazi, Durban to a working class family (her South African mother was South African domestic worker and her Malawian father a day laborer) Muholi was at first a hairstylist and factory worker before embracing fully her artistic career. There is a theatrical aspect to the work as she uses props, such as materials she created herself and found objects, clothe pins, scouring pads, various hats, wigs to name a few which reference her experiences. She plays with the color of her skin, most of the time darkening it, “reclaiming her darkness” she says.

Unlike Samuel Fosso or Cindy Sherman she is not pretending to be someone else. On the contrary she is making herself vulnerable by exposing aspects of herself and her history, which has been shaped by South African political, cultural and social history. It is as if she is play acting in front of the mirror like I remember doing when I was younger but with great vulnerability as she exposes herself to herself, and to all of us. The result is a multifaceted Zanele, increasingly hard to pinpoint and because of that, that much more fascinating and endearing. All the while she is forcing her audience, us, to confront our own discomfort with some of her uncompromising exposure. Read here a description of her process.

“I have embarked on a discomforting self-defining journey, rethinking the culture of the selfie, self-representation and self-expression. I have investigated how photographers can question and deal with the body as material or mix it with objects to further aestheticise black personhood. My abiding concern is, can photographers look at themselves and question whom they are in society and the positions that they hold, and maintain these roles thereafter? ( Somnyama Ngonyama, Zanele Muholi, Stevenson).

Zanele Muholi was a little tardy for a scheduled talk during the opening week of the Arles festival. She eventually appeared, slowly moving towards the panel like a queen . She had an amazing hairdo almost 8 inches high above her head. I just loved that hard won self-assurance. What a great example!

Wim Botha’s fragmentary spectacle: An engrossing juxtaposition of materials.

From my summer house in the Luberon in Provence, South of France it takes me barely 20 minutes to get to the Fondation Blachere in Apt, which is devoted to fostering contemporary creativity in Africa and to promoting its artists. Situated in the industrial suburb of Apt, a small town in the south of France, the foundation was started by industrialist Jean-Paul Blachere and sits right next to his lighting factory ( Blachere Illumination). The foundation has a top notch exhibition program, offers a series of artist residencies for African artists and has a really cool store (la Boutik) selling creations of African craftsmen and designers from several African countries, and an art book store.   Two years ago I saw a wonderful exhibition of Yinka Shonibare’s sculptural work . This year an installation by South African artist Wim Botha titled Still Life with Water was on display. I had seen Botha’s unique and disturbing busts carved out of leather bound books in the Venice Biennale but besides that I did not know much about his work.

The title did not prepare me for the sculptural spectacle that I encountered. First two fierce heads of a lion and lioness made out of plywood, poised to attack, greeted me at the entrance. There was an undeniable sense of energy and that same energy pulsated throughout the main part of the installation in the next room. It was a stunning beginning though it only partially prepared me for what was to come.

In the main room winged creatures made out of Styrofoam captured in flight and saddled with fluorescent light tubes appeared to be circling around a nest-like cluster of more fluorescent light tubes and reflective sky blue panels.

These panels, an obvious reference to the sky, and their reflection allowed for an amplified effect, a sense of multiple perspectives and an ever-expanding spectacle.

Sculpted busts, some made out of books and some made out of wood, framed this whirlwind of activity, containing and grounding the scene into some kind of art historical continuum by their inherent reference to traditions of woodworking, portraiture and knowledge. No one style dominated; figuration and abstraction coexisted and enhanced each other. The primacy and diversity of materials and their particular physical properties and their associations, either art historical or cultural, was at the core of the experience.

I was left pondering the whole, which I found hard to grasp or take in all at once as the fragmentary character of many of the elements made it almost impossible to complete a narrative or reach a singular cohesive explanation. I came to accept that there was no easy interpretation, and certainly not a singular one. Because of the presence of the lions at the entrance I thought of nature, birds, sky, nature – I was also about to go off into the African bush for a 7 day hike so my mind was wired towards nature ! – yet the presence of the carved busts, with their cultural and art historical references did not quite fit with this narrative. For an interesting analysis of the exhibition it is good to read Benjamin Sutton’s review of the exhibition where he makes reference to the Renaissance tradition of painted ceilings which possibly play a role in Botha’s aesthetic.

Listening to Wim Botha speaking in an accompanying video sheds some light. After having a mostly conceptual focus in his earlier works he now claims to be guided almost solely by aesthetic concerns and aims to get away from meaning. “Balance, form, line, textures,” are at the core of his artistic practice. The process is what captivates him and dictates the work. He wishes to leave the work open, to not shackle it to an over-riding message. Yet it is clear Botha’s work through its use of material is in continual dialogue with tradition and knowledge, yet it is firmly anchored in the present, mostly through the overwhelming feeling of fragmentary turmoil. The installation will travel to the Stevenson Gallery in Cape Town this fall.

Between the rehearsal dinner and the wedding of the son of a dear friend of mine whom I have known since he was a baby I drove into Philly just a short hour away from West Chester where we were staying .

My friend who knew of my interest in African art had told me there was an exhibition at the Philadelphia Museum. I was a little annoyed with myself for not knowing this already. Either the word does not get around enough about African art shows or there was something I was not doing despite being on Instagram, Facebook, and blogging on African art. Ugh! Keeping up theses days is a challenge! Maybe I was too distracted by a house project that takes me to the Luberon in France, I told myself.

Enough with that! The exhibition “Creative Africa” was a bit of a misnomer but in any case it was exhilarating. It was clearly divided spatially in five sections – photography, fashion, textiles, architecture and traditional African art – which felt like mini exhibitions. Visually it was engrossing: the displays were fantastic and easy to navigate. I could immerse myself into the manifestations of each medium and come out with a better understanding and appreciation of each artistic expression and perspective.

Holland Cotter of the New York Times wrote a praising review, which I encourage you to read. I will mostly focus on images here.

Here are some of the photographic works from Three Photographers/Six cities that caught my attention:

Seydou Camara from Mali who has been photographing ancient Islamic texts in Timbuktu since 2009. A trading post for centuries Timbuktu is a center of Islamic scholarship. Since the town has been overtaken by extremist these books have risked destruction.

Ananias Leki Dago, Soweto, 2008, from his series Shebeen Blues

Ananias Leki Dago, Bamako, 2006 from his series Bamako Crosses

Akinbode Akinbiyi, Lagos, 2003-4 from his series Lagos: All Roads. He captures the chaotic energy of Lagos.

Vlisco: “Africa Fashion on a Global Stage” which showed the many Dutch wax prints designed and made by Vlisco for the African and Diaspora markets was a visual treat. Risking the ire of many who feel that these Dutch wax prints are not truly representative of the Creative Africa, or authentically African and a product of the colonial history of the continent this exhibition unabashedly embraces the complex and global aspect of the production of African fashion. I for one have no problem with this. To me this aesthetic is truly representative of contemporary African taste.  I am of the post postcolonial mind where one accepts the bad and good of ones history and looks towards the future knowing that things are never simple. After all  European cubism  could not have come without the influence of African aesthetics. Picasso is deeply indebted to African sculpture. I am a mutt myself, my father having come from Bulgaria that was for 400 years under the rule of the Ottomans. But I am also American and grew up in France.  As a result I am not so attached to the idea of cultural authenticity. You can read more about the complex history of Dutch Wax print here.

Designer Inge Van Lierop 2016

Designer  Manish Arora 2016

This pattern is known as Love Bomb and Dynamite. In Togo it is known as Wounded Heart.

Conceived and made outside of Africa these prints that are designed for the taste of the African consumer, and once in Africa are named by the local African women who find inspiration for the names in proverbs, current events, religion and material culture. Once named the prints acquire social meaning.

Designer Nico Verbart. Title of fabric ” Chaussures de Yayi, Boni.” after President Yayi Boni

The Architecture of Francis Kere: Building for Community.

I left the saturated colors of the wax fabric for another engrossing and all embracing installation and just as colorful made out of parachute cord material by the architect Francis Kéré .

Grounding his work on the idea of community and shared space the layout of this soft structure here was arrived through taking into account the architectural grid of Philadelphia and the organic development of a Burkina Faso village. True to Francis Kéré’s belief, which reflect local belief that survival depends on the strength and unity of the community the exhibition was the result of a collaboration between Kéré Architecture, the Museum team and the UPenn undergraduates.

Followed a room full of photographs, architectural maquetttes, and videos recording Francis Kéré’s work in Africa, and in particular the construction of the Lycée Schorge School in Koudougou, Burkina Faso which was done without the use of heavy machinery. The emphasis was on the communal aspect of all the work done.

Aissa Dione, textile designer

Read about the LIONESSES  OF AFRICA. It is a community passionate about women entrepreneurship in Africa and supports the start up dreams of all women on the continent.

Adele Dejak, jewelry designer from Kenya