Contemporary African art


Contemporary African art is commonly understood to be art made by artists in Africa and the African diaspora in the post-independence era. However, there are about as many understandings of contemporary African art as there are curators, scholars and artists working in that field. All three terms of this "wide-reaching non-category " are problematic in themselves: What exactly is "contemporary", what makes art "African", and when are we talking about art and not any other kind of creative expression? Western scholars and curators have made numerous attempts at defining contemporary African art in the 1990s and early 2000s and proposed a range of categories and genres. They triggered heated debates and controversies especially on the foundations of postcolonial critique. Recent trends indicate a far more relaxed engagement with definitions and identity ascriptions. The global presence and entanglement of Africa and its contemporary artists have become a widely acknowledged fact that still requires and provokes critical reflection, but finds itself beyond the pressure of self-justification.

Scope

Although African art has always been contemporary to its producers, the term "contemporary African art" implies a particular kind of art that has conquered, or, as some would say, has been absorbed by the international art world and art market since the 1980s. It is in that decade when Europe and the United States became aware of art made in Africa by individual artists, thus breaking with the colonial tradition of assuming collective "ethnic" origins of so-called "tribal art" as found in most ethnographic collections. The exhibition Magiciens de la terre by Jean-Hubert Martin in 1989 is widely considered a key exhibition in this very recent history of international reception of African and other non-western art. However, this reception, too, has its roots in an exotic and mystifying view on African culture from a dominant western position, as Rasheed Araeen argued in his response to Magiciens de la terre.
Therefore, although this exhibition and many that followed had a strong influence in creating a kind of a common understanding of what constitutes contemporary African art, it is true that it has been and still is subject to discussions and controversies. Almost every exhibition following Magiciens de la terre offered a taxonomy or system of categorization that helped to reflect the very notion of contemporary African art, but they failed to recognize the postcolonial need of giving up the Eurocentric epistemology.
Contemporary African art is believed to feature particularities typical to African aesthetics while at the same time it shares properties with other international contemporary arts. Therefore, it is both, shaped by and feeding into the globalizing art worlds and art markets, like any other contemporary arts. At the same time, there are a lot of contemporary art practices and forms in African regions and cities that are almost exclusively locally known. While meeting all three requirements of being contemporary, art, and African, they fail to fit into a certain type of art production that has been spreading on the international art market in the last 30 years.
Exhibitions variously showed work by artists based in Africa; by artists using aesthetics typical to African traditions; by African artists living in the West but including aesthetics and topics related to their "roots"; traditional artworks related to customary practices such as rituals; and urban African art that reflects the modern experience of cultural pluralism and hybridity. Modernity as a colonial and postcolonial experience appears as an intrinsic and significant attribute in most conceptions of contemporary African art. Scholars and curators therefore have proposed a wide range of taxonomies that tried firstly to define what is African about this art, and secondly, the range of genres it covers. Diverse attempts to define particular genres of contemporary African art however mirrored the fascination of art scholars and curators for the appropriation of cultural elements assumed "Western" into "African" modes of expression and traditions. One example is Marshall W. Mount who proposed four categories: first, "survivals of traditional styles", which show continuities in traditional working material and methods such as bronze casting or wood carving; secondly, art inspired by Christian missions; thirdly, souvenir art in the sense of tourist or airport art as defined later by Jules-Rossette; and finally, an emerging art requiring "techniques that were unknown or rare in traditional African art". Valentin Y. Mudimbe in turn proposes to think of three currents rather than categories, namely a "tradition-inspired" one, a "modernist" trend, and "a popular art" whereby Mount’s categories would be situated somewhere "between the tradition-inspired and the modernist trend”. Similar to other categorizations, this proposal considers the education of the artists as well as the envisaged clientele/patrons as important factors for the respective "currents". In the exhibition catalogue of Africa Explores, curator Susan Vogel distinguished between "traditional art", "new functional art", "urban art", "international art", and "extinct art". Rejecting these categories, collector André Magnin proposed to group similar works into sections named "territory", "frontier" and "world" in his survey book Contemporary African Art, thus placing them into "imaginary maps". However, this approach was also criticized by Dele Jegede with convincing arguments against its ethnocentric perspective. Among other things, he pointed to the hubris of attempts to talk about art of a whole continent, but also to the common reflex to exclude Northern Africa in such considerations and to follow a global rather than "particularistic focus on the study of the art of the continent" that would provide more specific and deeper bodies of knowledge. In the 1990 exhibition Contemporary African Artists: Changing Tradition, the Studio Museum in Harlem tried to take the perspective of the presented artists and distinguished between African artists who refuse outside influences; African artists who adopt modes of Western art; and African artists who fuse both strategies.
A commonality to all these categorizations is their reliance on dichotomies between art and craft, Europe and Africa, urban and rural, and traditional and contemporary. These dichotomies tend to consider mutual influences in African and European art as an exception rather than the norm. Even more, they fail to think of African art independent from Europe as its counterpart or "influence", resulting in a frequent reproach of African artists "copycatting" or "mimicking" European achievements of modernism. Such Eurocentric attitudes have been revealingly criticized by theorists such as Olu Oguibe, Rasheed Araeen, Nkiru Nzegwu, Okwui Enwezor or Salah Hassan. This problem is not easy to solve, and in some cases it is tackled by simply subverting any attempt of categorization. Seven Stories about Modern Art in Africa, directed by Clémentine Deliss and curated by Chika Okeke-Agulu, Salah Hassan, David Koloane, Wanjiku Nyachae and El Hadji Sy is a case in point. Rather than grafting binary taxonomies, it narrated seven modern art histories in different parts of Africa by invited curators and artists who were familiar with these recent histories and their respective art scenes. The exhibition proved to offer a highly complex, historically informed and well-researched presentation. Another example for subverting binary taxonomies is the book Contemporary African Art after 1980 by Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu. Rather than putting contemporary African art in relation to Western traditions, they contrast it with modern African art, in that it defies linear grand narratives of modernism and is radically postcolonial. "irst, within categories of time, it is neither belated nor does it exist out of time; second, because it is post-historical, it did not emerge out of a succession of historical styles; third, because it is critical of colonial valorization of an authentic past, it is postcolonial; and fourth, in relation to its post-colonialism, it seeks, according to Hans Belting’s thesis, to be post-ethnic . Neither being out of time nor belated, contemporary African art strategically inhabits a third epistemological space by being in time." As they add, this being "fundamentally of its time" counts for all contemporary art, not only the African. In their book, Enwezor and Okeke-Agulu discuss contemporary African art by its approaches and guiding topics rather than trying to define categories on the basis of styles, markets or traditions. Their chapters therefore are designated as "Between postcolonial utopia and postcolonial realism", "Networks of practice" in the globalized field of cultural production, "Politics, culture and critique", "Archive, document, memory", "Abstraction, figuration and subjectivity" and "The body politic: difference, gender, sexuality". Doing so, they locate contemporary African art within a historical perspective, something that had largely missed in previous discussions.

Exhibitions

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1990
, on display at the British Museum.
  • Lotte or the Transformation of the Art Object, & Accademia d'Arte, Vienna, 1990. Curated by Clémentine Deliss.
  • Art from the Frontline: Contemporary Art from South Africa, Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, Tanzanian, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Frontline States, London: Karia Press, 1990. Curated by Peter Sinclair and Emma Wallace, Glasgow Art Gallery and Museum.
  • Contemporary African Artists: Changing Traditions, El Anatsui, Youssouf Bath, Ablade Glover, Tapfuma Gutsa, Rosemary Karuga, Souleymane Keita, Nicholas Mukomberanwa, Henry Munyaradzi, Bruce Onobrakpeya, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, 1990. Curated by Grace Stanislaus, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York.
  • Wegzeichen: Kunst aus Ostafrika 1974–89 , Museum für Völkerkunde, Frankfurt-am-Main, 1990. Curated by Johanna Agthe.
1991
  • Africa Explores: 20th Century African Art, Center for African Art, New York / Prestel-Verlag, Munich, 1991. Curated by Susan Vogel in collaboration with Ima Ebong, The Centre for African Arts, New York ; University Art Museum di Berkeley; Dallas Museum of Art; Saint Louis Art Museum; Mint Museum of Art di Charlotte; The Carnegie Museum of Art di Pittsburgh; The Corcoran Gallery of Art di Washington D.C.; The Center for Fine Arts di Miami; Lüdwig; Forum für Internationale Kunst di Aachen, Germany ; Fundació Antoni Tàpies di Barcellona ; Espace Lyonnais d'Art Contemporain di Lyon ; Tate Gallery, Liverpool.
  • Africa Hoy/Africa Now: Jean Pigozzi Collection. Curated by André Magnin, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria ; Groninger Museum, Groningen, Olanda, Centro Cultural de Arte Contemporaneo, Mexico City ; Out of Africa, Saatchi Gallery, London, 1993.
  • Art and Ambiguity: Prospectives on the Brenthurst Collection of Southern African Art, Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, 1991.
  • Mit Pinsel und Meissel, Zeitgenössische afrikanische Kunst , Museum für Volkerkunde, Frankfurt am Main, 1991. Curated by Joanna Agthe and Christina Mundt, Museum für Völkerkunde, Frankfurt am Main.
  • A Grain of Wheat. Curated by Leroi Coubagy, Commonwealth Institute, London. In sostegno ai programmi dell'UNICEF.
  • Il Sud del Mondo: L'altra arte contemporanea, Mazzotta, Milano, 1991. Curated by Pierre Gaudibert and Wijdan Ali, Galleria civica d'arte contemporanea "Francesco Pizzo", Marsala.
  • Contemporary Bushmen art of Southern Africa, Kuru Cultural Project, Botswana, 1991. Curated by Kuru Cultural Project of D'Kar, Botswana in collaboration with Namibian Arts Association.
  • Desplazamientos, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain.
  • Transmission, Rooseum, Malmö, Svezia.
1992
  • The Jean Pigozzi Contemporary African Art Collection at the Saatchi Collection, The Saatchi Gallery, London, 1992.
  • Home and the World: Architectural Sculpture by Two Contemporary African Artists, The Museum for African Art, Collana Focus on African Art, New York, 1992.
  • La naissance de la peinture contemporaine en Afrique centrale, 1930–70, Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrele, Tervuren, 1992. Musée Royal de l'Afrique Centrele, Tervuren, Bruxelles.
  • Paris Connections: African and Caribbean Artists in Paris, Asake Bomani and Belvie Rooks, San Francisco: Q.E.D. Press, 1992, 56 pp.
1993
  • Fusion: West African Artists at the Venice Biennale, Museum for African Art, New York, 1993. Curated by Thomas McEvilly and Susan Vogel, all'interno della Biennale di Venezia, 1993.
  • La grande vérité, les astres africains, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nantes, Nantes, 1993. Curated by Henry-Claude Cousseau, André Magnin, Jonas Storsve.
  • Creative Impulses/Modern Expressions-Four African Artists: Skunder Boghossin, Rashid Diab, Mohammed Omer Khalil, Amir Nour, African Studies and Research Center, Institute for African Development, Council for the Creative and Performing Arts, Cornell University, Ithaca, 1993. Curated by Salah Hassan.
1994
  • Seen/Unseen. Curated by Olu Oguibe, Bluecoat Gallery, Liverpool
  • F.R.A.C. Réunion, Lieux De Mémoire, Curated by Antonio Picariello, artisti: Jack Beng-Thi, Michael Elma, Alain Padeau, Eric Pongérard, Edouard Rajaona, Alì M'roivili dit Napalo, Malla Chummun Raymyead.
  • Otro Païs: Escalas Africanas, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Les Palmas de Gran Canaria, 1994. Curated by Simon Njami e Joëlle Busca, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria ; Palma de Mallorca Fundacion "La Caixa".
  • Rencontres Africaines: Exposition d'Art Actuel, Institute du Monde Arabe, Paris, 1994. Curated by Brahim Alaoui and Jean-Hubert Martin, Paris, Institut du Monde Arabe.
  • Around and Around. Curated by Peter Herrmann and Achim Kubinski, Galerie Peter Herrmann, Stuttgart ; Douala ; Berlin ; Stuttgart.
1995
  • Black Looks, White Masks, Ministerio de Asuntos Exterioires, Tabapress, Madrid, 1995. Curated by Octavio Zaya and Tumelo Mosaka.
  • Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa, Flammarion, New York, 1995. Curated by Clémentine Deliss and Salah Hassan, David Koloane, Catherine Lampert, Chika Okeke-Agulu, El Hadji Sy, Wanjiku Nyachae, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, in the frame of Africa95; Malmö, Svezia.
  • Vital: Three Contemporary African Artists . Tate Gallery Liverpool, Liverpool, 1995, all'interno di Africa95.
  • Big City: Artists from Africa, Serpentine Gallery, London, 1995. Curated by Jean Pigozzi and Julia Peyton-Jones, all'intero di Africa95.
  • An Inside Story: African Art of Our Time, edited by Yukiya Kawaguchi, The Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan Association of Art Museums, Tokyo, 1995. Curated by Yukiya Kawaguchi, Setagaya Art Museum, Tokyo ; Tokushima Modern Art Museum ; Himeji City Museum of Art ; Koriyama City Museum of Art ; Genichiro Museum of Contemporary Art, Marugame Inokuma ; Museum of Fine Arts, Gifu.
  • Sign Traces Calligraphy: Five contemporary artists from North Africa. Curated by Rose Issa, London-Barbican Centre/Amsterdam-Treoenmuseum Kit, 1995.
  • Persons and Pictures: the Modernist Eye in Africa, Newtown Galleries, Newtown, Johannesburg, 1995. Newtown Galleries, Newtown, Johannesburg.
  • New Visions: Recent Works by Six African Artists, edited by Salah Hassan and Okwui Enwezor, Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts, Eatonville, 1995. Curated by Salah Hassan and Okwui Enwezor.
1996
  • Archetyp'Art Italia-Africa, Premio Termoli 1996, curated by Antonio Picariello, Electa Na, 1996. Artisti: Mimmo Paladino, Massimo Pulini, Gilberto Zorio, Santolo De Luca, Roberto Nottoli, Roberto Lucca Taroni, Ngwenya Valente Malangatana, Mickael Elma, Alain Padeau, Thierry Fontaine, Alim'Roivili dit Napalo, Sandile Zulu.
  • Colours: Kunst aus Südafrika, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 1996.
  • In/Sight: African Photographers: 1940 to the Present, Solomon Guggenheim, 1996. Curated by Okwui Enwezor, Octavio Zaya, Clare Bell and Danielle Tilkin, Guggenheim Museum.
  • Neue Kunst aus Afrika, Edition Braus, Heidelberg, 1996. Curated by Alfons Hug, Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin, 1996.
  • Die Andere Reise: Afrika und die Diaspora, Holzhausen, Vienne, 1996.
  • Gendered Visions: The Art of Contemporary Africana Women Artists, edited by Salah Hassan, Africa World Press, 1997. Curated by Salah Hassan.
  • Africana, Sala 1, Roma and Adriano Parise Editore, Verona, 1996. A cura Francesca Capriccioli, Sala 1, Roma. Artisti partecipanti: El Anatsui, Theo Eshetu, Fathi Hassan, Ali Kichou, Bertina Lopes, Kivuthi Mbuno, Kwesi O. Owusu-Ankomah, Hadjira Preure, Twins Seven Seven, Panga Wa Panga, George Zogo. Testi in catalogo: Mary Angela Schroth, Gianni Baiocchi, Olu Oguibe.
1997
  • Veilleurs de Monde: Gbedji Kpontolè – Une aventure béninoise, Editions CQFD, Paris, 1998. Exhibition and residency project, Centre Culturel Français du Benin.
  • Die Anderen Modernen: Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Afrika, Asien und Lateinamerika, Editions Braus & Hauses der Kulturen des Welt, Berlin, 1997. Curated by Alfons Hug, Hauses der Kulturen des Welt, Berlin.
  • Cross/ing: Time | Space | Movement. Curated by Olu Oguibe, University of South Florida, Tampa ; Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica ; Indianapolis.
  • Modernities & Memories. Curated by Brahim Alaoui, Pia Alisjahbana, Suhail Bisharat, Clifford Chanin, Salima Hashmi, Salah Hassan, Hasan-Uddin Khan, Beral Madra, Toeti Heraty Noerhadi, A. D. Pirous, Zenobio Institute, in contemporanea con la XLVII Biennale di Venezia, 1997.
  • Suites Africaines. Curated by Revue Noire, Couvent des Cordeliers, Paris.
  • Lumière noire: Art contemporain, Château de Tanlay-Yonne, Yonne, Francia, 1997. Curated by Michel Nuridsany, Centre d'Art de Tanlay, Yonne.
  • Image and Form: Prints, Drawings and Sculpture from Southern Africa and Nigeria, John Picton, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, London, 1997. Curated by Robert Loder, Lisa Muncke, John Picton.
  • Transforming the Crown: African, Asian and Caribbean artistis in Britain, 1966–1996, edited by Franklin Sirmans and Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd, the Caribbean Cultural Center/African Diaspora, New York, 1997.
  • Inklusion: Exklusion. Kunst im Zeitalter von Postkolonialismus und globale Migration, Köln, Germany, 1997.
1998
  • Africa Africa: Vibrant New Art from a Dynamic Continent. Curated by Rajae Benchemsi, Rob Burnet, Yacouba Konaté, Toshio Shimizu, Jean-Hubert Martin, Tobu Museum of Art, Tokyo.
  • Body & Soul. Curated by Anke van der Laan, Stadsgalerij Heerlen, Olanda.
  • Transatlantico. Curated by Octavio Zaya, Centro Atlantico de Arte Moderno, Les Palmas de Gran Canaria.
  • Transforming the Crown: African, Asian & Caribbean Artists in Britain 1966–1996. Curated by M. Franklin Sirmans and Mora J. Beauchamp-Byrd, New York, 1998.
  • Snap me one! Studiofotografen in Afrika, Münchner Stadtmuseum, 1998. Curated by Tobias Wendl and Heike Behrend, Münchner Stadtmuseum ; Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Iwalewa Haus, Bayreuth, Germany; National Museum for African Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington D.C., US.
1999
  • Africa by Africa: A Photographic View. Curated by the Barbican Art Gallery in collaboration with Revue Noire and Autograph, Barbican Centre, London.
  • Trafique. Curated by Piet Vanrobaeys, S.M.A.K. extra muros, Gent.
  • Contemporary African Art from the Jean Pigozzi Collection, Sotheby's, London, 1999. Asta presso Sotheby's.
  • South meets West, Berna, 2000. Curated by Bernhard Fibicher, Yacouba Konaté and Yuonre Vera, Accra ; Berna.
  • Transatlantic Dialogue: Contemporary Art In and Out of Africa. Curated by Michael D. Harris, Ackland Art Museum ; Washington D.C., Smithsonian Institution ; Chicago, DuSable Museum of African American History.
  • Tagewerke: Bilder zur Arbeit in Afrika, Museum für Völkerkunde, Frankfurt am Main, 1999. Curated by Joanna Agathe, Museum für Völkerkunde, Galerie 37, Frankfurt am Main.
  • Amabhuku|Amabhuku: Illustrations d'Afrique/Illustrations from Africa, La Joie par les Livres AJPL, Clamart, Francia, 1999. Curated by Marie Laurentin, Viviana Quiñones and Cécile Lebon, Fiera Internazionale del Libro per l'Infanzia, Bologna.
2000
2001
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2009
2010

2011
2012
2013
2014
Including: Said Afifi | Nirveda Alleck | Jude Anogwih | Younes Baba-Ali | Rehema Chachage | Saidou Dicko | Ndoye Douts | Kokou Ekouagou | Mohamed El Baz | Samba Fall | Dimitri Fagbohoun | Wanja Kimani | Nicene Kossentini | Kai Lossgott | Michele Magema | Nathalie Mba Bikoro | Victor Mutelekesha | Johan Thom | Saliou Traoré | Guy Woueté | Ezra Wube.
2020

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