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The stranger is now next door.

The global aspect of contemporary art and the impact of new waves of migrations are definitely on curators’ mind in Europe this summer. Indeed, The Triennial at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris probes the way in which artists react to the challenges of a multi-cultural society. I found again at the Triennial exhibition Intense Proximity the notion of the hybrid, which I had encountered in the work of Kader Attia in Documenta 13.

The Nigerian-born American director of the Haus der Kunst in Munich, Okwi Enwesor,  is the curator of the Triennial.  His point of departure is the ethnographic practice, which he sees as the beginning of the interest in the other. Traditionally, the other was generally located far away on a different continent. However, the distance has now collapsed and the other is now the stranger next door.  It is this experience of co-habitation, that intense proximity and how it is negotiated that is the focus of this show. In other words, ethnography starts at home.

The Marriage Room by Meschac Gaba, which was situated at the beginning of the exhibition, is a perfect illustration of the theme.  An autobiographical work, it includes images of Meschac Gaba’s wedding ceremony with his Dutch wife, her wedding gown and shoes, and a large selection of ordinary objects used by the couple in their daily life which are arranged on tables. The approach is clearly anthropological in the classification process of everyday objects. The juxtaposition of his and hers artifacts which are each linked to their respective origins addresses this idea of proximity.  “Cross-pollination” is one of the effects of this co-habitation.  

This room is part of a bigger project, the Museum of African Contemporary Art that Meschac Gaba has been working on for the last decade. His mobile museum, which in addition to a collection selection includes a museum restaurant, a playroom, and a library, has been touring for the last 8 years.  The whole idea seems so inventive and gutsy I was quite impressed. I liked also the nomadic aspect.

I found the fair quite fascinating and saw lots of good art despite the fact that the underlying premise was not always evident throughout the selection. This was a huge exhibition set in the newly renovated Palais de Tokyo, which felt like a labyrinth at times. As I went down from one floor to another I discovered a succession of cavernous spaces with video projections and installations, which contributed to a feeling of continuous discovery.

Wangechi Mutu’s video installation Suspended Play Time, 2012 in the cavernous lower level of the museum was for me the most striking and provocative piece of the whole exhibition. I am more familiar with her collages, which highlight the hybrid construct of contemporary cultural identity.

The video was projected on an arrangement of white sheets of paper set on the floor in a cave-like setting shaped out of grey felt against which balls made of recycled garbage bags and twine hung like ornaments. Mutu favors organic settings as opposed to the aseptic white cube of the gallery and museum space. The black and white video showed a black woman with long hair sitting with her legs apart proceeding to dig her hands into the cake, slowly eat it, and lick the chocolate cake off her fingers. Eventually she stood up and trampled and squished the cake with her fancy high heels. The video ended with a shot of her washing her hands in the river.

I walked in the middle of the video so it was unclear to me what she was eating. Was it mud or chocolate? Was I going to walk away responding to the part of me that was grossed out and or was I going to hang in there and embrace all my associations and fantasies (let me tell you they were of all sorts!). I stayed and saw it twice.  What was this piece about? Was it about gluttony as a metaphor for our consumerist society, and a critique of the ideal contemporary emaciated female who cannot embrace her pleasure and must conform to a Western norm of beauty? I am not sure, but those were some of my associations. Her lack of inhibition was certainly inspiring in a funny sort of a way.

I loved Marcia Kure’s exquisite watercolors that are becoming more abstract and anthropomorphic, and Nicholas Hlobo’s drawings on canvas made with silk ribbons and rubber.

El Anatsui’s new sprawling sculpture was stunning and surprisingly laid down on the floor. Usually his sculptures become wall hangings.

I am off to South Africa: Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town and will be back with lots of news.

New work by Okwui Okpokwasili and Nora Chipaumire.

Friday night at St Marks Church in New York city, Danspace, in the context of Platform 2012 curated by Ishmael Houston- Jones, presented the powerful performances of two highly accomplished performers and Bessie award-winners: Okwui Okpokwasili, a second generation African American from the Bronx – her parents come from Nigeria – and the Zimbabwean Nora Chipaumire who lives now in the US.  Both have a long list of outstanding credentials but it was their performance that totally impressed me.  They each created and performed their own piece.

In Bronx Gothic, blending song, movement, and narration Okwui explored with a mix of provocation and humor the state of mind of a younger self, a teenage black girl discovering what sex is about.  Her long and lithe body set against a white draped backdrop shook and trembled continuously.  An internal earthquake seemed to be dictating her movements, and I found myself mesmerized by her amazingly long fingers and limbs jutting out erratically.

In The Last Heifer – heifer meaning young female cow, slut or fat cow etc – Nora Chipaumire presented herself to the contrary as eminently sculptural and powerful. She moved to the sound of traditional African music in slow motion through a sequence of  movements that repeated itself. Dressed in a Jean Paul Gautier like outfit, which exposed her breasts, she appeared in total control of every inch of her body asking us to take in each and every move. The tension was unbelievable.

As it was made clear after the show during a talk moderated by Wangechi Mutu, a renowned visual artist from Kenya,  Okwui Okpokwasili and Nora Chipaumire were both in each their unique way defying the strict rules of propriety dictated in their childhood home: one through the use of crude and explicit language and the other through the exposure of her breasts. However, it is their different experience with their African heritage that mostly informed their work and explained their different approach to the body in these two pieces. Okwui is perceived as African in New York and as American in Nigeria and she is keen to explore in her work the instability of that “in between” place.  By the way I can relate to that feeling since I am always a foreigner wherever I am. On the contrary, Nora is firmly grounded in her African identity having been raised and schooled in Zimbabwe. She is focused on issues of power and the political. She got that point across in a visceral way and I found myself rather hypnotized by her.   I always envy the confidence of the one who has such clear sense of identity and yet there is  a richness of potential in that indeterminate space which Okwui so poetically conveyed.

They are working together on a project commissioned by BAM for the fall and it promises to be fascinating. I am going for sure!