At Art Paris African art galleries from Europe and the African continent showed their new works:

Artist Billie Zangewa with her beautiful hand sown collage  at South African gallery ArtNova. Getting pretty pricey! She has been showing her work for a long time and was included in museum shows but her work had not grabbed people’s attention like this time  in Paris.  People were lining up for her work! Part of this success comes from her long relationship with her gallery.

Omar Ba from Senegal Zone de non droit, 2017. He showed at Parisian Galerie Daniel Templon. I just love his work! So uniquely his! He has developed his own unique vocabulary rooted in local imagery and mythology while contending with global issues.

Remy Samuz’s wire sculpture Maternity, 2016 from Benin showing at Galerie Vallois. I have seen other artists doing work with wire like that but this piece makes me feel like I am seeing the figures in a dream.

Tiwani gallery director Maria Varnava concentrates on her work surrounded by the large mix media canvas by  Gareth Nyandoro from Zimbabwe and  Angolan Delio Jasse’s photographic series.

Mario Macilau from Mozambique  striking photograph at Ed Cross Fine art located in London.

A superb El Anatsui was hanging at London based October gallery. I wanted to grab it and take it home. A bit expensive though!

Nigerian artist Nnenna Okore‘s wall hanging Hide at October gallery . I interviewed her several years ago and wrote a post on her which you can find on my website and I am happy to see that her work is getting more exposure.

There were a lot of good work at the October gallery. Here is the work of Alexis Peskine Wolot Cosmic, 2017. I had not seen his work before or not paid attention , I am not sure, but this time I saw three portraits by him. Dramatic images, with a chiaroscuro effect conveyed through a painterly use of  nails  (yes it sounds strange but when you get closer you see a lot of nails)and moon gold leaf. His work was also shown at the exhibition at the Parc de la Villette, “Afriques Capitales ” and at the salon Zurcher Africa at La Galerie Africaine.

I stopped in front of Gosette Lubondo‘s photograph Imaginary Trip at L’Agence a Paris. She is a young emerging artist from Kinshasa (DRC) who was included in the Kampala Biennale. What a fantastic way of conveying yearning !

Namsa Leuba‘s series Zulu Kids was shown at Art Twenty One, a Lagos exhibition space. She favors a theatrical approach with an aesthetic informed by fashion and design sensibilities. There is something highly incongruous and unsettling in seeing this child isolated on a plinth in a barren landscape and whose dress and body paint points to traditional rituals.

I liked French born and of Algerian descent Dalia Dalleas Bouzar series of portraits at Galerie Cecile Fakhoury. These portraits based on photographs of women taken during the Algerian War infused these women with a regained dignity. They had been required to take off their veil at the time to create identity cards and they had experienced this public exposure as deeply debasing. Bouzar paints them here adorned in gold.

I was very taken by the work of a young Tunisian young woman Aicha Snoussi at A.Gorgi Gallery from Tunisia. Her drawings in  Le Livre des anomalies were exquisite, at times provocative. She had bought old school note books with pages that had turned slightly yellow with age and light and drawn in each one of them a set of intricate drawings emanating from an imaginary singular universe. Each book was laid down on a shelve along the wall of the gallery. Intense, edgy, Snoussi revealed to me her unusual mind and even weird perspective, at times microscopique and at times largely spatial. She goes from creating these minute drawings to entire wall drawings. She impressed me with her unusual imagination, utter joy in the creative process and  artistic breadth.. She is a young talent that deserves to be followed.

Moving on to London, I trekked to see Ibrahim Mahama sculptural work at the White Cube gallery. While Mahama’s work has been extremely well received I have only liked it at the 2015 Venice Biennale where the stitched together cast-off  jute sacks  were draped along the pathway in the Arsenale. For once the visual effect was as compelling as the conceptual underpinning of his work. The installation was fantastic. So I arrived at White Cube with mixed feelings. I actually was pleasantly surprised. There was more variety of texture, and shape in his wall hangings. I felt compelled to look closer and discover the intricacy of the layering.

The next sculptural installation,  a precarious assemblage of thousands of small shoe boxes made from found material to which was added other repurposed items such as heels, hammers was phenomenal. Precarious but strong! It was organized chaos.  No discernible pattern could be identified, it was an endless jumble of shapes, colors, and materials exemplifying ‘Mahama’s inquiry into the life of materials and dynamic potential.’

Moving from the grand scale of Mahama’s sculpture I ended my exploration with the delightful exhibition of drawings  of South African artist Lisa Brice at Stephen Friedman gallery. All drawn in cobalt blue gouache they offered an intimate portrait of feminine power and sensuality. I had never seen her work but I left totally charmed.

By then I was “arted out ” !

A lot is happening on the Africa front. I went to Kenya for a couple of weeks this summer and spend a few days in Nairobi interviewing  a few key players and artists in an emerging East African art scene that is gaining momentum. I will report on this in my November Newsletter. In the meantime I have joined the Tate Modern African Acquisition committee so here I am off to the Netherlands and Belgium to visit several African artists studios. I will then go to London to see the third edition of the African fair 1:54. I plan to go home soon after that and not leave New York city for a bit because the jet lag is getting to me. Unfortunately I will miss the first edition of the new African Fair in Paris in November (Akaa fair) . No worries because next March at Art Paris, Africa is  the guest of honor !! I am really thrilled that African art is getting so much attention and that main stream galleries are increasingly taking African artists on. The talent is there though it may require one to open up to some new perspectives.

In the meantime here is a long list of exhibitions showing African artists in New York and London that you might want to check out if you find yourself in either city in September and October.

NEW YORK

The Expanded Subject: New Perspectives in Photographic Portraiture From Africa (Sammy Baloji, Mohamed Camara, Saidou Dicko and George Osodi).

Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Gallery, Columbia University

September 7 – December 10, 2016

 Meleko Mokgosi

Jack Shainman, 513 West 20^th Street

September 8 – October 22, 2016

 David Goldblatt

Pace/ MacGill Gallery

32 East 57^th Street

September 14 – October 29, 2016

 Recent Histories: New Photography from Africa

Walther Collection

526 West 26^th Street, Suite 718

September 22 – December 17, 2016

 Julie Mehretu

Marian Goodman

24 West 57^th Street

September 22 – October 29, 2016

LONDON

Samson Kambalu

Kate MacGArry

27 Old Nichol Street, E2 7HR

September 9 – October 15, 2016

 Lynette Yiadom-Boakye

Corvi-Mora

1A Kempsford road, SE11 4NU

September 9, 2016 onwards

Virginia Chihota

Tiwani Contemporary

16 Little Portland Street W1W8BP

September 16 to October 29, 2016

William Kentridge

Whitechapel Gallery

77-82 Whitechapel High Street, E1 7QX

September 21, 2016 to January 15, 2017

 Yinka Shonibare

Stephen Friedman

25-28 Burlington Street, W1S3AN

September 28 to November 5,2016

Njideka Akunyili-Cosby

Victoria Miro

16 Wharf Road, N1 7RW

October 4- November 5, 2016

 Emo de Medeiros

50 Goborne

50 Golborne Road, W10 5PR

October 5 –November 20, 2016

 Romuald Hazoume

October Gallery

25 Old Gloucester Street, WC1N3AL

October 7 to November 26, 2016

Joel Andrianomearisoa

Tyburn Gallery

26 Barrett St, W1U

October 4 – December 23, 2016