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

UNMASKED: EXHIBITION IN CHELSEA CELEBRATING AXIS GALLERY 20 YEAR OF SHOWING AFRICAN ART

Seminal Cape Town artist, Sue Williamson’s photographic installation, Joyce Seipei – as a mother- Winnie Madikiza Mandela, 1988 at Axis Gallery which addresses the South Africa Truth And Reconciliation hearings is so timely. While it relates to the court appearance of Winnie Mandela and reveals the truth behind the atrocities during Apartheid it points to how facts and statements can be manipulated: Viewers can shuttle fragments of statements within the work, reordering truth and shifting appearance and interpretation. Sound familiar?

Her work is part of a larger exhibition Unmasked curated by Gary Van Wyck and Lisa Brittan for the Axis gallery in New York in honor of the 20^th anniversary of their gallery that includes the work of Theo Eshetu, Jebila Okongwu, Graeme Williams, Sue Williamson and Herve Youmbi.

True to their original stated mission of highlighting the tensions between ‘traditional’ and ‘contemporary’ African art in Western minds they have put together a group of works, largely conceptual, that challenges the West misconception of non western art, its idea of authenticity in African art, and reveals underlying social and economic power dynamics between Third and First World. As if this was not quite ambitious enough they top it all by debunking the idea of the American Dream. Graeme Williams’s triptych, which incorporates photographs of urban and suburban environments with collaged ‘posters’ that reference an idealization of America that excludes its black population, reveal the bleak physical reality of the American dream.

Probing the underbelly beneath surfaces appearances the exhibition includes three stills from Theo Eshetu’s Atlas Fractured, a multimedia installation shown at Documenta 4, that layers images from diverse cultures and periods. Portraits of living people were projected over ethnographic masks. The layered faces are set against a black background in the photographs and gain in intensity. While quite beautiful they are disturbing. Theo Eshetu remarks: “The now is grotesque, uncertain, and burdened by the ghosts of the past. Yet there is also beauty in the present, a vitality for new justices, a search for new harmonies, and, contrary to facile political tendencies, acceptance and desire for hybrid states hitherto unknown.”

Expanding on this idea of the hybrid, the masks included in Herve Youmbi’s multi-media installations entitled Visages des Masques/Faces of Masks combine diverse cultural sources. They are a hoot: One of them includes the Halloween Ghostface mask from Wes Craven’movie Scream. They debunk the Western popular notion of clear stylistic distinction in the African masking tradition or tribal styles.

I was particularly intrigued by this body of work. Youmbi initially in 2013 commissioned Bamileke craftspeople from Cameroon to create a Ku’ngang mask incorporating the face of a Dogon mask from Mali. The mask was later activated during a ritual ceremony and thereby accepted by the Bamileke leaders. Youmbi filmed the ceremony and the video was included in the original installation. I had already encountered the notion of hybridity in the Yoruba masking tradition when I had done s research on the subject years ago during my post graduate studies. Indeed Yoruba masking has shown itself to be open to innovation and able to integrate elements from Islam, Christianity and the Western world, thereby keeping it relevant to the new generations. The Gelede mask includes modern day motifs such as motorcycles, planes, and other mass-produced items such a sneakers, Halloween latex masks. Youmbi expands on this phenomenon more recently with these masks that incorporate, or should I say, appropriate western elements.

A tour de force: Collages made from recycled electronic bits morph into majestic cityscapes.

I am seeing more and more signs that African contemporary art is getting the attention of New York dealers. I was at a wedding in Boston when I learned from an art advisor friend about the exhibition of the work of Elias Sime at the James Cohan gallery. I felt a bit embarrassed that I had not heard of it first but since I have this love / hate relationship to Chelsea and in particular the big opening nights I often miss the opening of the new shows. I want to be in the know but when I see every one running from one opening to the other I can’t wait to get in a cab, go home and wait for a quieter moment.

Part of me wants to keep art viewing and discovery as something magical and special that warms my soul. This is the legacy from having lived since my childhood surrounded with outstanding art hanging on the walls of my home. I also cannot forget some amazing moments at museums where my encounters with art was life changing in some instances. However in today’s world it is easy to get caught up by the frenzy, the orgy of viewing so I have to be mindful.

This was a wise decision as the work deserves quiet contemplation, time to step back and take in the breadth of the vision and then come closer and admire the amazing skill involved in creating these intricate collages.

Braided wires form tight networks of colorful patterns and dismembered motherboards appear as cityscapes viewed from above. Looking at them I was reminded of the view I have when I fly low over the surrounding hills of Nairobi.

Densely populated, the houses, roads, and small agricultural patches create surface patterns similar to the ones found in Sime’s collages. The sheer scale of the endeavour and the level of dexterity are astounding.

Elias Sime is from Ethiopia, works in Addis Ababa and is a collector of things. He collects electric parts, threads, buttons, plastic, animal skins, fabric and bottle tops and makes collages from them. Recycling old objects is an old tradition in Africa, and Sime excels at it. Sime treats his objects as “oil paint, acrylic or clay.”

In another body of work stitching is the principal medium. Abstract forms and color fields emerge from dyed canvases covered with tiny stitching. I am amazed by the delicacy of the work. At closer look, I notice little insects, that add a narrative focus to a scene that at first seems non representational. In this process Sime stays close to home and adopts local traditions while creating visions that can speak to all. The result is intensely poetic almost spiritual. See Holland Cotter‘s review in the New York Times

One can be tempted to compare his work to the work of El Anatsui. Both recycle and reassemble discarded objects into large-scale panels however Sime’s work while abstract stay anchored in the physical world.

The Lay of the Land at the Walther Collection in Chelsea, New York.

I was looking forward to this exhibition since my conversation with Mame –Diarra Niang in Arles about her recent body of photographic works Metropolis. I had first met her the previous year in Joburg at a cocktail party on the occasion of the art fair. While I had not yet seen her work I had liked her smarts, her erudition, and the way she spoke of her art in terms of her personal life experiences which spanned her life in France and many visits to her family’s home town in Cote d’Ivoire and later Dakar. A need to reckon with her feelings around her father and his history was something that struck a cord in me and I was eager to see her work at the time and was not disappointed when I did a few months later.

Her work deals with the cityscape in the process of modernization. It is also a metaphor for her evolving sense of identity, as she reckons with her history. More then a record of a place or “territoire” , it is her memory of a place that she captures in these images .

The photographs’ abstract quality was most impressive. Mame has an uncanny ability to present urban structures of all sorts as flat color planes organized in geometric patterns. It all happens in a flash as she takes her photographs quickly – At The Wall series and Metropolis were taken from a taxi as it was driving by – and she rarely feels she needs to rework them afterwards.

Her photographs are of a modest size and each one makes a subtle statement. Her three series were displayed together beautifully and with great effect. A new comer to the international art scene she held her own opposite Angolan photographer Edson Chagas’ work from his ongoing series Found Not Taken that brought him fame at the Venice Biennale in 2013.

The way he transforms the ordinary into a field of vibrant colors is very seductive yet it is his critique of global consumerism that give his work weight. Francois –Xavier Gbre’s constellation of sixty-three small-scale architectural photographs completes this contemporary take on the postcolonial African cityscape.

I was more familiar with his large architectural views of obsolete interiors, which I always found beautiful but left me ambivalent.

Here, however I found myself engrossed in each small architectural vignette loving the warm hues and the subtle play of the light as it touched the surfaces. The effect was wonderfully poetic: the images capture the passage of time in often time-worn urban structures.

All together this was a very well curated and hung show and a first of several exhibitions on contemporary and video art from Africa and the African Diaspora that will be held at the Walther Collection Project space in Chelsea.

Drawing Waves

The Drawing Center in Soho, New York is showing Robin Rhode new photographic sequence entitled, Breaking Waves, 2014-15,  which whimsically depicts a young boy surfing in the sea.

Contemporary African Artists at Richard Taittinger in New York city.

One has to hand it to New York. There is no need to take a plane to be immersed in another culture. I was on my way to the Lower East Side to attend the opening of an exhibition on African artists at the Richard Taittinger gallery. I got off the subway at Grand street and as I stepped out of the train on the subway platform I was engulfed in a sea of Asian people of all ages waiting for the train. None of them were tourists and I felt conspicuous as the only white person there. I emerged from the underground and arrived at the gallery where I was transported to yet another continent: Africa. I did not need to take my passport, go through security and log in hours of travel time. What a treat!

I was eager to see the exhibition. It is a rare occasion in New York for a gallery that does not focus on African artists to give them a whole summer show. That is a step in the right direction!

I loved the catchy and evocative title. “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” with its direct reference to Sidney Poitier 1967 film. It is full of resonance for an American public still contending with past and present racial issues.

However according to guest curator, Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi,  with the increased visibility of African artists it was people’s ideas and assumptions about Africanness that was on the table here and the necessity to have them challenged. He quoted Chika Okeke-Agulu, a Nigerian author and professor at Princeton University, as the inspiration behind the selection.

” Folks can’t seem to come to terms with the fact that African artists have now taken and secured their seat at the dinner table, invited or not!”

Nzewi knows what he is talking about. Co-curator of the 2014 Dakar Biennale and currently the curator at the Hood Museum at Dartmouth College he has curated many exhibitions in Nigeria , South Africa and the US. His recent book is the co-edited volume New spaces for Negotiating art (and) Histories, focusing on independent art spaces and initiatives in Africa.

Aida Muluneh

Standing in front of Aida Muluneh’s photographic triptych Ugochukwu explained that Aida had been inspired by the story of Brazilian soccer player Dani Alves who when a banana was thrown at him during a game reacted with humor and poise,  calmly picking it up, peeling it, eating it and resumed playing. He challenged preconceptions of the African man as being reactionary and violent. While referencing this incident Mulaneh further highlights the constructed idea of Africanness by manipulating the image so that the black skin of the model looks like it was painted on.

Photography was the strongest area of the show. I loved the cover photo of the exhibition taken from Algerian artist Halida Boughnet’s acclaimed Pandora series. In Diner des Anonymes three children, black and white, inhabit the space around and under the dining table dressed with all the trappings of a bourgeois household. Noticeable is the lack of connection that exist between the figures.

Amalia Ramanankirahina

Artist Amelia Ramanankirahina from Madagascar speaks in her series Family portrait”of unstable identity. Working with portraits of another era she covers the faces with a shroud like shape and the only identifiers left are the various old costumes worn by the figures.

Gopal Dagnogo

Gopal Dagnogo ‘ paintings reference a hazy and chaotic world – almost dream like.  Elements of the modern world – signifiers of our consumer society such as sneakers, chairs, cans of food – merge with elements of the animal life into a poetic, instable, whole, teetering on the brink of chaos.

Uche Uzorka

In a different vein, more overtly structured are the paintings and drawings of Uche Uzorka. Inspired by the processes of urban street culture he made this large abstract collage where white mask like shapes hover over the surface of the painting like white ghosts haunting the streets.

Some of the limitations of the show were the result of the constraints set by the gallerist; only two-dimensional works could be included and shipping costs had to be kept to a minimum. However I welcomed the opportunity of seeing work never shown in New York and new to me. Furthermore I commend the Richard Taittinger gallery for reaching out to a Nigerian curator instead of an American one. We need to truly get an African perspective and not a Western perspective of what is “good “art in Africa.

I met Hassan Hajjaj at a casual dinner given by Christa Clarke who was hosting a few guests at the occasion of the opening of two photographic exhibitions at the Newark museum: Hassan Hajjij ‘s My Rock Stars and Georges Osodi’s Royals & Regalia. The curator of African arts at the Newark museum, Christa Clarke is a staunch advocate of African contemporary art. She has put together a program of noteworthy exhibitions and is expanding the museum collection of contemporary African art in a significant way.

I had recently bought one of Hassan Hajjaj’s works from the My Rock Stars series – a decade long project where he stages and photographs his friends from the music world – and I was eager to meet him.  Hassan is not a man to easily categorize and that made him instantly appealing to me in addition to his warm smile and charisma!  His slightly disheveled look, beard, hair tied in a knot at the back of his head, marked face were all signs that suggested hard living which all added to make the mix intriguing.

While a Moroccan by birth, he speaks with a pronounced English accent, which surprised me since to my mind Morocco is more connected to France. I was soon to learn that he was born in Marrakech, and moved to London as a child. It was there that he was driven to create” his own village”; a community of culturally diverse and creative individuals where he could feel at home. Self-taught he learned by doing, delving along the years into the worlds of music, fashion and design. These rich and diverse professional experiences feed into Hassan’s current artistic practice, which includes photographic work and room installations (part pop-up nightclubs, part urban café)). He now splits his life between Marrakech and London.

Hassan is above all multicultural. His brand of multi-culturalism is Moroccan-infused. He rethinks cultural relationships and creates art works that reflect his idea of an inventive fusion where tradition meets the contemporary and cultures mingle to create a new vision that is essentially positive.

His photographic work at first glance falls into the tradition of African studio portraiture. Carefully staged, he poses his subjects – a variety of musicians such as well-known masters of Gnawa , a type of popular music inspired by African-Islamic spiritual songs to hijab-clad young women – against brightly patterned textiles, often with furnishings and clothes that he designs. Because of his experience with club culture, cat-walks and fashion shoots he makes the images look cool, sexy, his eye for fashion shaping the image into something dynamic and contemporary.

He breaks with tradition by moving “his studio” in the street and documents people moving in an outdoor setting. His Kesh Angel series of women bikers driving through the streets of Marrakech are truly novel and unique in the fusion of tradition and the contemporary, the Arabic and the Western world. At once cool and threatening, depending on which side of the cultural divide one is, these images challenge the female stereotype of both Western and Arabic cultures.

His frames are specific to each piece and are three dimensional incorporating serial arrangements of packaged goods labeled in Arabic. As Martin Barnes, chief curator of Photographs at the V& A says: “ By drawing attention to framing, Hajjaj makes the photograph inescapable as a physical object. It is not an impartial image to be read, opening like a window on the world. Rather, it is a partially-staged confection, derived from reality but ultimately a manipulated and recontextualised view point. “

Peterson Kamwathi , a contemporary artist from Kenya had his first solo show in New York City at the Volta art fair in March. ArtLabAfrica had been selected to show Kamwathi latest series “Positions”. This series came about as a reaction to the increasing tension between different religions all over the world which was exacerbated by the Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi by Somali Islamic militants in September 2013. It also feels quite timely taking in considering the current events in Kenya.

His work is rendered in thick layers of charcoal, pastel, watercolor, stencils and more recently collage on thick watercolor paper. While rooted in the figurative tradition it is highly conceptual and addresses social, political and cultural issues. Fascinated by human behavior and daily rituals, in his more recent bodies of work he has turned his critical eye to observing the individual in a group setting: political gatherings, queues, and now group rituals within organized religions.

The structure and anatomy of prayer is at the core of this body of work. Moving away from a more specific rendering of individuality, his static figures are generic, almost abstract set against a background which is either left blank or when densely decorative is void of any vanishing points.  Figures are individually drawn and cut out and then assembled in a group pointing simultaneously to the human vulnerability expressed in the act of prayer and the power found in the collective act of organized prayer.

All too aware of the growing tension between Christianity and Islam locally but also world wide Peterson explores here the similarities in ritualistic positions that transcend difference of opinions, and beliefs. Individuality is subsumed here in favor of the human desire for community, and in this case for surrendering to a spiritual higher power. I liked the body of work and admired Peterson’s courage in engaging with current issues, and endorsed his message of peace and acceptance of differences yet a little voice in my head kept telling me that there was something disturbing to me in these images of group prayer. I could not help thinking of how many atrocities have been committed through out the centuries by deeply religious people who pray a lot!

It is the first time a Kenyan artist has a solo show in New York, and I delayed my departure for my walk in the bush in Kenya to be sure to see the exhibition. I had heard about Kamwathi two years ago when I was in South Africa for the Joburg art fair. While having coffee with Mark Coetze in Cape Town I told him about my particular interest in Kenya and he recommended I try to see Kamwathi the next time I was going to Nairobi.

That November (2012) after a week on a bush walk in the Ndotos mountains in Norther Kenya, a day/night in a hotel room in Lamu feeling sick like a dog, and before getting on my flight back to the US I decided to spend a night in Nairobi and look up Kamwathi. Connecting with him was easy and he gave me an address on the outskirts of the city. That raised some apprehension as I had never ventured on my own in Nairobi to say nothing of beyond!  Once I asked William, a driver the charity MEAK uses when in town, to take me to his studio/house I felt more at ease .

I did not know what to expect. What did an emerging artist studio look like in Nairobi, Kenya? I have visited several spacious, at times factory-like artist studios here in New York but I had a feeling this could be more like my mother’s make shift studios – at one point she made the large entry hall her studio when she lived on her own in Paris.

Finding the house was not easy. After a few wrong turns in a semi-urban area we found the dirt road that led to his house nestled in lush tropical vegetation. Peterson came out to greet me with a huge smile and led me into his studio, a modest space behind his house where he lived with his wife.

I was encouraged to sit down and relax. No art talk was going to happen before he had made me tea!  I was totally unused to this! Instead of him being immediately the focus of attention as is customary in New York he was making me feel the honored guest.
A bit uncomfortable at first I gradually began to relax and let my eyes wander, taking in his life size charcoal drawings in various stages of completion. Peterson’s creative process was there to be witnessed.

A framed print of a massive bull from his Bull series was leaning against the wall next to a starker rendering of a life size sheep. On the opposite wall, a study of figures set in a row emerging out of a cloud of charcoal hung next to a large cardboard covered with small sketches. An oversized cut out figure of a man hung on top of it all. Peterson appears to works surrounded by his ideas, past and present.

While these were powerful images and beautifully executed testifying to Peterson’s artistic talent I admit I was a bit uncomfortable with the animal imagery. I knew it was my Western taste and experience that was getting in the way. Peterson reminded me that cattle and sheep were equivalent to cash in the bank in Kenya and a metaphor for wealth and power. I appreciated then the symbolism and I liked that Peterson was creating works of art with the Kenyan audience in mind and not only an international audience.

Peterson’s work has been increasingly engaged with the historical and current socio-political reality of Kenya and has evolved from a critical gaze on Kenya’s domineering leadership (Bull Series) and passive electorate (Sheep Series) to a full indictment of the government, the role of the media, the police, the electorate commission and the UN   (Sitting Allowance).

Sitting Allowance, includes eight life size pieces – figures arranged in frieze-like fashion stare the audience down – and is the body of work created in response to the violence that followed the general election of 2007-2008 and which propelled him to national and international attention. These works were groundbreaking in the context of Kenya’s visual arts in as much as they were playing, as works of art, an active part in a political discourse and in a societal self-reflection.

As we were looking closely at his subsequent series Queues we started to talk about the prevalence of queues in Kenya: queues of people waiting to vote, queues of people waiting for a seat in a bus or matatus to name a few. At times one can wait close to two hours for one’s turn for a seat, which means it takes forever to get to work! In his drawings Peterson captures the Kenyans in all their diversity. Women carrying babies on their back, or bundles on their head, men in suits or carrying satchels, or jerrycans of water.

Queues are conceptual tools for Kamwathi. In speaking of his 2010-2011 Queues series, he explains his choice of subject matter:

“ Queues are manifestations of events in humanity. They are testaments or monuments to the consequences of events of the past, are the representation of events in the present and they are also clues and signs that point to events that may possibly occur in the future.”

“I am trying to look at channeling, conditioning and manipulation as symbolized in a queue. This is in the area of politics, culture and economics, in both contemporary and historical worlds.”

It was easy talking with Peterson. A gentle, caring and considerate man he seemed most concerned with the lack of arts facilities in Nairobi. A printing machine was desperately needed for art students! Pretty much self-taught, he attributed his mother as having installed his first interest in art after she gave him a watercolor set. He graduated from the Shang Tao media Arts College in 2005 and became well known as a woodblock master printer.

Printmaking and charcoal drawings have been his mediums of choice. His Queues series stylistically reminded me of the graphic work of Mexican muralists and of the work of William Kentridge and he confirmed their influence.

He then pulled out recent drawings from a large portfolio that he went to get from a room in the back of the studio. Made to look like cut outs, these were totally different from the work we had just been discussing. While the subject was still the human figure, it was drawn with a more abstract line, little shading and set against the white of the paper where all sense of place had been removed. I loved the contemporary feel of these works and told him so. We parted soon after that and I felt moved by this experience. It was the first time I had met a talented artist that was deeply humble yet fully committed to his work and ambitious. The combination is a rare occurrence in New York city!

A couple years later it was with great pleasure that I saw his work in London at the art fair 1:54 and I was totally excited that it was in the fashion of the last drawings he had showed me! Perhaps I had an impact, perhaps not but I felt privileged that I had been a witness to his process.

On a less positive note I read on a tweet about the Venice Biennale that there were going to be mostly Chinese artists in the Kenya pavillon!!!! See article  Kamwhati would have been a good choice.

This October was the second year that African art was making a showing in London during Frieze week and it was doubling in size! Named 1:54; 1 for one continent, 54 for 54 countries, the title was a reminder that Africa is not one country but a multitude of countries with distinct traditions, styles, and histories. Founded by Touria El Glaoui  the fair was also the impetus for a critical dialogue organized around a series of lectures and panels curated by artistic director Koyo Kouoh.

While I had been in London just a couple of weeks before I could not miss the event. I made a quick jump to London leaving late Tuesday night after attending suitcase and all a fundraising for a cause dear to a friend of mine. I caught miraculously a few hours of sleep on the flight over and after dropping off my bags at a friend’s house rushed first to the Frieze art fair to see the work of Serge Alain Nitegeka, a Burundi artist at Stevenson Gallery. I had put one of his recent panels on hold – I don’t buy from an image on the Internet – and needed to make a decision. An established South African gallery, Stevenson shows its artists at global contemporary art fairs eschewing the African tag.

The booth looked fabulous with Barthelemy Toguo’s large paintings hanging on the walls and works on paper displayed on easels.

I found Serge Nitegeka’s two recent panels in the back room, out of sight. I was immediately struck by their powerful visual impact. Serge paints on large wooden boxes. Abstract geometry here is imbued with potent psychological power.

In one of the panels Serge has chosen to eliminate any illusion of space: heavy black bands delineate a square slightly off center pressed up against the picture plane. There is nothing serene about this square: shards break up its interior periphery; I even have a visceral reaction and experience a sense of oppression and aggression.

In total contrast, the black lines on the other panel open up to a fictive space allowing for a sense of relief and perhaps hope. The contrast between the two pieces is striking and highlights Serge’s increasing ability to manipulate competently geometry for his own psychological and pictorial purposes.

Despite the fact that I loved the piece I couldn’t figure out where I would put in my apartment so I decided to be reasonable, urged along by my boyfriend who keeps on trying to curtail my art buying. So I very reluctantly let it go, not sure that I was making the right decision. In fact I later chided myself for not following my inclination. Indeed Serge is a very promising artist and he is having a show at Marianne Boesky in New York opening mid-November.

After a quick walk through Frieze I headed off to the Somerset House where 1:54 was housed. Somerset House is a U shaped neoclassical structure built around a courtyard and since the fair has grown from the previous year it now occupies two wings of the building. I confess it took me two visits to realize that half of the galleries were located in another wing! The lack of information given at the front desk was in part the culprit, but my fried brain resulting from the frantic pace of my short visit to London did not help!

I liked ambling on my own through the galleries, taking time to discover, explore, and understand new and different perspectives. There was a healthy mix of art coming from West Africa, North and Sub-Sahara Africa; a diversity of style; plenty of painting, photography, and sculpture. Some rooms were better curated than others, and overall there was enough good work to feel satisfied with the visit.

I was quite pleased to see Abdoulaye Konaté’s wall hangings in the foyer of the fair and later on during my visit at the booth of Primo Marella Gallery of Milan.

Konaté, an artist from Mali started as a painter and later turned to using textiles native to Mali to create large wall hanging where he developed a unique aesthetic combining a local sensibility for symbolism and color and craft with a global political message. I had visited his studio a couple of years back and felt his work had a striking grandeur.

Sammy Baloji’s photograph from his series “Mémoire”was particularly appealing. I was familiar with Baloji’s work and this image was one of his best ones. Born in Lubumbashi, in the DRC he has created photomontages where past and present collide. Here colonial figures, both indigenous and European, are layered over the contemporary architecture of a local mining town in the Kantanga province. Past and present coalesce to expose the underlying economic alliances that benefited colonial masters and a small minority of privileged indigenous people. The juxtaposition here was particularly successful which I don’t think is always the case in his work.

I stopped to ask questions about Nicene Kossentin’s photographic work (Boujmai Fatouma) at the Selma Feriani Gallery. Kossentin has set ghost-like portraits of her late mother and grandmothers against the backdrop of a dried salt lake found in her native city of Sfax, Tunisia. A line of calligraphy delineates the horizon. Because the wordage has no beginning and end it points to her historical cultural lineage. Kossentin’s work is about memory, about remembering, and mostly about the fear of not remembering. She points to the role of women in her culture as “passeuses de mémoire”- a beautiful phrase – or couriers of memory. Long a tradition in her culture it is also the role of women in many other cultures in the rest of Africa where grandmothers are the storytellers and keepers of the oral history of their community. The images were particularly haunting and poignant.

From there I wandered towards the Galerie Mikael Andersen where I had the opportunity to see the lovely drawings of the late Ernest Mancoba, who while perhaps considered the most important modern artist from South Africa is barely known internationally and deserves a new critical look. His drawings – often stylized figures – done during the 60’s and 70’s and inspired by African ritual woodcuts oscillate between abstraction and figuration and convey a unique energy. Having emigrated to Europe at the time of WWII Mancoba was part of the CoBrA movement in Europe before he returned to South Africa. Always present in his mind was his wish to bring his deep understanding of African culture to European art.

I was seduced by the work of Armand Boua at Jack Bell gallery. Using tar and acrylic on found cardboard boxes Boua captures the street kids from his hometown Abidjan.In the process of layering paint and removing it he creates scenes imbued with light and poetry despite the pathos of the subject. I absolutely loved the work though I was not sure the price was justified. Fortunately by then I had reached a state of  temporary wisdom and this time knew to walk away…no matter how much I was tempted.

Across the corridor The October Gallery had an eclectic selection that needed time to take in. I was struck by Homeless Hungry Homo, a sculpture lying on a low stand in the middle of the gallery by the Nigerian artist Adejoke Tugbiyele.

I found myself aware of some of my inner prejudices, which were fortunately being challenged. I was at once intrigued and slightly puzzled and even a bit put off at first. The supine figure disturbed me. It felt unapologetically African and so a part of me – the part shaped by my Western training – hesitated to give it its due. Yet it was so bold and provocative: strangely human despite it being a thing made out of yarn, palm stems, metal, African mask, and dollar bills. Would this appeal to a Western audience? I don’t know but I liked the boldness and the artist commitment to her particular aesthetic.

I hope you notice the variety of styles and aesthetics exemplified by all these artists, which makes it all very fascinating.

I moved on then to the ArtLabAfrica Gallery and soon found myself engaged in a long conversation with James Muriuki and Miriam Syowia Kyambi about their recent seven months residency in Kilifi, Kenya at a science research center as part of the Art in Global Health Residency.

I loved looking at the photographic work coming out of this residency, many of the photographs capturing the local architecture of Kenyan small towns. As you know I have a fondness for Kenya so I was just thrilled.

Great was my surprise when I saw hanging on the wall the work of Kenyan artist Peterson Kamwathi. A couple of years ago I had tracked him down on the outskirts of Nairobi. After he had very kindly offered and then made me tea we had spend two magical hours looking and talking about his work. I was so happy to hear that he was experiencing good success and had just had been commissioned to do a public project in Nairobi.

In the center of the booth were two sculptures by conceptual artist Gor Soudan. Using protest wire – a tangled black mass of wire he salvages from car tires burnt during civil unrests in Nairobi – he reworks them into beautiful, wispy, poetic sculptures, which look like drawings in space.

Photography was well represented with works by Francois-Xavier Gbre, Leonce R.Agbodjelou, Edson Chagas and Frank Marshall. I noticed an interesting trend: two photographers that were getting a lot of attention had originally trained and worked as fashion photographers. Lakin Ogunbanwo and Omar Victor Diop both work with a keen interest in form, color, lighting and design and turn to the inclusion of the self as a mean to address their personal and artistic concerns.

An erotic and subversive undertone can be felt in Lakin Ogunbanwo’s beautiful compositions (shown at Whatiftheworld) where he eludes the gaze of the viewer while highlighting the centrality of his presence in a serial layering of his figure.

Omar Victor Diop at Magnin-A in his project Diaspora is the main protagonist as he adopts the dress and pose of African historical figures having lived in Europe, which he combines with more contemporary props pointing to contemporary life.

Another photographer who has a fashion background is Hassan Hajjaj. His work was unfortunately squeezed between two booths but his take on the “Odalisque”, a video piece, was just wonderful: full of wit and incisive criticism. See upcoming post on his work.

Athi-Patra Ruga’s camp tapestry peppered with eclectic multicultural references was an explosive reminder of the hybrid construct of cultural identity. I was mesmerized by his unabashed combination of gaudy motifs, traditional stitching, and profusion of fake flowers that made the tapestry a textural and colorful delight. He was just included in the Phaidon book “Younger Than Jesus” directory of the 500 of the world’s best artists under the age of 33. It was a fitting and uplifting end to my perusing through the fairs.

I enjoyed the more low key tempo of 1:54, the absence of jaded dealers and collectors, and the opportunity to see more work from North Africa. The big fairs are already so big and to my view a bit of a chore, therefore I like the smaller venue.

I got to see some African galleries that I would not normally see mixed with Western galleries which made for a good mix.  For instance Anne de Villepoix, a mid –size gallery in Paris who has a few African artists in her roster liked the low-key atmosphere which reminds her of how fairs where years back.

Is it ideal to set African art apart? Perhaps not as it risks reenforcing the colonial idea of the African being seen as the other. However, one thing I have learned from all my times going to various African countries,  there are no simple solutions. This one seems the right one for now. It is an unique opportunity for many of these artists to be seen by a greater audience. More importantly it gives them a platform where they can explore keeping an authentic voice while contending with a global art world which demands them to fine tune their  skills, incorporate contemporary strategies, and hone their message to make it more effectively convincing .

PS: No one was walking around talking about being afraid of catching Ebola at the fair. That was a different reaction from the hysteria that I was about to witness at the airport when I landed at JFK! All customs officers were wearing masks and plastic gloves. Go figure….

Mid-august I was having dinner with the artist, Zina Saro-Wiva in New York City at the little Italian restaurant around the corner from where I live in the West Side. A few days before Zina had contacted me asking me if I could help her promote her latest photographic work on the Ogole dancers. She needed the proceeds of the sales to finance her upcoming work that is to be exhibited at the Seattle museum.

Alternating between vivacious and impassioned descriptions of her two major projects and moments of silence heavy with angst, Zina updated me on what was happening at Port Harcourt where she is running her own pop-up gallery and working with the Ogoni people on her next video.

A year or so ago Zina had decided to leave her life in Brooklyn to go back to Nigeria. A bit like the heroine of Adiche’s “Americanah”, she was feeling the need to go back to where she came from and in her case face the heavy legacy of her father,Ken Saro-Wiwa. While she was raised mostly in the UK , Zina’s father Ken Saro -Wiwa was a very vocal activist in the Niger Delta who came to an untimely death when he was hung in prison under the orders of the Nigerian government. The anniversary of his death was coming up.  History and the opportunity to shape the future were calling her. It was time on a more personal level to contend with the grief surrounding his death as well as the complicated feelings she must have towards her father who had more than one family and was away most of the time.

Her first career for many years was in the media working as a freelance researcher, producer and presenter on BBC TV and radio. In 2010 she made her debut as a video artist and filmmaker in New York City in the group show “Sharon Stone in Abuja”. She then produced several video and short films with the goal of changing the way Africa is viewed, spoken about and discussed.

She says: “ My art career started when I left my journalism background and dedicated myself to changing the way the world saw Africa. I set up the (now dormant) organization AfricaLab to this end. By immersing myself fully in this endeavour, I discovered that contemporary art practices would give me the power, license and freedom I needed. Art challenged me to be freer and deeper in my thinking. What I did no expect, however, was how focusing in on Africa has often resulted in work that transcended the ‘idea of Africa” and became deeply personal. And really it is the relationship between the personal and the political that interests me.”

She went to Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, located in the Niger Delta in South Eastern Nigeria. She repossessed her father’s office, which had been kept intact since his hanging in 1995. It is now a miniature museum site hosting projected photographic and video installation works relating to Ken’s personal life and international legacy.

The rest of the space is now a pop-up gallery called the “Boys Quarters”.

“The Boys’ Quarters” is the colloquial name given to the servants’ quarters, a post-colonial hangover and an ever-present feature of modern West African life. The place where, to this day, servants and sometimes extended family members live. We believe that in order to transcend limitation and excel – a Nigerian pre-occupation – we must run towards and not away from The Boys’ Quarters. We must investigate ourselves, go inwards as a society then reflect and expand upon who we are from our core. Our true wealth is in the people at every level of society. “ ( Zina Saro-Wiwa)

With the same spirit as her father she decided to effect change by reframing the narrative surrounding the Niger Delta. The Niger Delta is rich in oil reserves that have attracted years of exploration from multinational oil corporations (Shell and others). It has suffered tremendous environment destruction. In addition ethnic communities such as the Ogoni and the Ijaw people have felt exploited. Communities were forced out by the Nigerian government to allow for exploration and very little of the wealth produced by the oil exploration has trickled down to the local communities. As a consequence various forms of resistance to the presence of the big oil companies and to the corruption of the Nigerian government have emerged since the 1990’s. Zina ‘s father, Ken Saro-Wiwa, a play-right and author is the most well known of the activists for the rights of the Ogoni people. More recently activism has taken a more violent turn with many militias operating in the Delta.

Zina is proposing an alternative platform for discussing environmental issues in the Delta, one that is peaceful and uses art as a way to offer different ways of looking and apprehending ones own context, environment and history. In this process Zina wants to highlight an emotional and spiritual dimension to the life in the Niger delta.

Zina’s idea of a contemporary gallery is not the highly commercial gallery one sees in Nigeria or Ghana for that matter. She is quite adamant about that. I knew just what she was talking about. Last fall I went to Ghana and was struck with the absence of galleries that showed anything slightly conceptual. Most of the work tended to be more traditional and a bit too decorative and commercial. A more conceptual approach to contemporary art that addresses contemporary issues was sorely lacking. This is just what Zina is doing here: Presenting an alternative, a new way of looking at one owns environment.

With help from donors, she restored her father’s office and cleaned up, painted and refurbished the other rooms. I loved what she did with the space shaping it into a haven of peace and light, a contemplative space in the middle of busy and noisy Port Harcourt.

Currently, the Niger Delta artist, Perrin Oglafa is having a show called “The Restless Grove” in the main gallery and Zina’s video “An Ogoni Heart” is set up in the back room. Zina tells me how she discovered Oglafa’s sculptures. Oglafa is known in the area for his paintings, which are quite colorful and can be found on the walls of banks, hotels and homes of foreign oil executives. While she was visiting him in his studio, she noticed what looked at first glance like a pile of ropes. Intrigued she asked him what this was. He explained that this was a private work that he had never shown because he did not think it fit the local market. He had painstakingly dissembled a raw canvas, one thread at a time creating a sculpture that looked like fishing nets. His forefathers were fishermen and in unraveling the canvas perhaps there was a mirroring of the unraveling of the lives of these fishermen as a result of the pollution in the Niger Delta. Zina responded to the expressive power of the piece, and to the fresh and novel way of addressing an aspect of Niger Delta life.

This was exactly what she was looking for! She displayed the body of work beautifully and with great simplicity in the new space highlighting its metaphorical qualities while revealing its beauty. Included were wooden pieces, which reflect Oglafa’s love of nature. Nature is a loaded subject in the Niger Delta. In addition to the issue of the damaging effect of the exploration of oil on the environment, nature has mystical powers according to pre-Christian animistic beliefs. Zina speaks of the “Restless Mangrove” as “the representation of the spirit of a fisherman of souls.”

The first time I heard of this pop up project I was very intrigued. I feel that true change in the art scene in Nigeria or other African countries happens from within. It is not enough that a few well-intentioned and generous western people collect or show African art outside of the country. It is essential that Nigerians such as Zina bring a new perspective to the arts locally and encourage local Africa collectors and artists to embrace alternative yet authentic ways of encountering their environment and life. In addition, Zina’s gesture has an inherent legitimacy because of her familial history in the Delta.

I could relate to her desire to reckon with her father’s legacy, change the way people look at her country of origin and in so doing confront her inner demons. A few years back I embarked on a project – the performance in the USA of my Bulgarian grandfather, Petko Staynov’s music – that aimed in part to honor his legacy in the Western world, to repair some of the impact of the Cold War years on my family and on the arts, and improve my relationship with my father. I can’t say I was fully successful on the family level. While my uncle from Bulgaria attended the performances which were wonderful, and helped in many ways, my father did not come.

These things need to be done and they demand a good dose of courage and they are no guarantees. In Zina’s case the bravery is multifold since Port Harcourt is not a safe place and Nigeria faces at this moment several very serious health and security challenges. Furthermore she is a woman and in doing this project and her performance work there she is confronting entrenched gender taboos.

While she is overseeing the pop-up, Zina is also working on a new body of work that centers on the Ogoni people and in particular the Ogele Masquerades. See next post.