Breaking new ground: Contemporary Design from Africa.

Life has changed a bit recently and I am reconnecting with my French past. I now spend some time during the summer months in a cute little bergerie nestled on a hill at the foot of the Luberon mountains. Surrounded by olive trees growing on terraces and with breathtaking views of the ruins of a medieval village perched on a hill adjacent to the dramatic gorge of the Petit Luberon I forget art for a moment and embrace nature’s wildness.

From there I drove to Basel for the art fair and had the unexpected pleasure to learn that there was an exhibition of African design at the Vitra Design Museum right over the border in Germany. The exhibition was curated internally with the help of guest curator Okwi Enwesor, also curator of the Venice Biennale. It challenges traditional expectations of African design that usually focuses on craft and artisanal objects.

In the words of Koyo Kouoh, founding director of Raw Material Company the exhibition studies “ the interrelated relationship between fashion, film, art, performance, music, industrial and product design, with internet and new media being the key reason for the seismic shift in the cultural landscape of Africa. “ There is a strong sense that design must contribute to the life of a place and the focus of design has shifted to become socially oriented.

In the richly informative catalogue of the exhibition Okwui Enwezor encourages the viewers to look at Africa through different lenses.

“The exhibition does not strive to present a complete picture of design in Africa. What the exhibition offers instead is a new story, one perhaps not known. It is one possibility among many for looking at Africa and an invitation in this regard to consider a wholly new perspective.”

While some veteran artists are included the focus is on the young generation (Africa has a huge youth population), its energy, entrepreneurial spirit, its concern with the contemporary and  the potential of urban spaces, and shared virtual/digital spaces. There is an atmosphere of awakening among artists in cities like Nairobi, Cape Town, Johannesburg, Lagos, Dakar, etc. Intent on correcting the idea favored by the Global North that Africa is a place of despair, the curators highlighted the burst of creativity that is happening as a result of the advent of the digital boom. I remembered a time six years ago when it was thought that places like Kenya had little to show for itself in terms of creativity. Sixteen creative ventures coming out of Kenya are represented in the exhibition! Things have come a long way!

Conveying that bustling field was not an easy matter as a lot of it is virtual  such as apps, blogs, and websites. The curatorial team created an aesthetically pleasing and highly informative exhibition tightly weaving technology with more object based works such as models, photographs, maps, sculptures, and clothes.

Divided into four parts (Prologue, I and We, Space & Object and Origin & Future) Making Africa challenges the idea of a one Africa with a new local perspective, new shared virtual spaces, an approach to urban life and architecture truly its own, and embrace of tradition while looking to the future in object based work.

The exhibition opened with the work of Kenyan artist, Cyrus Kabiru’s C- Stunners that illustrate vividly this idea of shift of perspective. We need to change our way of seeing the continent, its people and lives and learn to listen: in the background I hear the voices of acclaimed thinkers speaking of Africa. Kabiru creates these extraordinary “eyeglasses” out of found objects and photographs himself wearing them.

People’s perceptions of “Africanness”s is further challenged in the work of Kudzanai Chiurai Popular Mechanics whose portraits parody the traditional genre of heroic images and exposes the corruptive aspect of power

Justin Dingwall’s photographic diptych Albus of a black albino model that question the idea of black and whiteness.

The second section was like a huge database of personal blogs, computer games, Youtube videos of a partying youth culture, apps, crowd sourcing digital maps and wonderful photographs and prints.

I would recommend checking out the following sites, which provide a very useful database of African artists.

Internet portals such as Africa Digital Arts, Afrikadaa, Art Base Africa.

Browse the following apps and blogs:

Oju Emoticon App

Anakle (Bride Price App)

Izihothane

Photographer Jody Brand’s blog: Chomma provides a window on a youth culture concerned with the here and now.

Men’s Fashion has its place with the fondness of the famous Sapeurs de Brazzaville for colorful, and dandy like outfits. Hector Mediavilla (Allurex and his socks, 20003)

Chris Saunders from The Smarteez series. Saunders follows the creative process of four designers from Soweto (Kebi, Sibu, Floyd, and Thabo).

Daniele Tamagni from Botswana Afrometals photographic series (2012) shows a youth culture that has merged tradition and the international metal scene.

Hassan Hajjaj photographic series L.V.Posses of young Moroccan women in headscarves on motorbikes also fuses traditional Islam with western luxury (Louis Vuitton logo).

MISWude Waxology is the product of the cooperation between jewelry and fashion brand MISWude and photographer Fabrice Monteiro.

I loved Leanie van der Vyver video Scary beautiful where a young woman wearing absurd shoes struggles to walk in an awkward performance.

The next section (Space and Object) focuses on living spaces. It is about architecture, urban life and includes virtual spaces such as maps and apps that have been created to contend with a lack of infrastructure and that have profoundly changed the life of people.

The inclusion of the M-Pesa (Safaricom), a mobile money transfer that has revolutionized the way people pay for things in Kenya and now the world is a good indication of how forward looking this exhibition is. Creative thinking is increasingly finding its outlet in the creation of these new ways of living and working. It leads me to confirm this idea that I have recently discussed with an art dealer friend that the new avant-garde contemporary art will not be object oriented but increasingly virtual.

Map Kibera, a digital map is based on this idea of shared economies that are changing social spaces. This digital map of the largest slum in Nairobi includes information on security, water, sanitation, health, education, citizen journalism, and advocacy through blogs.

The photographic work of Michael Subotzky and Patrick Waterhouse Ponte City captures the lives of the residents of the Ponte City skyscraper that was once a luxury building. Now in total disrepair communities of poor black people inhabit it. For over two years they took photos of every window, apartment door and TV set in building and created a mosaic-like snapshot.

Justin Plunkett’s Con/Struct is a great shot! A vertical slum, a metaphor for a “piled-up dream” withstands gravity.

James Muriuki“s Undefined Constructions:SeriesI

Fabrice Monteiro’s photographic series The Prophet is as beautiful as much as they are disturbing. In transforming the ugly into the beautiful these surrealist images call attention to the dangers of environmental pollution.

I was happy to see the work of Tahir Carl Karmali Jua Kali included. In homage to Jua kali craftsmen who make things out of recycled material Karmali took pictures of garbage pieces to create these collages and combined them with photos of the craftsmen.

Tahir Carl Karmali, Dennis Muraguri, Tonney Mugo’s Jua Kali City. A collective project, and made from found objects these wheels are metaphors for the formal and informal economies.

I liked the table made out of glass, steel and ceramics Docks table by Imiso Ceramics reflecting the checkered urban space that is Woodstock, Cape Town.

Porky Hefer’s Humanest reminded me of weaver nests that I see each time I walk the Kenyan bush.

Dominique Petot’s armchair Meridienne was elegant and dramatic though maybe not totally comfortable.

Alassane Drabo Gourde Protectrice: a useful tool and a tribute to a ubiquitous object in rural West Africa. Maybe the first time the pot has been used as a lampshade!

Amadou Fatoumata Ba Pouf Tresse made out of rubber tyres.

The last section -Origin and Future – acknowledges Africa’s past, its traditions and roots, and looks to the future.

Omar Victor Diop Project Diaspora (Mame)

Ikire Jones The Evan suit . From the collection The Untold Renaissance .

Leonce Raphael Agbodjelou (Musclemen): At once a tribute to the tradition of African photographic portraiture and a critique.

Oumou Sy: Inspired by Senghor ‘s concept of metissage ( hybridization) traditional patterns and geometric shapes fuse into a contemporary vision.

The exhibition ends with Goncalo Mabunda’s eloquent throne www. Crise.com made out of recycled weapons from the Mozambican Civil War. It is a critique of African military regimes yet also a reminder of the transformative power of art and the resistance and creativity of African civil societies.

I have just mentioned just a small sampling of the many artists included in the exhibition.

If you can’t see the exhibition I would highly recommend buying on Amazon the catalogue, which provides even more information than the exhibition. It is an invaluable database.

I took time off from my blog and put Africa on the back burner for a few weeks while I finished a renovation and moved my home. I packed and unpacked like a wild woman with no other thought then to get it done with. Buried under boxes the only thing I could think of was to get my life in order again. Then I went off to Europe for some R & R, art gazing and family time.

My first art destination was the big art event Documenta 13 in Kassel, Germany, which takes place every five years and tends to be heavily conceptual. A sprawling exhibition set up throughout the industrial city of Kassel, this year’s Documenta, which is curated by Carolyn Christov-Bakargiev, is “more about creativity in general than about art” to use the words of Roberta Smith.  I did feel at times that I was spending more time reading text whether it was the text included in the work or the text explaining the work and walking, looking for the installations through out the city. Jerry Salz described my feeling perfectly when he shared his own experience of Documeta13: he felt like he was on “a combination of truffle hunt, forced march, and wild goose chase.”  On the other hand, come to think of it, not a bad way to discover a city.

Out of 300 artists only four were from Africa: Issa Samb, Zanele Muholi, William Kentridge, and Kudzanai Chiurai and I will add also Kader Attia who is of Algerian descent, which makes five! My favorite installation was Zanele Muholi’s Faces and Phases,which consists of black and white portraits of black queers and trans people from different places and professions in Africa. They were tightly stacked into three rows on three connecting walls. Standing in the midst of these women looking down at me I felt the intensity of their gaze, the sheer power of their personality, and sensed at a visceral level the courage and pride of their stance. It was clear I needed to pay attention to their message, which was explicitly conveyed in Muholi’s video that tells the story of her coming out and includes testimonies of gay women who were raped and beaten because of their homosexuality. It felt profoundly genuine, and while very much conceptual layers of meaning hard to decipher did not dilute its underlying message.

I discovered the work of Zimbabwean multi-media artist and political activist Kudzanai Chiurai. One of the “born frees” (Zimbabweans born after Zimbabwe achieved independence) he has been living in exile in South Africa after his satiric portrayal of Mugabe made him persona non-grate in Zimbabwe.  I liked the sculpture of his face embedded in a log with 5 pangas (big knives) piercing the wood. Resting on a small fur pelt on the floor it was a compelling piece conveying man’s violent relationship with nature. “It’s about the tree of life,” says Chiurai, “we’ve severed our ancient connection with nature.”  Part of a larger installation called “Conflict Resolution” which includes drawings, paintings, photography and video Chiurai aims to reach and engage a new generation of young Africans that he says no one is talking to.  While Kentridge’s and Attia’s installations were ambitious, complex and more layered in meaning I found the immediacy of Muholi and Chiurai’s work appealing.

Though Kader Attia is French I am including his installation The Repair from Occident to Extra-Occidental cultures because his work is deeply rooted in his connection to Africa. Born in 1970 in Paris to Algerian parents, he grew up between Algeria and the Parisian banlieue and spend time in Brazzaville and Kinshasa. He completed his art studies in France but his first solo exhibition took place in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The installation speaks of the damages of war and the subsequent effort at repair, at integration of past and present, of hybridity or “ metissage.”  Serge Gruzinski in his article “From Holy Land to open your eyes”, which was included in the exhibition, highlights Kadia Atter’s concerns when he writes: “ The REPAIRED is opposed to the INTACT just as the HYBRID is opposed to the AUTHENTIC. Consequently, neither the repair nor the hybrid have their place in traditional museums.” Set up like a cabinet de curiosities, large wood-carved contemporary busts made by Senegalese artisans of damaged faces of WWI veterans are displayed with vintage colonialist books on medicine, African art and Ethnography.

Kattia Atter includes his personal collection of African artifacts which he put together while living in Africa such as crosses, necklaces and frames made out of recycled old bullets and coins from WWI.  Gruzinski says: “Kader Attia turns into a historian, an archeologist, an anthropologist and ethnologist in search of objects that can show us how societies rebuild themselves, face one another, intertwine and respond to one another.”

I was mesmerized by the slide show of photographs of the repaired faces of war injured Europeans soldiers juxtaposed with mended African masks. Immersed as I was at that time in reading Toni Morrison’s Beloved where the main character is struggling to come to terms with a personal and collective traumatic past and embrace some sort of life the theme of repair struck a chord.  Not lost on me either was the relevance of this theme with the history of Germany, World War II, and its aftermath. I liked the acceptance of reality, of the good, the bad and the ugly combined with a focus on resolution and rebuilding.

Attia’s installation is an act of repair on one hand but also a challenge to the status quo. It also fits into a greater discourse that aims to highlight the challenges faced by ever expanding contemporary multicultural societies, which are the result of processes of migration, colonialism, exile, and expulsion.  This theme is further explored in Paris by Kader Attia at the Musee de L’Art Moderne in the exhibition Construire, deconstruire, reconstruire: le corps utopique. In his slide show describing the private life of Algerian transsexuals in Paris the body becomes architecture and goes through a process of transformation, re-appropriation and repair. “Strangers in their own body as well as in a different culture, they build their identity by re-appropriating both fields.” “What a tough life,” I thought “and yet what courage and determination”.

Collages of urban landscapes juxtaposing Corbusier utopian modern architecture, which was the model for the project housing in the banlieues with images of a local population mostly from African descent were particularly fascinating.

Why do I find this theme so fascinating, you might ask. Born to a Bulgarian father who left after the arrival of the Soviets in Bulgaria and an American mother, I was raised in France and am now living in New York. I relate to some of the issues. I am a hybrid myself as is my heritage.

In Paris I was pleasantly surprised to see that Africa was getting plenty of attention. The periodical “ Le Point” had dedicated a large portion of its August issue to Africa highlighting its record growth, successes, and hopes and for once not its tragedies. It was a nice change because we know that what you give attention to, grows.  There is lots of interests in the continent these days: In July, Hillary Clinton traversed the African continent emphasizing America’s new found interest in its development. It did seem a bit motivated by a competitive spirit with China though!

Furthermore, African artists or from the Diaspora were very well represented at the Contemporary art Triennial at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris. I was in Paris to spend some time with my mother who has Alzheimer’s. I had some trepidation about being in Paris beginning of August with all French people gone on vacation and local shops closed! Well, it turned out there was no time for intellectual apathy, the Trienniale kept me plenty busy! That will be the subject of my next post.