AFRICAN ARTISTS LURE COLLECTORS, FAIL TO MAKE AUCTIONS

(Bloomberg) -- Africa is the best-kept secret in the contemporary-art market, dealers say.

Works by the artists El Anatsui and Romuald Hazoume have sold to U.S. and European museums and private collectors for as much as $450,000 at the October Gallery, London, and the Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. At auction, neither artist has fetched more than $10,000, according to Artnet, which tracks salesroom results.

``African art is still mainly a gallery-based market,'' said Elisabeth Lalouschek, artistic director of the October Gallery. ``It has yet to become part of the international auction scene.''

Works by a dozen of the continent's leading contemporary artists are on show at the gallery to coincide with publication of ``Angaza Afrika: African Art Now,'' by Chris Spring, curator of the British Museum's African galleries.

El Anatsui, a Ghanaian sculptor whose hangings made out of thousands of flattened metal bottle tops were lauded by critics at last year's Venice Biennale, is represented by a new 12 foot-wide ``cloth'' -- as his works are known -- reserved at $300,000, Lalouschek said.

The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, and the Pompidou Center, Paris, are among the museums that have bought El Anatsui cloths, according to Spring.

``I have quite a long waiting list of buyers,'' Lalouschek said. ``I get e-mailed requests every day.''

Three photographs of motorbike-riding gas-smugglers, issued in an edition of six, by Benin-based Hazoume, are priced at 3,000 pounds ($5,900) each. In 2006, the British Museum paid the October Gallery 100,000 pounds for Hazoume's slave ship installation, ``La Bouche du Roi,'' made using more than 300 black plastic gas cans, according to an annual report published in 2007 by the Art Fund.

`Big Stuff'

``It's big stuff for the right names,'' said Giles Peppiatt, director of African art at the London-based auction house Bonhams. ``But trying to develop the auction market for African contemporary art is hard work.'' Gallery prices don't automatically translate into high prices at auction, he said.

``There isn't a large enough stable of good artists, and there just isn't enough money in Africa at the moment,'' he said.

Africa has just four billionaires, according to Forbes Magazine's 2008 Rich List.

In January, the Jack Shainman Gallery in New York's Chelsea held a sell-out show of 13 bottle-top cloths by El Anatsui, priced at $125,000 to $450,000, said Claude Simard, co-owner of the gallery.

``Nobody's putting major works by El Anatsui up for auction,'' Simard said. ``It's not like the market for Indian or Chinese art. Collectors buy these works because they love them, not as an investment.''

Jumbo Work

El Anatsui will produce a new cloth for Shainman, measuring up to 30 foot wide, that will be exhibited at the Art Basel fair, previewing on June 3, he said.

``The market will develop eventually,'' Jean Pigozzi, the world's leading collector of African contemporary art, said in a telephone interview. ``But it really has to come from local collectors, or if rich African Americans start to buy this material, it could also become big.''

Pigozzi, who lives in Switzerland, said he has amassed more than 10,000 works of African contemporary art over 20 years.

``Africa is the last place the auction houses haven't got their teeth into,'' said the London-based dealer John Martin, director of the Gulf Art Fair, in a telephone interview. ``The galleries don't want to release works by the top internationally established names to the salerooms, and the people who buy these works don't need to be reassured by high auction prices.''

(Scott Reyburn writes about the art market for Bloomberg News. Any opinions expressed are his own.)

“Multiple Entries-Africa and Beyond 2001-2008”

By Rosa Maria Falvo

“…And the waters rolled on,
and what was old was new, and what was new never came to stay,
but to skim the gates of change,
forever new, forever old and new:
Once-upon-a time,
Never the same, Always at last the same…”
[Kwesi Brew, Ghanaian poet]

As this poem evokes the activities of all living beings and of all phenomena, celebrating the continuity of life throughout the past, present and future, so too does Virginia Ryan’s work, inspired by a kind of “transcultural” reflection, recall the tide of change and transformation. It captures an old world and reinvents a new one suspended between reality and illusion, as it builds on a series of experimental possibilities and projections. This exhibition represents a response to the “local life-force” of the west coast of Africa, a place of slavery and gold, which has become a focal point for transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary, linking the organic with the inorganic, and fusing borderlines of land and sea, history and culture. (more....)

WORLD PRESS CARTOON

Imigração ilegal e a UE

Cristina Sampaio - Portugal

LA BOUCHE DU ROI - ROMUALD HAZOUME AT BRITISH MUSEUM

La Bouche du Roi: an artwork by Romuald Hazoumé was created between 1997 and 2005 by Romuald Hazoumé, an artist from the Republic of Benin, West Africa. Literally translated as ‘The Mouth of the King’, the title refers to a place in Bénin from where many thousands of slaves were transported to the Americas and the Caribbean.

However, La Bouche du Roi is primarily a warning against all kinds of human greed, exploitation and enslavement, both historical and contemporary. A profound and thought-provoking artistic statement by artist Romuald Hazoumé, it is made from a combination of materials, including petrol cans, spices, and audio and visual elements, the artwork’s arrangement recalls the famous 18th-century print of the slave ship, the Brookes, which was used to great effect by Abolitionists.

A recitation of Yoruba, Mahi and Wémé names, the terrible sounds and smells of a slave ship, and a video of black market petrol-runners in modern Benin are other elements which combine to make La Bouche du Roi a truly remarkable and thought-provoking work of art in which the connections between past, present and future are made profoundly real.

Horniman Museum
5 December 2008 – 1 March 2009

LA BOUCHE DU ROI Exhibit (Quick Time)

REPORTERS SANS FRONTIERES - POUR LA LIBERTE DE LA PRESSE

LA LIBERTE DE LA PRESSE AU QUOTIDIEN

ZWELETHU MHETHWA

by Ashraf Jamal

Modus operandi:

It is the interface between the lived world and "image-making" that drives Zwelethu Mthethwa. This he achieves through photography and pastel drawing. In both mediums it is the empirical - the re-presentation of an actual event or scene - that is key. This doesn't make Mthethwa a realist however. The framing of the work is self-aware, poised, keenly attuned to the dictates of the pictorial. Hence "image-maker". For Mthethwa "traditional documentary photography treats people as subjects not as human beings". Which is why the artist's work never merely records. Rather, each element in a work is imbued with an aura, a quality that transfigures and ennobles the seen.

Artist's statement:

"I always say that the word 'artist' is not an appropriate word. Art refers to the author, to ownership, it puts you above culture. I would like to be seen as an image-maker. Art is never about one's experiences in a vacuum, but about life at large ... In South Africa we don't really have an audience that is educated in the arts. I'm trying to pull in that audience ... In my photography and pastels I try to restore respect and dignity. People present themselves in the way they want to be seen."

SELLING CIGARETTES TO NIGERIA'S CHILDREN

This is a disturbing story about British American Tobacco (BAT) and its marketing strategy on the African continent.

According to the BBC, BAT discovered that it can attract more young African buyers of its product by adjusting marketing strategy to meet their (young people's) needs. Now, there is nothing wrong with marketing one's product to target an audience of possible consumers. However, in this case, BAT allegedly targeted Nigerian and other African children as young as 11 by aggressively marketing single 'cancer sticks' to them. The company also hosted events that targeted young people despite their publicly stated commitments to the contrary. One individual even went as far as describing BAT as "the unacceptable face of British Business". . These acts by BAT are simply unconscionable and are illegal in the West, but somehow, cigarette producers manage to get away with them on the African continent.
The serious health consequences of BAT's actions are already being felt on the continent but it seems the worst is yet to come. In fact,
"[t]he World Health Organization (WHO) predicts that the number of smoking-related deaths in Africa is 100,000 a year, but that that figure is set to double in the next 20 years."
In 2007, Nigeria became the first African country to sue major cigarette manufacturers for the health problems created by their products. This was because of the growing burden of cigarette related health costs on the nation's struggling health sector. In 2006, Lagos State recorded more than nine thousand cases of tobacco-related diseases at its hospitals. The state spent over N2.7 billion treating these cases over the course of just one year. Considering this information, it is no surprise that Lagos State, and the Federal Government of Nigeria, seeks compensation. One of the tobacco companies being sued is none other than BAT.
This new information about BAT's tactics will only provide useful evidence to Nigeria's legal team. Hopefully, health administrators across the continent will also use this knowledge to create effective programs limiting the number of new cigarette smokers in their respective countries. Nigeria, and Africa in general, does not have the luxury of not stamping out cigarettes from our society. We have enough issues to deal with. Being a market for cigarette products, the resulting addiction, cancer and other related problems is not something we need to put on our plate at this point in time.

Nigerian curiosity

THEMBINKOSI GONIWE

Thembinkosi Goniwe
By Sue Williamson

'Ritual', the body of work currently being presented by Thembinkosi Goniwe at the AVA bears all the marks of work prepared for a Masters Degree at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. First of all, there is the subject matter, in which the student generally attacks an aspect of the construction of identity or gender or discrimination, a subject which will always require a number of historical and cultural references. One pictures the student hard at work in the university library researching the subject. Then, there is the student's progress through his or her chosen subject - the earlier work often seeming strained as the student grapples to make the necessary point and get going. In this phase, one can often detect signs of too-direct influences absorbed from lecturers. Then sometimes, as is evident in Goniwe's presentation, near the end there is a breakthrough, light at the end of the tunnel. The student shakes free of the restrictive earlier work and makes it clear that an artist is indeed emerging.

Goniwe's subject is Ulwaluko, the Xhosa male initiation rite in South Africa, in which a youth must be ritually circumscribed and instructed in the ways of manhood in order to be received and perceived as a man. It is a ceremony which, deeply as it is inscribed in the culture, is increasingly being questioned by those who must undergo it. As this is being written, Goniwe is in Philadelphia, preparing to deliver a paper on December 4 on the subject at a conference entitled Art in Service of Constructing Masculinity: Male Initiation in Africa. Part of Goniwe's presentation will be a video in which the artist reenacts the ritual of having the foreskin cut away from the penis, and strong will be the stomachs of the American audience if viewers do not wish to run from their seats rather than witness this moment. The video continues to show the initiate, smeared in the traditional white clay, stretching out his hands to shield his face, gazing in a small mirror, hestitantly undergoing the self doubts and fears which attend this period. It is a powerful re-enactment. Goniwe's video is not on exhibition at the AVA. Instead, blow ups of video stills impressively fill one wall in a strong display which I have little doubt will find its way on to one international exhibition or another within the next year.

On another wall at the AVA are a series of blowups of mock magazine covers, in which the initiate plays cover boy. While these seem to draw too heavily on another African artist, Ike¢ Ude¢'s Cover Girl 1994-5 series, they are nonetheless attractive pieces, well in the contemporary art mode.

Goniwe has undergone his artistic Ulwaluko. So far, so good. It will be interesting to see how he develops.

The show closes November 27

AVA, 35 Church Street
Ph: (021) 424-4348
Fax: (021) 423-2037
E-mail: avaart@iafrica.com
Website: http://www.ava.co.za)
Gallery hours: Mon - Fri, 10am - 5pm, Sat 10am - 12pm

SENI AWA CAMARA - PURE "ART BRUT"

CAMARA 2008 NEW WORKS AT THE NERART GALLERY

Born c. 1945, Bignona, Senegal
Lives and works in Bignona, Senegal

Seni Awa Camara’s outlook on life is based on revealed truths, on timeless stories, on the world of human beings and the objects that surround them, and on her status as a Ouolof woman with an obligation to unite past and present. She was raised by her mother, who was also a potter, and who taught her sculpture when she was still a child. She had two twin brothers, and all three retreated into the forests of Casamançe to obey a mysterious and divine initiation. “We were sheltered by God’s spirits, who taught us to work with clay.” Camara models clay and gives shape to stories, events, and feelings that have been dreamt, revealed, or created from fantasy. She has gathered a substantial number of her sculptures in her home which could be described as a “theater without a stage,” full of objects and human figures placed according to size—ranging from examples less than twelve inches high to those which tower at eight feet. For Camara, her figures represent the world as she sees it, with people that are, good, bad, beautiful, or ugly. All these creatures are modeled in the yard in front of her house, and fired in an open-hearth kiln.

She explains the distorted faces of her creations as a response to our indifference to our ancestors. Or when forty small monsters are clinging to a pregnant mother, it’s because we’re all fleeing from something! Before unveiling her “secrets,” she locks herself in with her talisman (an ox-horn) and everything becomes possible. Regarding art, she answers: “I am thinking, I have an idea, I am working.”
© CAAC

SENI CAMARA EXHIBITIONS
2007
Why Africa

Lingotto

Pinacoteca Giovanni e Marella Agnelli
Torino - Italy

2006

100% Africa

(October 12 2006 to February 18 2007)
The Guggenheim Bilbao

2005
Arts of Africa
Grimaldi Forum
Monaco - France

2005
African Art Now : Masterpieces from the Jean Pigozzi Collection
Museum of Fine Art Houston
Houston - USA

2001
Venice Biennale
49th International Art Exhibition
Venise - Italy.

1991-1992
Africa Hoy
Contemporary Art Cultural Center, Mexico.
Groninger Museum, Netherland.
The Atlantic Center of Modern Art, Las Palmas de Gran Canary, Spain.

1991
Senegal
Otto-Ritcher-Halle.
Galerie des Institutd Für Auslandsbeziehungen.
Landesmuseum, Oldenburger Kunstverein.

1989
Magiciens de la Terre
Georges Pompidou Center.
La Grande Halles de la Villette.
Paris, France.

NERART OPEN NEW GALLERY IN ASCONA

Contemporary paintings, sculptures, design and handcraft from Africa.

Nerart represents in the South Switzerland area the only exhibition venue specially dedicated to contemporary African arts, crafts and design. 

At Nerart, in fact, it is not only possible to get to know and buy the works of some of the most important artists of the continent, whose stature has been internationally demonstrated by important exhibitions in the world's main museums (Centre George Pompidou in Paris, Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Hayward Gallery in London, etc…), but also to get in touch with the most refined and selected range of design and crafts of the continent.

NERART ASCONA - Gallerie della Carrà

OPENING  FRIDAY 1 AUGUST 2008

Tel. +41 79 210 76 59

nerart@gmail.com

www.nerart.com

Dude, where's my Avant Car Guard?

by Ed Young

These guys are funny.

Upon first contact with the collective in question, they were in a slow process of being evicted from Dirt Contemporary, half an hour prior to their first Cape Town show's opening. This is not to suggest that these boys are necessarily young reprobates, it might have had something more to do with the fact that curator Rory Palmer had not paid the rent for a couple of months and trashed the space a little bit during the previous exhibition. I lent a hand.

Palmer ended up in prison.

But this particular incident did not really buffer the car guards. They proceeded to produce a really kick-ass publication called Volume I (I am still waiting for my complimentary copy). In their attempt to launch it at Bell-Roberts Gallery, in a sort of rock star type signing session, the fans did not arrive. It was called: Skakel Oor na die Donkerkant.

But, this was not enough to get the collective down. Despite the lack of interest and the disgust, they pushed on and developed the Africa Biennale 2008, after 'having secured both operational support and project funding from the World Art and Corporate Entities', comfortably accepting Africa's fate as a country. They are currently calling for submissions.

Other projects include Volume II, which was launched at The Pure Project, in New York City, as well as contributions to One Million and Forty-Four Years (and sixty three days), a book by Kathryn Smith on the ever-lonely avant-garde. They also launched Volume I at David Krut Projects recently.

Avant Car Guard is Zander Blom, Jan-Henri Booyens and Michael MacGarry, and although it is a extremely self-referential and a bit of a circular navel-gaze, this project is a refreshing undertaking in contrast with the stodginess that characterises much contemporary South African art. They are currently in residence in the ArtHeat ProjectSpace.

ROMUALD HAZOUME - "DREAM" DOCUMENTA12 KASSEL

«Damned if they leave and damned if they stay: better, at least, to have gone, and be doomed in the boat of their dreams»

For documenta 12, Hazoumé has installed a new art work: Dream (2007), a boat which is made of black oil cans is just in front of a picture showing an idyllic beach. But the people are forced to leave their homeland. They flee to where everything is supposedly better. But Hazoumé wishes to stay. The oil cans represent the passengers who travel in such boats. Even individual signatures are legible. Here Hazoumé stakes a claim to universal validity, no matter how corrupt African countries may be.

Currently showing at documenta 12 in Kassel, Germany, Romuald Hazoumé is one of Africa's leading visual artists. He has worked with many media throughout his career, from discarded petrol canisters, oil paint and canvas, to large-scale installation, video and photography.

Romuald Hazoumé was born in 1962 in Porto Novo, Republic of Benin, and now lives in Cotonou and works in Porto Novo. His work has won widespread critical acclaim, and he has recently exhibited his major installation "La Bouche du Roi, a re-creation of a slave ship made from petrol canisters, in solo shows at the British Museum, London, the Menil Collection, Houston, the Musée Quai Branly, Paris, and participated in the exhibitions "100% Afrique" at the Guggenheim Bilbao and in "Uncomfortable Truths", an exhibitions which addresses the ways in which the legacy of slavery informs contemporary art and design, at the Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Arnold-Bode-Preis für Romuald Hazoumé

©Photo: Haupt&Binder

CANNIBALE

Manufacture (La)
2 rue des écoles, 84000 Avignon, France
tel. 04 90 86 30 78 - 04 90 85 12 71


Cannibale
Le roman de Didier Daeninckx porté à la scène.
1931, se tient à Paris la dernière Exposition Coloniale. Le zoo de Vincennes est alors inauguré. Au jardin d'acclimatation, un groupe de Kanak, censé montrer la culture de Nouvelle Calédonie, est parqué dans un enclos entre les lions et les crocodiles. Munis de la pancarte "Cannibales authentiques", ils représentent le sauvage.
2008, où en sommes-nous, nous les civilisés ?
Avec le rythme d'un polar, Didier Daeninckx nous entraîne dans la Mémoire et sur les pas de Gocéné...

Compagnie Le Porte Plume
Conception et interprétation : Sylvie Malissard
Complicité artistique : Laurence Campet
Création lumière et son : Emmanuel Faivre
Régie générale : Jean-Claude Champanay

Compagnie Le Porte Plume. Coproduction Théâtre de l'Espace, scène nationale de Besançon. Avec l'aide de la DRAC Franche-Comté, du Conseil Régional de Franche-Comté et du Conseil Général du Jura. Avec le soutien de la LDH et de la FOL 39 réseau Côté Cour.

WILLIAM KENTRIDGE

William Kentridge

Né en 1955 à Johhanesburg, Afrique du Sud 

Vit et travaille à Johannesburg 

Figure tutélaire de la scène artistique sud-africaine, jouissant d'une reconnaissance internationale. Ses dessins charbonneux l'ont rendu célèbre, il les décline en film d'animation ou en collaboration avec le théâtre. Artiste multimédia, il chronique de manière abstraite la violence d'un pays en mutation. 

JLE 

William Kentridge a suivi des études de sciences politiques avant de se tourner vers l'art. Il a appris la gravure, le mime et le théâtre, mais c'est surtout avec ses films d'animation qu'il a acquis une renommée internationale. Son travail combine le savoir-faire d'un artiste qui est aussi acteur, metteur en scène, scénographe et réalisateur. Toutefois Kentridge se définit avant tout comme dessinateur. 

Les possibilités du dessin, il les a découvertes en observant le travail de Feni Dumile (né vers 1939 - 1991), qu'il rencontre alors qu'il est adolescent dans les ateliers de Bill Ainslie. 

Kentridge a élaboré une technique bien particulière. Il dessine toutes les scènes, les filme, puis les efface et répète ce processus jusqu'à l'issue du récit. Chaque dessin porte la trace de ce qui a été, donnant à l'image une qualité brute qui n'est pas sans lien avec l'histoire sud-africaine. C'est le cas de Ubu Tells the Truth (1997), avec son enchaînement d'images brusques et saccadées sur une bande sonore vive et dramatique. Kentridge côtoie le personnage d'Alfred Jarry dès 1975 au théâtre. Il le reprend en 1996 avec Deborah Bell et Robert Hodgins, puis avec la Handspring Puppet Company en 1997, au moment où s'ouvre la commission "Vérité et Réconciliation". 

Comme dans beaucoup de ses travaux, cette vidéo porte un message politique mais sa position n'est pas définie. Le drame sud-africain, la brutalité et le chaos sont mis en scène dela même manière que l'exercice de réconciliation a mêlé aveux, pardons et rancunes. 

Source : Africa Remix - Ed. Centre Georges Pompidou & TV5

SALON D'ART CONTEMPORAIN AFRICAIN - BRUXELLES

Pierre Bergé & associés
Grand Sablon 40
B-1000 Bruxelles
T.+ 32 (0)2 504 80 30
F.+ 32 (0) 513 21 65

Philippe Lichtfus (créateur de l’événement - www.philippe-lichtfus.com) et Ivana Morozoff (www.galeriemorozoff.com) ont uni leur esprit d’entreprise pour nous présenter cet été la seconde édition du Salon d’art contemporain africain dans le prestigieux espace de Pierre Bergé & associés au Sablon. 

Au rendez-vous, 40 artistes internationaux sélectionnés par deux experts – commissaires dans ce domaine : Olivier Sultan - directeur du musée des Arts Derniers, Galerie d’art contemporain africain à Paris et commissaire d’expositions. 

Sandra Delvaux Agbessi - commissaire indépendante et directrice de Fine Art Studio, également co-commissaire dans le cadre de l’exposition Black Paris Black Bruxelles présentée au Musée d’Ixelles en mars - avril 2008. 

Au cours de ces dernières années, l’art contemporain africain a pris son essor et ses marques sur la scène internationale. Reconnu par les professionnels et les initiés (Biennale de Venise, Guggenheim Museum (NY), Hayward Gallery, Fondation Cartier, Mori Art Museum, prix photographie Hasselblad, ...), il reste une découverte pour les collectionneurs et amateurs d’art contemporain. 

Pour ce salon, les artistes sélectionnés jouissent d’une identité culturelle riche et variée. Principalement issus du continent Africain, ils sont dispersés à travers le monde. Ils vivent et travaillent en Afrique (Dakar, Harare, Cotonou, Johannesburg, ...), en Europe (Paris, Bruxelles, Berne, ...) et aux Etats-Unis. 

Le regard observateur de leur Histoire, métissée à la culture occidentale, cette double culture, nous ouvre de nouvelles portes sur l’art contemporain, stimule notre réflexion sur le monde contemporain et la représentation qu’on s’en fait. 

L’investigation historique entreprise par ces artistes, se traduit en diverses touches personnelles. Ils nous sensibiliseront par leur humour ou leur ironie, par leur originalité ou par la simplicité poétique des formes et des matières, par leur révolte contre les agressions faites à l’environnement... 

Pour commencer ces vacances d’été, ce salon d’art contemporain animera l’espace de Pierre Bergé & associés au Sablon dans un esprit chaleureux et rythmé tellement propre à la culture africaine.

BARTHELEMY TOGUO

Barthélémy Toguo was born in 1967 in Cameroon. In 1993 after studying at the School of Art, Abidjan, Ivory Coast he moved to Europe and began exhibiting and performing while finishing his studies at the Higher School of Art, Grenoble (France) and Kunstakademie of Dusseldorf (Germany). He currently lives and works between New York, Bandjoun (Cameroon) and Paris. Toguo has founded the Bandjoun Station Art Centre, Banjdoun to allow international artists from all disciplines to develop their work in collaboration with local communities.

ROBIN RHODE MODUS OPERANDI

Robin Rhode
By Kathryn Smith

Modus operandi:

For this self proclaimed "working-class bushie artist", the first two years of art school were living hell - until he read an article in Frieze magazine featuring the work of Kendell Geers, Stephen Hobbs and Wayne Barker. Feeling a true kinship with Geers' aesthetic terrorism, and recognising the work to be part of his life experience to a point where he felt he 'owned' the work mentioned in the piece, it became Rhode's desire to be Shakespeare's "pregnant enemy". Rhode believes art has a definite practical function and educational potential, which is partly the reason why he gives his art what he calls "real life form". He aspires to be entertaining and for his audience to be judgmental. Self-deprecating and very self-aware, Rhode has invented a word and life philosophy that he believes should be consciously applied at least once a day: (MORE...)

AVANT CAR GUARD Limited Edition Album Launch

The First rule of AVANT CAR GUARD is: you do not talk about AVANT CAR GUARD.

Although it is not common knowledge, there are actually three sides to the Force: the good side, the dark side, and AVANT CAR GUARD.

AVANT CAR GUARD is Luke Skywalker's real father.

AVANT CAR GUARD eats transformer toys in vehicle mode and poos them out transformed into a robot.

AVANT CAR GUARD sleeps with a pillow under their gun.

AVANT CAR GUARD has never blinked in their entire life. Never.

When AVANT CAR GUARD crosses the street, the cars have to look both ways.

AVANT CAR GUARD's tears cure cancer. Too bad they’ve never cried.

AVANT CAR GUARD drinks napalm to quell their heartburn.

If you want a list of AVANT CAR GUARD's enemies, just check the extinct species list.

There is no theory of evolution; just a list of creatures AVANT CAR GUARD allows to live.

The Bible was originally titled "AVANT CAR GUARD and Friends"

AVANT CAR GUARD can judge a book by its cover.

AVANT CAR GUARD doesn't read books. They stare them down until they get the information they want.

AVANT CAR GUARD doesn't actually write books, the words assemble themselves out of fear.

AVANT CAR GUARD does not use spell check. If they happens to misspell a word, Oxford will simply change the actual spelling of it.

AVANT CAR GUARD owns the greatest poker face of all-time. It helped them win the 1983 world series of poker despite them holding just a joker, a 2 of clubs, a 7 of spades, and a green number 4 from Uno and a monopoly 'get out of jail free' card.

When AVANT CAR GUARD was denied a Bacon McMuffin at McDonalds because it was 10:35, they roundhouse kicked the store so hard it became a KFC.

AVANT CAR GUARD is not hung like a horse... horses are hung like AVANT CAR GUARD.

AVANT CAR GUARD uses ribbed condoms inside out, so they gets the pleasure.

AVANT CAR GUARD only masturbates to pictures of AVANT CAR GUARD.

AVANT CAR GUARD lost their virginity before their Dad did.

AVANT CAR GUARD doesn't say, "who's your daddy", because they knows the answer.

AVANT CAR GUARD can divide by zero.

On the 7th day, God rested.... and AVANT CAR GUARD took over.

Why Thabo Mbeki is soft on Mugabe’s junta ?

Why is Thabo Mbeki so soft on Mugabe? Is it simply loyalty to a past of “joint struggle”, as has been suggested? Here is a clue.

In September 2005, a study submitted to Parliament in Cape Town compared the treatment of landless black farmers under apartheid and their treatment today.

During the final decade of apartheid, 737 000 people were evicted from white-owned farmland. In the first decade of democracy, 942 000 were evicted. About half of those forcibly removed were children and about a third were women.

A law intended to protect these people and put an end to peonage, the Security of Tenure Act was enacted by the Mandela government in 1997. That year, Nelson Mandela told me: “We have done something revolutionary, for which we have received no credit at all. (MORE....)

MARLENE DUMAS MODUS OPERANDI

MARLENE DUMAS

by Sue Williamson (December, 2007)

'Art is a lie that makes us realise truth', said Picasso, and perhaps this has never been as true as when applied to the work of the internationally famous painter, Marlene Dumas. Taking as her source material photographs from an eclectic range of media, from family snapshots to news journals and porno magazines, Dumas paints her way into the very essence of the image, using it to work out an idea which the artist has conceived. The painting that emerges almost invariably engages the viewer at a deeply visceral and emotional level, with a power that far transcends the photographic original. The spotlight of her gaze upon her subject is clear and merciless, yet tender and ambiguous.

Her 1991 series, First People, portrays four dyspeptic babies, each almost two metres high. Originally photographed from above as they lay on their backs, now painted vertically, the babies, with their cross faces, distended bellies, flailing arms and scrawny little legs radiate a furious energy. The artist has jammed them into the picture frame like dolls in boxes which are slightly too small, thus increasing, as she often does, the level of discomfort.

Another case in point: Dumas' monochromatic watercolour portraits. I do not believe there is another artist, living or dead, who has been able to master to the same instinctive level the art of the diluted black ink wash on paper, painting wet on wet, the features of the portrait sometimes barely suggested with a swift black flick or swirl, yet devastatingly accurate, instantly recognisable as a particular human being. In her studio, Dumas lines sheets of paper up on the floor, working from one to the next. Often, these portraits will be shown as large scale grids of images, such as The Next Generation, a series of 66 images donated to Iziko, the South African National Gallery.

Cape Town born, studying at the Michaelis School of Fine Art, Dumas left for the Netherlands after graduation to study further at the Ateliers 63 in Haarlem. She has been living in Holland ever since, though her links to her homeland remain strong, and her support of local artists and art institutions like the SANG and the Constitutional Court art collection have been steadfast.

Marlene Dumas at Tate Collection

AVANT CAR GUARD

Lara Koseff

Avant Car Guard appears to be proclaiming its position as the pirate of the Jo’burg art scene. Zander Blom, Jan-Henri Booyens & Michael MacGarry form the trio that staged an event at David Krut Projects this weekend. Instead of pirating goods, however, the trio are more interested in stealing the viewer’s attention in order to challenge perceptions about what it means to be an artist in South Africa.

The event was advertised as the launch of Avant Car Guard’s new album, which is a publication of photographs of their previous staged antics. The trio was present to sign the publication. The scenario, however, was quite dissimilar to any other book signing in that the artists were emerging from three holes in a makeshift pirate shipwreck. The ship was plastered with Avant Car Guard signage, a home-made skull and crossbones flag rising out of it and a chaotic pile of publications spread out in front of it. Although this and the smoke machine made the atmosphere quite melodramatic there was nothing theatrical about the artists’ demeanour. They were drinking beer, smoking and making polite conversation with those curious and even brave enough to approach them.

Avant Car Guard is not only pushing the boundaries of conceptual art in South Africa, but also demystifying the notion of the renowned and established South African artist. They achieve this by enacting satirical scenarios of their own derisive and uncertain fame and ultimately baffling others into believing it and eventually questioning it.

The newly opened David Krut Projects was the perfect venue for such an event. People poured out onto the pavement and engaged in animated discussion and debate. The space, tucked in between a sex shop and a now-defunct curry den, looks out onto Jan Smuts Avenue, on a block that is fast becoming the new Jo’burg gallery strip.. This is the perfect setting to be exposed to the contemporary Jo’burg art scene and to simultaneously question and debunk it.

Lester Bangs and The Last Of The White Niggers

Lester Bangs:
Notorious for applying the term "white nigger" (which originated in Norman Mailer's 1957 essay "The White Negro") as a euphemism for a punk, or more specifically a white social miscreant with questionable or objectionable outward idiosyncrasies, and radical beliefs deemed unacceptable by the status quo. (Conversely, the term now has a different connotation, as "wigger" is used to describe a white individual infatuated with the hip-hop lifestyle). He often referred to himself as the "last of the white niggers", and a famous photograph of Bangs shows him wearing a t-shirt bearing this title.

©Robert Sloon

WIM BOTHA - 'Transmigrations'

by Sean O'Toole

Wim Botha grew up in a drowsy suburban neighbourhood on the eastern reaches of Pretoria. This fact might not necessarily be apparent the first time you view his work, but it is relevant. His work is rooted in the officious pretensions of the nation's administrative capital, and draws extensively from popular iconography closely associated with the city. Seemingly boring stuff like trophy mounts and government texts, bibles and religious icons have all at some time or another been the form and/or content of his visually arresting output.

Using the familiar, the everyday, the iconic, Wim Botha has succeeded in creating works characterised by their delicate blending of inter-acting themes. Take for instance his Wild Life series of sculptural installations. A relatively early piece from his career, Wim Botha used official government gazettes as source material for a carved bust of a Blue Wildebeest. As in much of the work that followed, the carved text of this piece became the physical substance of the work, the collective text informing both the representation of the work, as well as providing the work with its social context.

"My works are a process of distillations," the artist explains. "They attempt to reduce all-encompassing ideas and universal factors down to their core idea." Exploring along the way "intercepting variables" and "patterns", his work also offers viewers a curious glance at "the things people do, need, construct to make sense of things," be they grandiose and religious, or decorative and facile in a not so innocent fashion. (More...)

INGRID MWANGI ROBERT HUTTER

"Hitler‘s admirers" is the title given to an image found while leafing through the German magazine "Spiegel". You can see Hitler surrounded by a cluster of exited women, leaning towards him, drawn to him, magnetized by his supposed charismatic presence. I wonder to myself: had I been there at the time, would I have been attracted to this man who was later called the personification of evil for the crimes he committed in the Third Reich? But a second thought brings reality into focus: "If Ingrid Njeri Mwangi - the daughter of a Kenyan man and a German woman - had been born during the Third Reich, she would have been considered "of an inferior genotype" and classified as "degenerate progeny". She might never have been born in the first place, as racial anthropologists were demanding the forced sterilization of mothers of Afro-Germans even before the rise of Nazism." 1

There it is again. You can't get out of your skin. You can't change sides. But then again…

"Mwangi occupies both sides. She has Afro-European roots, lives in front and behind the divide. From her father's side she belongs to the "Wretched of the Earth", and from her mother's side she belongs to the "Camp of the Conquerors". Taking this hybridity into account, it cannot be denied that Mwangi's work is determined by the discourse of gender and race. This brings us back to a much more difficult, possibly a rhetorical question…" 2

Is it easier to be the victim or the perpetrator?

This depends on where and when. To be the perpetrator in the present, profiting and benefiting from a prevailing system of injustice, or to be the perpetrator of that specific past that is considered to have been one of the most shocking and terrible periods in history, where human rights were so blatantly disregarded? 

To be the victim, who is humiliated on a daily basis, persecuted, even shuddering with torture pain? Or to be a 'mere' descendent of such, with at best a collective memory of this treatment, but experiencing the consequences of that history?

Studying Hitler's face, I seem to identify a certain uneasiness lurking in his set expression. The way he stiffly looks into the camera, aloof and distanced, as if the scene around him is not taking place. There could just as well be no women around him. Or very different women…

It is easy to say, I was not there, and had I been there, and been somebody else, I would have acted differently. The fact is: German history is part of my heritage. And if in art I have begun to use my identity to ask questions about individual responsibility, then I cannot stop at my African identity. I must go all the way. This is the starting point for a new series of artistic investigations.

In previous works I have been discussing the concept, history and reality of Blackness, beginning with my personal story, and going beyond that into further identification with what it must mean to be discriminated, exploited and violated, by the mere fact of dark skin colour (this search culminated in the performance Coloured, 2001, where I split the video image of my body into differently hued segments.) My artistic strategy became increasingly one of identification; to take the place of the other, in order to feel, to understand. In ”If“ I take a similar approach of putting myself in place of the other, but resulting in a different outcome for the viewer will not as willingly accept my identification with the white, as he does with the black. In this case 'the Other' are those who should have known, who knew and who benefited.

As always, the reason to go a short way back in history is because it is still happening now.

In order to widen the ground of my artistic discourse, it has become necessary to engage in works that investigate circumstances relating to both Robert Hutter and Ingrid Mwangi. Reacting to ideas of male-female dichotomy and socially defined German verses Kenyan identity, the aim is to create tension through the unexpected juxtaposition of two different, personally connected individuals.

Interestingly enough, it was Robert's idea to have Ingrid in the place of the German women in "Hitler‘s admirers". And it was Ingrid‘s idea to create a mixed being of Robert and Hitler, the object of desire around which the women are grouped. Thus, it seems that some ideas evolve easier through the prism of the other's, reflecting eye. The act of this exchange catapults us into an impossible and daunting situation. The presentation of a rejuvenated and modernized Hitler breaks with a quasi taboo of binding the infamous personage to a best forgotten past. It opens up the context to an awesome and frightening thought: how would Ingrid Mwangi and Robert Hutter have related to each other only seven decades ago? 

And: how far have we succeeded in overcoming this history?

1 Horst Gerhard Haberl, Art is the message, in Your Own Soul. Ingrid Mwangi, Kehrer Heidelberg/ Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken 2003, p. 32

2 Jan Hoet and Anne Demeester, Beyond wounds and scars. The multiple worlds of Ingrid Mwangi, in Your Own Soul. Ingrid Mwangi, Kehrer Heidelberg/ Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken, 2003. p. 48

© IngridMwangiRobertHutter, 2003

if was commissioned by the Museum for African Art, New York for the exhibition Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora, curated by Laurie Ann Farrell.

JOEL DOSSOU A LA GALERIE NERART

Joël DOSSOU né à Abomey, a fait ses études au Collège d’ Enseignement Général 2 d’Abomey jusqu’en classe de 3ème et a entamé sa carrière artistique de 1999 en 2001 à l’Ecole de Dominique ZINKPE (Maison des Arts Contemporains d’Abomey). (MORE....)

"POP AFRICA" 

Exposition prevue vers le mois de octobre a la Galerie NERART a Lugano (Suisse)

FLOW - STUDIO MUSEUM HARLEM

FLOW

April 2—June 29, 2008

Flow is the first twenty-first century exhibition focusing on art by a new generation of international artists from Africa. These artists are uniquely conscious of, and responsive to, recent African history, global economics and the idiosyncratic culture of the new millennium. Presenting approximately seventy-five works in all media by approximately twenty emerging international artists under the age of forty, this exhibition will feature models of imaginary architecture, wall sculptures of beads and decorative elements, digital photography, new video, paintings and site specific installations, among other media. The artists, who hail from eleven African nations, reside mainly in Europe and North America and travel to and from Africa regularly. The majority of them have never been included in major U.S. museum exhibitions and are virtually unknown in this country. Modeled after Freestyle, our landmark 2001 exhibition, which was followed in 2005 by Frequency, Flow will illustrate the individuality and complexity of the visual art produced by a dynamic generation of young artists, this time with a global perspective.

The Studio Museum in Harlem
144 West 125th Street, New York, New York 10027
tel 212.864.4500 fax 212.864.4800

Sold! Goodman Gallery changes hands

by Michael Smith
In a momentous event long gossiped about within the SA art world, the Goodman Gallery has been bought from scene doyenne, Linda Givon by purchaser is Liza Essers. Essers is an art adviser, dealer and curator.

Givon established the Goodman Gallery 42 years ago, and since then has nurtured the top artistic talents of numerous generations of SA art. Her roster has included Lisa Brice, Kendell Geers, Robert Hodgins, William Kentridge, David Koloane, Sam Nhlengetwa, Tracey Rose and Penny Siopis, to name but a few. Givon's gallery has long been synonymous with strong shows, quality work and a high degree of professionalism. Givon expanded her brand in 2007, opening Goodman Gallery Cape in Wodstock, Cape Town. This gallery is currently managed by the curatorial team of Emma Bedford and Storm Janse van Rensburg.

Essers began a career in finance, but subsequently studied art in Florence and in 2003 moved over to a career as an independent art adviser. She lists several local and international private and corporate art collectors among her clients in this regard.

Essers has also curated numerous shows, such as 2003's 'Integrating Cultures' at Bell-Roberts in Cape Town, and 2007's 'Shift', which showed at the Gallery on Cork Street in London. She has even turned her hand to film, as a co-executive producer on the 2005 Gavin Hood-directed hit 'Tsotsi'.

Essers has traveled with Givon to Art 39 Basel in Switzerland, at which the Goodman Gallery is the only South African gallery to have representation. At this event, Givon is expected to introduce Essers to major directors, curators, gallerists, dealers and collectors. This will help to ensure what the gallery has called 'a smooth transition during this change in leadership'.

Questioning Authenticity in African Art: Yinka Shonibare

ANDREW ESIEBO

Andrew Esiebo is a freelance photographer from Nigeria.

He began photography after receiving his first camera as a gift from Spaniard, Jose Maria Ortuno. 

He has been able to undergo the nitty-gritty of photography through self practice and corresponding tutelage from US based Photographer, Paul Udstrand. 

His works have been featured in various publications including books, calendars, newspapers, digests, and advertizing materials. His work has also been featured at art shows in Nigeria and Ghana. The strong point of his photography is expressing the realities of life in his milieu and cultural heritage. You can visit his website

WILLIE BESTER

Willie Bester

The rise of Willie Bester from unknown artist holding a first exhibition (1988) to one internationally in demand a few years later has been meteoric.

Modus operandi:

Bester paints, often on extremely rough surfaces like sacking or crushed tins, and makes large assemblages, cutting and welding together found materials from the junkshop and the street, and incorporating objects of all kinds in order to make layered comments on aspects of South African history. The titles of some of his pieces reveal his concerns: Apartheid Laboratory, Ox Wagon, Death Machine

Artist's statement:

"What I try to get behind is why it is so difficult for people to change from their old ways. It hasn't worked out the way I imagined. People who thought they were superior before haven't really changed. I try to find out through studying history what gives people the right to think that way. I try to find a solution, not to be disappointed, to reach an understanding. The Truth Commission seemed to be one of the answers, but now I find that even the Truth Commission is a trap. It has done more damage than good, because the ANC was favoured over the Afrikaners. I want to do a series about it."

Currently:

At a recent auction at Sotheby's in London of contemporary African art from the Pigozzi collection, Bester's painting Semikazi (1993) reached the astonishing figure of almost R110,000 - more than twice the pre-sale estimate. Jean Piggozzi is one of the major collectors of Bester's work. In Europe, Bester's piece Death Machine can be seen on the exhibition [[Rewind. Fast Forward. ZA]], at the Van Reekum Museum of Art in Apeldoorn, Holland. In Washington, he is on the exhibition at the National Museum for African Art, "Claiming art/Reclaiming Space: Post-Apartheid Art from South Africa".

(read more in Artthrob.....)

Dominique Zinkpé ou l'art de la condition humaine

PAR ROGER PIERRE TURINE
Au Dak'Art 2000, ses trois «cars rapides» autour de la Place Soweto, à Dakar, firent sensation. Plus vrais que nature! Et pourtant, conçus au départ de vieilles carlingues désaffectées bourrées, de bas en haut, de personnages de fer, de loques, aux mines patibulaires, aux gestes d'un quotidien ardu et sans trop d'espoir, sortes de bannis, de bagnards, en appel de Dieu sait quel air frais, ils faisaient penser, à s'y méprendre, vus de loin, aux cars de la mort qui sillonnent l'Afrique de l'Ouest, colorés et tragiques. Il suffisait de lire, humour à cru et vérités à fleur de peau, des cris du coeur bon marché, inscrits en lettres rouges sur leur devanture de guingois, du genre «La rue est à nous», voire plus acidulé «Si la maison du mouton est sale, ce n'est pas au cochon de le dire» ou «Tais-toi, jaloux» !

Le jury international de la Biennale ne resta pas indifférent aux images fortes d'une création africaine aussi justement en prise directe sur l'identité bafouée d'un continent aux réalités trop souvent laissées pour compte. En 2002, le Dak'Art officialisait, en effet, sa personnalité hors du commun en primant son installation «Malgré tout», image bouleversante d'une Afrique sous perfusion constante, d'une Afrique en dérive sous l'oeil expert des grandes puissances.

Auteur d'installations fortes, vivantes, d'une symbolique capable d'émouvoir le badaud comme l'homme averti, Dominique Zinkpè, 35 ans, a plus d'une corde à son arc de Béninois natif d'Abomey. Il est aussi sculpteur et peintre. Et, pour l'avoir vu se distinguer dans les diverses disciplines, nous pouvons affirmer qu'il se montre aussi à l'aise dans l'une que dans l'autre. A l'aise et convaincant.

RITES INTERDITS
«Je suis né en ville et mon père oeuvrait dans l'administration. Il avait renoncé aux traditions sous l'influence de la religion catholique et nous obligeait à assister à la messe quotidienne. D'où m'est très vite venue une attirance pour les rites interdits, la richesse des corps dans la danse... Cette initiation par la bande m'a amené à décider de me consacrer entièrement à l'art. Et, pour ne pas heurter de front mes parents, j'ai d'abord appris pendant trois ans le métier de couturier. Ce vrai métier en mains, ils m'ont alors soutenu dans une carrière artistique qui, pour eux, paraissait si aléatoire. Mais j'étais alors trop âgé ou pas vraiment motivé pour suivre une école des Beaux-Arts. J'ai préféré puiser mes ressources en moi-même.»

Zinkpè est devenu artiste à part entière en 1993. «J'étais à Abidjan, en Côte d'Ivoire, et j'y ai reçu le Prix du Jeune talent africain. Ce qui m'a permis de prendre conscience que j'existais. J'ai pris confiance en moi-même. Depuis, je ne fais plus rien d'autre...» Dominique Zinkpè a, depuis, beaucoup voyagé. En Afrique, mais en Europe aussi. Son «Taxi-Zinkpè» a fait son petit tour du monde, preuve s'il en est qu'un art connoté africain peut très bien devenir universel, pourvu qu'il raconte des histoires d'hommes aux prises avec leur vie.L'artiste qui avoue son respect pour la Biennale de Dakar, car elle est aussi le plus grand rendez-vous de l'art contemporain en Afrique, trouve qu'elle est, pour les artistes, un vrai «cadeau» : «Avoir une reconnaissance en Afrique, c'est très important car, la plupart du temps, nous ne sommes respectés chez nous qu'après avoir été reconnus en Europe ou en Amérique. Et le Dak'Art a joué un grand rôle dans ma vie.»

UN MATÉRIAU POUR LANGAGE

Si Zinkpè s'est, évidemment, intéressé à l'Histoire de l'art en lisant tout ce qu'il était possible de trouver à Cotonou, il reconnaît qu'un livre et un artiste ont fait sur lui l'effet d'une bombe. «J'avais lu le bel ouvrage de Yacouba Konaté, «Le sculpteur aux mains nues», et y ayant découvert le travail du sculpteur ivoirien Christian Lattier, je me suis rendu compte qu'on pouvait s'exprimer avec un seul matériau et y puiser toute l'énergie nécessaire. Lattier sculptait seulement avec des cordes! Aujourd'hui encore, si je dois me trouver un maître dans ma vie, c'est lui. Après cela, j'ai vu beaucoup de choses et il y a celles qui vous restent. J'ai visité maints musées, mais j'éprouve une vraie frustration en constatant qu'ils sont de plus en plus vides, de plus en plus plats!»

«LE RINGARD M'INTÉRESSE»

Sculpteur, Zinkpè tresse des fibres autour de fils de fer et cela nous donne de curieux personnages aux allures souples et félines aux prises avec des situations quotidiennes plus ou moins cocasses. Toujours plaisantes à décrypter sous leurs allures d'énigmes en équilibre entre deux chaises. Parfois aussi ces sculptures participent d'un ensemble où se côtoient jeux de fibres et effigies de bois entre vie et mort. Et puis Zinke dessine et peint. Des personnages surtout, à l'image souvent de ses êtres sculptés, aux noirs rehaussés de quelques touches vives de jaune, de rouge, de bleu. L'artiste n'écarte point le sexe de ses évocations, la femme nourricière et féconde de l'Afrique le requérant bien sûr aussi.

«Aujourd'hui que tout est conceptualisé, on peut penser que la sculpture va disparaître. Et la peinture, c'est ringard. Et bien plus c'est ringard, et plus j'ai envie de peindre! Va-t-on en arriver au point où les artistes vont, à défaut d'oeuvres, s'installer eux-mêmes dans les musées? Même la lenteur de concrétisation du travail artistique n'est plus respectée de nos jours. On ne peut pas nier le passé!»

Et Zinkpè d'y aller d'une boutade qui vaut son pesant d'or: «Je n'ai pas d'écriture. Et je dis cela pour les idiots qui veulent sans cesse enfermer les artistes dans des catégories qui les arrangent. Je peins, je sculpte, je m'intéresse à la religion, aux situations politiques. Je n'ai pas le talent d'écrire mes histoires, ni la prétention de faire un art engagé. Mais, dans un pays où l'on n'avait pas la liberté de s'exprimer, mon travail m'a permis d'avoir un pouvoir d'expression. De dire mes tripes, mes émotions. Joies et douleurs. Et, conscient de cette importance, je cherche de plus en plus à dépouiller, à n'exprimer que l'essentiel.»

Père de trois enfants, vivant une partie de l'année à Marseille, Dominique Zinkpè, coiffure rasta, barbichette et moustache, bagues et bijoux touaregs aux mains et aux bras, va son chemin droit devant, conquérant. Ses histoires à lui sont des histoires vécues. Chaque toile lui est un combat.


© La Libre Belgique

Dominique Zinkpe works

CYPRIEN TOKOUDAGBA & NERART at Museum of New Zealand TEPAPA Tongarewa

Presented by the Natural World Museum in partnership with United Nations Environment Programme.

Curator Statement

Nature strives for balance, including balancing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. But the rate at which humans are moving carbon into the atmosphere by burning fossil fuels has surpassed Earth's ability to maintain balance. As a result, the climate is changing.

Carbon balance is one part of nature's balancing act. Humans, collectively and individually, also strive for balance.

In this exhibition, we ask the artists to help us find new visions and new choices for a balanced Earth. What does it mean to be in balance as individuals and communities? How do we get the Earth in balance? What does balance look and feel like?

Cyprien Tokoudagba statement

The answers are as varied as the artists. Their stories reflect both the consequences of our current path as well as the opportunities for new ones. One artist calls this dilemma of balance "existential slapstick", while another calls breath and clean air the necessary first step for balancing ourselves, and the planet. Some artists explore new energy sources for the future, while others remind us to trust Mother Earth, and the shared energy and wisdom that have always been here – if we take the time to look, listen, and receive.

Collectively, the artists ask us to consider the connection between Earth's imbalance and ours. Can we use nature as a model and mentor to find equilibrium? Nature reacts by adapting or going extinct. How will we react?

The choice is ours to make now – or nature may choose for us.

Randy Jayne Rosenberg

WINDOW IN THE DESERT

Window in the desert is a video portraying
Fenenin El-Rahhal, meaning 'Nomadic artists‘ in Arabic; a workings artists summit initiated and facilitated by Lara Baladi, the first of which took place in the Western Desert of Egypt.

With
Joël Andrianomearisoa, Michel Assenmaker,
Joseph Badtke Berkow, Lara Baladi, Bili Bidjocka,
Véronique Caye, Nadine Chamaa, Joy Episalla,
Patrice Félix-Tchicaya, IngridMwangiRobertHutter,
Carol Refabert, Wael Shawky, Nida Sinnokrot, Patrice Sour,
Eric Van Hove and Carrie Yamaoka

these images make up a few of the frays
on the edges of the fabric
that has been woven through Fenenin El-Rahhal
that makes up a part of the endless cloth of the world,
which is always evolving
and must become a thicker fabric, a finer one,
that cools when it is warm
and warms when it is cold,
meant to cover each thing from stone and twig,
human and mountain to space

TATE MODERN LONDON, CELEBRATE SEYDOU KEITA

Seydou Keïta was one of the most celebrated West African photographers.

From his studio in the centre of Bamako, Mali, located behind the prison, Keïta took about 20,000 portraits between 1949 and 1963. He was a self-taught photographer, first experimenting with a Kodak Brownie camera, but quickly switching to medium and large-format cameras for their sharpness and clarity. His vibrantly patterned backdrops were all locally sourced cloths – the first of these was actually his own bedspread. Keïta also developed the angled portrait, a composition which emboldens the sitter and increases the dynamism of the overall image.

‘A photograph is a souvenir, a work of art, and a document’, Keïta said. At the peak of his career, hundreds of people queued outside his studio every day. Clients wanted to ‘dress up’ for their portraits and often brought precious objects or favourite items of clothing with them. They also frequently borrowed from Keïta’s in-house selection of dresses, suits, uniforms and jewellery. As many of these items repeat from picture to picture, it is difficult to make assumptions about a sitter’s occupation, wealth or personal interests.

The photographs on display here are on loan from the Contemporary African Art Collection (CAAC), Geneva, which was founded in 1989 by Jean Pigozzi and curated from the beginning by André Magnin. The largest private collection of its kind, the CAAC has helped many African artists to show their work in major institutions around the world.

Seydou Keïta (1921-2001) was born in Bamako, Mali, where he lived and worked.

Curated by Cliff Lauson with the advice of André Magnin, Curator, CAAC.

This display has been made possible by the generous support of the Contemporary African Art Collection and Jean Pigozzi.

Tate Modern - London

MUSTAPHA DIME je ne rêve que de lumière

Fondation Jean Paul Blachere

Mardi 17 juin 

Moustapha Dimé - Sculpteur

ED YOUNG - LOCUST PROJECTS, MIAMI

Ed Young Second Installment at Locust Projects, Miami

Black in Five Minutes will be the second installment of the site-specific Locust Projects mural project of by Ed Young. He utilizes forms of conceptualism, performance, and minimalism, underscored by his persona, to call attention to major themes of boredom, insolence and laziness. Young investigates the idea that the structure of the art world has superseded the art object itself. For this project, Young will create a new site-specific mural every four months for one year. The final mural will coincide with Art Basel Miami 2008.

Opens: March 2008

Closes: June 2008

Dak’Art 08: Chasing Shadows

By Bisi Silva

DAKAR, Senegal—On May 9, the eighth edition of the Dakar Biennale was officially opened by Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, in a ceremony involving the usual pomp, pageantry, political mutterings, and half-hearted promises to support and develop visual art education and infrastructure. For 16 years Dak’Art has provided the only consistent large-scale platform for the presentation of contemporary artistic production south of the Sahara. While each edition bears witness to the event’s growing importance as a meeting point for art professionals from around the world, this year’s biennale falls short of leveraging its position as Africa’s most important visual art platform.

Dak’Art 08, which runs May 9 to June 9, presents some 50 works by 36 artists from 16 countries — including three from the diaspora — across two official venues, under the broad theme of “Africa: Mirror?” The framework calls for a critical reflection on the failures and successes of post-colonial Africa as many of its nations prepare to celebrate 50 years of independence in 2010, and the biennale, to its credit, includes a substantial number of projects relating to African and diaspora themes — from African history, colonialization, conflict, displacement, and migration to rural/urban and modern/traditional tensions. However, in spite of a few interesting projects, this year’s biennale represents a major step backward for the event.

Since its inception in 1992, Dak’Art ran for many years without a curatorial team, a situation quite unusual for a major biennale. Artists were invited to apply, and an international committee whose members were sometimes unfamiliar with the applicants determined the final selection. In 2006, the limitations of this selection process were finally addressed, and the biennale was organized by a curatorial team of six (disclosure: I was one), under the leadership of artistic director Yacouba Konate. The result was an ambitious affair spread over four venues, including the extensive grounds and ancillary spaces of the Theodore Monod Museum, and featuring over 85 artists and 120 artworks from 27 African countries and 4 in the diaspora.

This year, unfortunately, all of those positive developments have been reversed. (MORE....)