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 ” !

New African Photography can be seen in Brooklyn, New York, May 7 – 15, 2016

Something that five years ago was unthinkable is happening in New York . Contemporary African photography is getting increasing exposure in New York , not just the classics but also the newest of the new.

Nataal, a new global media platform focused on contemporary African culture joined up with Red Hook Labs and curated an exhibition of New African Photography. Located next door to the African Art fair 1:54 which was held in Red Hook it was easy to go from one to the other.  Six photographers from Africa and its diaspora ( Atong Atem, Delphine Diaw Diallo, Kristin-Lee Moolman, Lakin Ogunbanwo, Namsa Leuba, Owise Abuzaid) some coming straight out of university  and others more established were gathered in this hangar expressing their singular views. There was no common theme but one could see in some of them a nod to the older generation of African photographers while adding their own very personal, imaginative spin.

Atong Atem‘s photographs are absolutely enchanting. She is a young South Sudanese artist who lives in Melbourne. She is clearly looking at West African photographic portraiture with the idea of pattern against pattern. However hers is a very hybrid image. When her friends are dressed in African clothing she sets them against a non- African floral background, and surrounds them with fake flowers in pots or they can be in jeans and she adds then African cloth to point to this in between place she lives in. A bit Sudanese and a bit Australian.  Her take is so personal, and I love this juxtaposition of styles.

Lakin Ogunbanwo lives in Lagos and is a fashion photographer as well as an artist. I have actually seen his work for awhile now in South Africa and written about him in prior blogs. I am reminded of J. D . Okhai Ojeikere views from the back, where the focus is not the face but more the hairdo. Here the focus is the hat and the way it is being worn, and what it means socially and culturally. It is its role as a signifier that is highlighted here. As Ogunbanwo says” For Nigerian men, a hat adds a sense of confidence, it’s like a personal crown.”

Namsa Leuba, half Guinean and half Swiss also has a fashion background and is particularly interested in how one constructs and deconstructs identity, in particular African identity and cultural paradigms .  Using props, and eliminating all sense of place she creates these colorful fantasies that question reality.

All these works are for sale at a very reasonable price so check it out before it closes!

We landed in Joburg at the crack of dawn after a 15 hours flight, which while long was stress free! Listening to some of the other people we met up with at Joburg who had taken at least 24 hours to get there our journey looked like a piece of cake! This was the first time I was taking my boyfriend to Joburg so I was making sure to limit the hurdles. We met up with Diane and Chuck Frankel who were there with members of the Getty photography council. Diane was introducing them to the Joburg art scene. It is good to know that the Getty is interested in exploring the work of photographers from the African continent!

The next few days were filled with art visits much of them organized by Diane.

While Joburg can seem miles away from everything some of the main galleries there are showing artists that have a worldwide presence.

We stopped at the Goodman gallery on Jan Smutts avenue to see Liza Lou’s beautiful new exhibition called Canvas. Liza Lou is a California American artist who became known for her beaded life –size replica of a suburban kitchen.  She subsequently moved to Durban, South Africa where she is producing a body of work, which is more minimalist. The surface of the “painting” is the subject of this exhibition.  Liza’s works are made solely out of beads. Local Zulu women weave bands of identical off-white beads that Liza provides for them. She then sows the bands together in a unique pattern that integrates the ruptures, pockmarks, and streaks that stain the surface of the bands and are the marks of the weavers’ lives. The resulting “canvases” inspire a quiet and meditative response much like Rothko’s dark canvases in the Rothko chapel. To fully take the effect in I had to sit down and let my eyes slowly adjust so that I could became aware of all the nuances of color in these monochromatic works. Indeed her beaded canvases call for slowing down, taking in the moment, letting things unfold gradually, and challenges one to sit with oneself. There is no big bang or wow. The beauty lies in the holding of the image and gradually feeling whole.

Her more recent work shows her loosening up her grip and letting in a tiny bit of mayhem in her structured design. I loved that piece too.

That evening David Brodie gave us a tour of Serge Alain Nitegeka show at Michael Stevenson gallery. At the entrance of the gallery I ran into Nandipha Mntambo looking FABULOUS. Wearing her hair long and braided she had totally changed style and was presenting a more feminine version of herself. Wearing muted make up, sheathed in a slim-fitting dress and perched on high heels she exuded happiness and confidence. She was just as thrilled to see Diane and I. We had not seen her since our time together last fall in San Francisco.

We then all made our way through the first room of the gallery, which had been reduced to a narrow pathway. Nitegeka had carved out the space with big black sheets of cardboard restricting our space and movements, in other words constricting our freedom. I felt constricted and aware of trying to keep my balance as I walked through the narrow path. Nitegeka considers himself a sculptor of objects and of space and is well known for his installations. However this particular exhibition Into the Black included mostly of painted wooden panels.  It was clear from the geometric forms painted on crates that space was a major concern.

The most powerful piece to me here was the triptych in the second room. Broad black diagonals defined the surface plane while also obstructing our view of the fictive space in the “painting”.  The black bands become obstacles in the path of the indeterminate figures trying to make their way through a fictive space behind the bands. I felt a sense of constrictive power as well as a feeling of struggle. At once abstract and figurative the triptych conveys in formal terms the anguish and struggle of the migrant.

A tall, handsome and elegantly dressed young man, Serge spoke to us about his work. While his concerns here are the exploration of formal and philosophical blackness he speaks also of his experience of escaping the terrible situation in Burundi and moving to South Africa and of the challenges he encountered along the way. I did not like everything I saw but the caliber of the work and his ability to convey through formal means his experience without being literal is impressive and very effective. He also shows at Marianne Boesky in the USA.

Later that evening during a casual dinner at a local haunt I had a wonderful talk with a very smart and talented young artist who works mostly with photography: Mame-Diarra Niang. I checked out her work, which is being shown this month at the Stevenson gallery in Cape Town and I liked it. Creating mostly urban landscapes Mame is expressing her dismay at how much certain places she has known in Africa while she was growing up are losing their specificity and flavor and becoming sterile.  Her views become abstract spaces and instead of transporting us into another world we are lead to look back into oneself.

On the photography front, my main focus, we met Jodi Bieber who came to talk to us at the Goodman Gallery about her work and in particular her latest series: Real Beauty and Quiet and Soweto. Real Beauty and Quiet are series of portraits of anonymous people who agreed to pose in their homes. In Real Beauty the women pose in their underwear and chose the setting. Here Jodi is challenging the media’s idea of what is real beauty by capturing on camera the pride of these multi shaped women from all age groups.

In Quiet she aims to give us an alternative view of masculinity: the men she photographs are posing in moments of vulnerability.

In Soweto she captures on her camera how life really is in the township of Soweto; not the image of a poor community riddled with violence but of a town where people from all walks of life, rich and poor, live, work and play well beyond the township’s history of struggle with apartheid. I could remember my first time in Soweto arriving with my own preconceived notion and being surprised to see the variety of housing ranging from rudimentary housing to spacious mansions with gardens.

Diane arranged for us to make a quick stop at the fashion designer Marianne Fassler’s home and shop. Marianne is a hoot and her very personal collection of South African art is an expression of her temperament: eclectic, colorful, fun, adventurous. She collects with her husband but he acknowledges that he mostly differs to her taste, as she is the creative one!

No minimalism here; instead there is a focus on crafts, imagination, color, and shapes. We left with big smiles on our faces. Her fun loving, inclusive and generous nature was such a booster!

This was a lead up to the Joburg fair, which was a bustling affair, at least the night of the opening. It was good to see a lot of youngish South African looking to buy art and being quite involved with the dealers. Portia Zvavahera was the star of the fair having won the 2014 FNB Art Prize. A young painter from Zimbabwe Portia lives in Harare and is a mother and a wife when she is not painting. Her expressionist canvases which combine textile-like printed patterns with an almost child like way of painting, are inspired by her dreams and speak of her experience with marriage, childbirth and parental love.

Her figures brightly clad are set against richly colored backgrounds. They consistently adopt postures that convey deep emotion tempered in a way by the child like way of painting, which allows us some detachment to what is being depicted and witnessed. Portia clearly loves color and I very much like the way she incorporates those decorative patterns with the otherwise loose wash.

William Kentridge was signing his latest book – 2^nd Hand Reading – at the Goodman gallery.  Each typed page has one of his many drawings printed on it. I bought a copy since I am into buying artist books these days! Much cheaper than buying an original of each!

While waiting for my book I lingered in front of Kuzanai Chiurai’s photograph called Moyo. An absolutely stunning picture it brings up in me a mix of emotion. I felt mesmerized by the deep sorrow and accusation inherent in the young woman’s gaze and deeply moved, yet the bleeding corpse made me at the same time slightly recoil. A beautiful young woman holds the bleeding body of a young man. The formal composition references the classical composition of the Pieta but here the scene is set in a lush jungle and lit by an artificial light that suggest divine lighting. This image comes from his film Moyo and makes reference to the public acts of violence and in particular the Marikana strike: the wildcat strike in the South African Leonmin mine which resulted in many workers death. The title means Air and the image captures the moment in death when the air or spirit leaves the body. He incites the viewers to mourn.

Chiurai, born and raised in Zimbabwe experienced first hand the violence of the Mugabe regime. Now living and working in South Africa his mixed media work tackles the political and social issues that concern his world.

I love this other image, which is part of a body of work called The State of the Nation. In highly theatrical and provocative images he critiques the corrupt ways African revolutionary leaders have dealt with their newfound powers. Intent in sparking a conversation with the African youth in their context he creates images that are dark and brash in their imagery and humor.

Fighting my way through the crowd – it certainly was not like that two years ago – I stopped at Brundyn + Gonsales to look at Mohau Modisakeng’s new photographs that had been part of a large installation for his debut solo exhibition “Ditaola” at Brundyn + . As with his earlier work, Mohau’s images refer to some mysterious ritual whereby he addresses his concerns with South Africa’s tortuous and violent history and current times while delving into personal memories. In this particular instance it is the memory of his mother recounting her dreams. Mohau has a penchant for the symbolic and the theatrical and in these photographs his body becomes the means by which he constructs narratives that address his personal and political concerns.

Set against a green background wearing a pleated animal skin kilt, he stands like an archetypal warrior holding a gun, a symbol of violence and a dove, symbol of peace. The dove departs spraying white dust and returns in other images. Is this a meditation on the precariousness of peace? I feel I am witnessing a mysterious ritual to which I have only small inklings.

Totally different in tenor and style, I liked also at Brundyn +, Jody Paulsen’s bright and colorful wall hangings and photographs. Paulsen is fascinated with fashion and commodity culture ie: branding, clichés in advertising. He is able to mix quite effectively African and European influences in his eclectic vision. I particularly liked his photographs of figures against patterned fabrics. While they were not portraits they certainly referenced the traditional African Studio portrait now turned into a pop version of itself and hollowed out of its original intent.

I was in the mood for fun obviously that day since my eye and mind got mesmerized with Cristina de Middel installation “The Afronauts”. A body of work that includes photographs, drawings, and sculptures, The Afronauts mixes facts and fiction to tell the story of Zambia’s 1964 space project. Cristina is a half -Spanish, half-Belgian photojournalist turned artist who got inspired by the optimism of this story. It is a refreshing antidote to the troubled image one has of the continent. Following Zambia’s independence in 1964, Edward Makuka Nkoloso, the founder and sole member of Zambia’s National Academy of Science, Space Research initiated a mission to send the first African astronauts to Mars. It came to nothing but I love that Nkoloso believed that he could and even tried! I love this capacity to dream and hope!

I had seen part of the work in Arles the previous year and was thrilled to see it again. This time I talked to the artist, and bought her book.

Walking to the bar to get my glass of rose wine I stopped in shock ( at first) when I saw two sets of couples, naked – two men and two women – each couple holding a mirror between them and moving around the mirror as if in some kind of contest. This dance Ritual Resist was choreographed by artist Kendell Geers.  ” A man and a woman engaged in the martial art of vanity. Neither can see the other and both struggle against their own reflection in a square mirror.” K-G. Why shock? Mainly because I was not expecting this. Many of us obviously were captivated abut some reason no pictures were taken or at least posted anywhere!

I was charmed by Namsa Leuba’s fashion photographs exhibited by LagosPhoto ( part of the festival).  Bright, cheeky, witty and technically brilliant her images focus on African identity perceived by Western eyes. She recontextualises African artifacts to fit a western perspective and in doing so challenges both cultures preconceived ideas of the other.

Another artist to follow is Patrick Willocq whose work was shown at the Arles Photo Festival ( Les Rencontres d’Arles). A few booths were showing his work.

Photography is an important medium in South Africa and particularly in Joburg. The famous photographer David Goldblatt started the Market Photo Workshop in 1989 and artists like Jodi Bieber made their start at the workshop. We went to visit it and met some of the young artists there. See next post.

After four days going around Joburg where one does little walking since it is so spread out I was looking forward to going on many bush walks in Zambia, our next destination. I also needed to hear the sounds of the bush. However I was not relishing a 4 am wake up call to catch a 6:30am flight to Lusaka. The rest of the group stayed in Joburg a few more days before going down to Cape Town for more art viewing.