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12 African Contemporary Artists Rocking the Art world (and one for good luck)

2/21/2015

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Signare in traditional dress, 2015 by Fabrice Monteiro
First Published in AFKinsider.com 2/23/15

Africa’s contemporary artists arouse attention internationally thanks to their innovative approaches to artistic expression, which are steeped in tradition. Their work encompasses uniquely African socio-political realities inherent to the continent and museums, galleries and biennales worldwide can’t get enough of it.

Collectors vie for relatively accessibly priced work of Contemporary African artists, as demonstrated by recent intriguing blockbuster shows held at London’s Tate Modern Gallery for Meschac Gaba’s solo exhibit and at The Brooklyn Museum exhibit, “Double Take: African Innovations.”

Auction houses such as Bonhams have fetched record sums for African artists. Here are 12 contemporary African artists rocking the art world.

Sources: Blouin Art Info  |  Brooklyn Museum  |   Bonhams

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Untitled IX, 2012 by Kudzanai Chiurai
1. Kudzanai Chiurai, Zimbabwe (born 1981)

He began  painting flowers. After studying abroad in South Africa, he became politically aware and has said, his most subversive act is having picked up a paintbrush.  He gained respect for his  dramatic mixed and his multi media compositions depicting critical socio-political issues of the region and was forced into exile for a charged portrayal of his country’s dictator, Robert Mugabe in his pieces Rau Rau and the Battle for Zimbabwe. His unique use of digital photography, editing and printing, painting, and, more recently, film serve his purpose to do “something important”  with his art. His  work is collected by Elton John, and has been exhibited by and is in the permanent collection of MoMa, NY, along with international solo and group exhibits.

Source: ArtSlant


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TESTIFY, 2014 by Nástio Mosquito
2. Nástio Mosquito, Angola (born 1981)

He said, “F*k original. Be genuine.” This talented multimedia performance artist nudges us out of our comfort zone toward mindful reflection through music, videos, the spoken word and a capella performances in galleries and on stage. Like his name might suggest, his works give us a nasty, often vicious sting right in our sense of self,  jolting our awareness into a depth beyond our limited stereotypes. 

Past exhibitions include, "9 Artists" at the Walker Art Centre in Minneapolis in 2013, and "Across the Board: Politics of Representation" at the Tate Modern in London in 2012. He has numerous exhibits including in the 29th São Paulo Biennial, Brazil, 2010. He lives and works in Luanda, Lisbon and Ghent.

Source:  Nástio Mosquito

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Rapture of Olurombi’s Daughter, 2013 by Peju Alatise
3. Peju Alatise, Nigeria (born 1975)

A new and emerging talent on the African art scene, perhaps “Rapture of Olurombi’s Daughter” (2013) best illustrates the work of this talented young artist, whose body-contoured colorful fabrics clothes invisible human archetypes. The defiant, winged woman of no limitations stands as testimony to the female form, her power lies elsewhere invisible in her series titled Wrapture.  

Her work is a medley of folds, knots, and drapery of cloth  dramatizing our clothed identities. She infuses a poetic humor into her figures’ gestures, as a Yoruban, she engages a philosophical language that seeks to redeem the “female folk.” She lives and works in Lagos.

Source: Peju Alatise

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Silhouetta, 2002 by Tracey Rose

4. Tracey Rose, South Africa (born 1974)

Born in Durban, Rose is known for her provocative multimedia performances that incorporate video and photography. An ardent feminist — and once a boxing aficionado — she is adept at fusing complex social issues with pop effervescence to depict identity. 

She uses body type, race and gender to evoke a visceral statement on disparities between them and their politicization in the social landscape. She has had solo and group exhibits worldwide and participated in the Venice Biennale among others. She lives in Johannesburg.

Source: Art Throb

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Stadia II, 2004, by Julie Mehretu

5. Julie Mehretu, Ethiopia (born 1970)

Recipient of this year’s U.S. State Department National Medal of Arts, this artist renders large-format paintings and prints.She draws from elements of architecture, using city aerial maps to apply layer upon layers of acrylic to depict the density of the world’s metropolises. 

Mehretu uses mixed media to create complexity. She has exhibited in MoMa, Walker Art Center, Guggenheim in New York and Berlin, as well as many other notable institutions and biennales. Mehretu was born in Addis Ababa and lives and works in New York.

Source: Walker Art Center

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Museum of Contemporary-African Art 1997-2002, by Meschac Gaba

6. Meschac Gaba, Benin (born 1961)

In 1997, Gaba inaugurated his monumental signature piece in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. It consists of 12 exhibition halls that depict his life fused to his art with names such as, “The Money Room,” and “The Marriage Room.” His work includes decommissioned bank notes and personal memorabilia. 

The interactive Museum of Contemporary African Art traveled through Europe showcasing and calling attention to African art. The Tate Modern in 2013 purchased and exhibited the entire nomadic museum for its private collection. Gaba has exhibited worldwide including at the Sao Paolo and Venice biennales. He lives in Rotterdam.

Source: Tate Modern

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All the World is Now Richer, 2012 by Sokari Douglas Camp

7. Sokari Douglas Camp, Nigeria (born 1958)

An A-list would not be complete without Sokari Douglas Camp. A pioneer for women sculptors in Africa, she represents the first generation of artists having success in the international market. She relies on modern techniques but finds inspiration from traditional masks and costumes used for rituals in her homeland. Born and raised in Kalabari town in the Niger Delta, she draws from Kalabari culture and customs. 

She has lived in London and addresses pertinent global issues in her work, using predominantly steel. Douglas Camp has had numerous solo and group shows all over the world. Permanent collections of her work can be found in the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. and London’s British Museum.

Source: Sokari Douglas Camp


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Microcron No. 6, 2013 by Owusu Ankomah

8. Owusu-Ankomah, Ghana (born 1956)

Born in Sekondi-Takorad, Ghana, Owusu incorporates Adinkra symbolism in his work to address the concepts of identity and body. His symbols trace beyond spirituality, stimulating philosophical and sociopolitical discourse, insisting on an intercultural intercourse in our contemporary society. 

He is considered a stellar artist of his generation, dabbling in the delicate balance between personal and collective consciousness. He lives in Bern, Germany.

Source: Owusu-Ankomah


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Le chieur dans le ventilateur by Chéri Samba

9. Chéri Samba, Democratic Republic of Congo (b.1956)

Samba wa Mbimba N’zingo Nuni Masi Ndo Mbasi was a founding member of the Popular Painting School, focusing on everyday life in his country and the African continent. He places himself as a central figure in his work to be a spokesman of sorts. He would sign his work “Popular Painter.” He began as a sign painter and comic strip artist, influences that are noted in his work today. He narrates a story with bursts of color and word bubbles to provoke dialogue and attention. 

He also illustrated magazines until his breakthrough in 1989 with his exhibition, “Les Magiciens de la Terre,” (Magicians of the World) at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. He has exhibited and is in permanent collections worldwide, including the MoMa; the Venice Biennale, Venice, and the Tate Modern, London.

Source: MoMA  |  Chéri Samba

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Gris gris blancs, 2005 by Abdoulaye Konaté
10. Abdoulaye Konaté, Mali (b.1953)

It’s difficult to describe the labor-intensive, stunning installations this prominent contemporary artist creates with mixed media. He uses mostly repurposed, readily available materials. He studied at the National Art Institute of Bamako and in Cuba, turning, in the 1990s from the easel to painstaking work involving collecting, classifying, dying, cutting, sewing and embroidering objects. 


He makes monumental shimmering constructs that often seem to have an organic life of their own. Like most, if not all African artists, Konaté conveys the socio-economic-political-ecological life of the region, fusing ancient cultural traditions and contemporary manifestations. 


He has exhibited worldwide including the Centre Pompidou and Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris; Museum Kunstpalast, Dusseldorf; Sao Paulo Biennale, Brazil and many others. Born in Diré, he lives and works in Bamako and is director of its Conservatoire for Arts & Media.

Source: Iniva


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The Prophecy, 2015 by Fabrice Monteiro
11. Fabrice Monteiro, Senegal (born 1972)

Born to a Belgian mother and Beninese father in Dakar, Monteiro studied industrial engineering and later worked as a model. In 2007 he met his mentor in New York City and embarked on an exceptional adventure as artist, photojournalist, fashion and portrait photographer. He has constructed a visual universe within his images that captures the rich beauty of the African face and soul, against the backdrop of apocalyptic landscapes. 

His work has been featured in news stories and fashion spreads. It’s in the permanent collection of the Seattle Art Museum in the U.S., the Paris Hotel Rive Gauche, France and TOTAL foundation in Dakar, Senegal. Keep your eye on him, I know I will...


Source: Fabrice Monteiro

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The Tree, 2003 by Ibrahim El Salahi

12. Ibrahim El Salahi, Sudan (born 1930)

El Salahi is considered the grandfather of African modernism. In the 1970s he was a diplomat. As undersecretary of the Sudanese Ministry of Culture, he became a political prisoner charged with anti-government actions. His paintings are a dance between Islamic, African, Arab and heavy Western influences. His work is said to evoke Picasso’s primitive period with dichromatic and bold lines, or Mondrian’s Electric Boogie, but always infusing his own vocabulary as a self-professed “picture maker.”

 He was given a Tate Modern retrospective in 2013 titled a “Visionary Modernist.” He has exhibited and is collected worldwide. His studio is in Oxford, England.

Source: Tate Modern ,  Ibrahim El Salahi


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Man's Cloth, 1998-2001, by El Anatsui
13. El Anatsui, Ghana (born 1944)

Born in Anyanko, Anatsui takes the color and texture of his people's traditions and sculpts these into mutable forms that are like the cloth of nomads crossing the savannah. Their monumental pieces are a sweeping nod to abstract art of Africa and of Europe tracing, in a broader sense, the cultural exchange between the two and the relationship of colonize to colonized.  


He works with noble materials of wood, clay and metal and  incorporates discarded metal caps of liquor bottles, and other cast off materials pointing to the function of objects as refuse and symbol. 

 He has taught at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka since 1975. His works are in the public collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Indianapolis Museum of Art; British Museum, London; and Centre Pompidou, Paris, among many others. He lives and works in Nigeria.
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Jon Davis The Relativist as Radical Skeptic  By Daniella Sforza

11/24/2012

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Jon Davis, Eakins Revisited, 2012, mixed media, 56” x 67”
Arts District Magazine, November 2012

Jon Davis has come full circle in his overall body of work. He traces his own particular trajectory through the use of images from found photos in his “Lost Luggage” exhibit at the Vero Beach Museum of Art, using the theatrical manner of juxtaposing images culled from the great masters, seen at his “Constructs” exhibit during Burst Project Art Fair last season. Davis’ work today fuses his ongoing fascination with anonymity and the underpinnings of drama, as seen in his current exhibit, “The Relativist,” at Kavachnina Contemporary from November 10, 2012 through January 8, 2013.

He examines our story, which speaks to the whole of  humanity’s samsara, that eternal cycle of birth, suffering, death and rebirth. Davis recycles imagery-found, bought, borrowed or pinched-and renders reconstructed fragments on layers of glass in three dimensions, creating a theatrical stage where we are voyeurs, our interpretation reflecting back at us in the layered glass. Davis is a master, not of smoke and mirrors, but rather of the raw, naked truths that each of us beholds beneath the cloth of our daily lives.

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Conversation, 2012, mixed media, 56” x 34”
His world seems more real, more visceral and at times more haunting than the originals he chooses to reconstruct. Thomas Eakins’ 1875 piece The Gross Clinic, a scandal in its day for the gore and melodrama depicted, resurfaces in Davis’ studio and emerges in a different light. As does Eakins’ The Agnew Clinic (1889), with physicians in sterile lab coats performing a mastectomy, Davis slips in a pin-up model, a chambermaid and other memorable characters to render Eakins Revisited, and we are there as witness just as the onlookers within these very paintings.

A radical skeptic, Davis sets a stage for the viewer’s mind to trigger a strong visceral reaction as a result of the juxtaposition of images. I‘m still glad you‘re here, one of his “backlits,” reconfigures Andrew Wyeth’s Christine‘s World (1948). Christine crawls up that tawny hill, not toward her house but rather in the shadow of the nude torso of a woman pointing a pistol. Christine Olson was paralyzed, a victim of polio; the naked woman brandishing her weapon, clearly a dominatrix. It is all very relative, really.

“Subject matter can become redundant, repetitive and the medium can at one point come to a head,” Davis told me in his studio. “It can become like a crutch,” he reveals, which he says prompted him to seek new images to create his own language, or system, upon which to reconstruct a vision.

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If I Loved You, 2012, mixed media, 56” x 34”
Many of his images began as a result of experimentation with the construction of six different cameras-all from wooden boxes and different antique brass lenses. “I wanted to take a picture of an object and shred it into fragments.”

Davis then used the antique optic lenses to the full expression of that possibility, with works such as, You ain‘t going to heaven and This is the cow everyone is hiding and this is the witch, in which he lays them like bubbles on the surface glass to directly distort, exaggerate or contrive the viewer’s experience.

His cast includes Eakins, Duchamp, Botticelli, Wyeth, Muybridge and others who, populating his mind, have become framed within Davis’ keen disregard for context and high respect for the realms of alternative definitions that belong only in the eye of the beholder.

“The Relativist” will be on view at Kavachnina Contemporary from November 10, 2012 through January 8, 2013. Kavachnina Contemporary is located at 46 NW 36th Street. Miami, 33127 / www.kavachnina.com



Daniella Sforza is an arts writer and curator based in Miami.

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An open letter from dancer Sara Wookey, who refused to participate in Marina Abramovic's MOCA LA performance, based on fair wages and treatment

11/23/2011

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Sara Wookey performing "Trio A" (1966) by Yvonne Rainer at VIVA! Performance Festival, Montreal. Photo: Guy L'Heureux
_November 23, 2011 -  I participated in an audition on November 7th for performance artist Marina Abramovic’s production for the annual gala of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles.

I auditioned because I wanted to participate in the project of an artist whose work I have followed with interest for many years and because it was affiliated with MOCA, an institution that I have a connection with as a Los Angeles-based artist. Out of approximately 800 applicants, I was one of two hundred selected to audition.

Ultimately, I was offered the role of one of six nude females to re-enact Abramovic's signature work, "Nude with Skeleton" (2002) (see video explanation of the work below), at the center of tables with seats priced at up to $100,000 each. For reasons I detail here — reasons that I strongly believe need to be made public — I turned it down.

I am writing to address three main points: One, to add my voice to the discourse around this event as an artist who was critical of the experience and decided to walk away, a voice which I feel has been absent thus far in the LA Times and New York Times coverage; two, to clarify my identity as the informant about the conditions being asked of artists and make clear why I chose, up till now, to be anonymous in regards to my email to Yvonne Rainer; and three, to prompt a shift of thinking of cultural workers to consider, when either accepting or rejecting work of any kind, the short- and long-term impact of our personal choices on the entire field.

Each point is to support my overriding interest in organizing and forming a union that secures labor standards and fair wages for fine and performing artists in Los Angeles and beyond.

I refused to participate as a performer because what I anticipated would be a few hours of creative labor, a meal, and the chance to network with like-minded colleagues turned out to be an unfairly remunerated job. I was expected to lie naked and speechless on a slowly rotating table, starting from before guests arrived and lasting until after they left (a total of nearly four hours).

I was expected to ignore (by staying in what Abramovic refers to as "performance mode") any potential physical or verbal harassment while performing. I was expected to commit to fifteen hours of rehearsal time, and sign a Non-Disclosure Agreement stating that if I spoke to anyone about what happened in the audition I was liable for being sued by Bounce Events, Marketing, Inc., the event’s producer, for a sum of $1 million dollars plus attorney fees.

I was to be paid $150. During the audition, there was no mention of safeguards, signs, or signals for performers in distress, and when I asked about what protection would be provided I was told it could not be guaranteed. What I experienced as an auditionee for this work was extremely problematic, exploitative, and potentially abusive.

I am a professional dancer and choreographer with 16 years of experience working in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and I hold a Master of Fine Arts degree in Dance from the University of California, Los Angeles.

As a professional artist working towards earning a middle class living in Los Angeles, I am outraged that there are no official or even unofficial standard practice measures for working conditions, compensation, and benefits for artists and performers, or for relations between creator, performer, presenting venue and production company in regard to such highly respected and professionalized individuals and institutions such as Abramovic and MOCA.

In Europe I produced over a dozen performance works involving casts up to 15 to 20 artists. When I hired dancers, I was obliged to follow a national union pay scale agreement based on each artist’s number of years of experience.

In Canada, where I recently performed a work by another artist, I was paid $350 for one performance that lasted 15 minutes, not including rehearsal time that was supported by another fee for up to 35 hours, in accordance with the standards set by CARFAC (Canadian Artists Representation/Le Front Des Artistes Canadiens) established in 1968.


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Marina Abramovic performing "Artist is Present" at the MoMA in May 2010. Photo: Shelby Lessig

If my call for labor standards for artists seems out of bounds, think of the Screen Actors Guild (SAG, established 1933), the American Federation of Musicians (AFM, founded 1896), or the umbrella organization the Associated Actors and Artistes of America (the 4A’s, founded in 1919), which hold the film, theater and music industries to regulatory and best practice standards for commercial working artists and entertainers.

If there is any group of cultural workers that deserves basic standards of labor, it is us performers working in museums, whose medium is our own bodies and deserve humane treatment and respect. Artists of all disciplines deserve fair and equal treatment and can organize if we care enough to put the effort into it. I would rather be the face of the outspoken artist then the silenced, slowly rotating head (or, worse, "centerpiece") at the table. I want a voice, loud and clear.

Abramovic’s call for artists was, as the LA Times quoted, for “strong, silent types.” I am certainly strong but I am not comfortable with silence in this situation.

I refuse to be a silent artist regarding issues that affect my livelihood and the culture of my practice. There are issues too important to be silenced and I just happen to be the one to speak out, to break that silence. I spoke out in response to ethics, not artistic material or content, and I know that I am not the only one who feels the way I do.

I rejected the offer to work with Abramovic and MOCA — to participate in perpetuating unethical, exploitative and discriminatory labor practices — with my community in mind. It has moved me to work towards the establishment of ethical standards, labor rights and equal pay for artists, especially dancers, who tend to be some of the lowest paid artists.

The time has come for artists in Los Angeles and elsewhere to unite, organize, and work toward changing the degenerate discrepancies between the wealthy and powerful funders of art and the artists, mainly poor, who are at its service and are expected to provide so-called avant-garde, prescient content or "entertainment," as is increasingly the case — what is nonetheless merchandise in the service of money.

We must do this not because of what happened at MOCA but in response to a greater need (painfully demonstrated by the events at MOCA) for equity and justice for cultural workers.

I am not judging my colleagues who accepted their roles in this work and I, too, am vulnerable to the cult of charisma surrounding celebrity artists. I am judging, rather, the current social, cultural, and economic conditions that have rendered the exploitation of cultural workers commonplace, natural, and even horrifically banal, whether its perpetrated by entities such as MOCA and Abramovic or self-imposed by the artists themselves.

I want to suggest another mode of thinking: When we, as artists, accept or reject work, when we participate in the making of a work, even (or perhaps especially) when it is not our own, we contribute to the establishment of standards and precedents for our cohort and all who will come after us.

To conclude, I am grateful to Rainer for utilizing her position (without a request from me) of cultural authority and respect to make these issues public for the sake of launching a debate that has been overlooked for too long. Jeffrey Deitch, director of MOCA, was quoted in the LA Times as saying, in response to receiving my anonymous email and Rainer’s letter, “Art is about dialogue.”

While I agree, Deitch’s idea of dialogue here is only a palliative. It obscures a situation of injustice in which both artist and institution have proven irresponsible in their unwillingness to recognize that art is not immune to ethical standards. Let’s have a new discourse that begins on this thought.


Sara Wookey is an artist, choreographer, and creative consultant based in Los Angeles.

Dani - I welcome your thoughts on this, as artist, as viewer, as beautiful skeleton. Comment below.


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Maurizio Cattalan, making his exit? through the gift shop for souvenirs....

11/15/2011

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Maurizio Cattelan launches Toilet Paper magazine with photographer Pierpaolo Ferrari in January this year.
_ One of Italy’s most talked about contemporary artists - and on whom I have an enormous crush -  has on November 4th announced his retirement  during the launch of his retrospective at the Guggenheim in New York. According to Cattalan, it is his first and last retrospective of his life oeuvre.

Some say it is one of his publicity ploys to create buzz, and many question whether all the attention is merited. But, to know him is to laugh with him.  He teases the art world without taking even himself seriously, knowing he is mocking something of which he is a part of. 

So he peoples his art with  characters  in a theater of the absurd: animals, children,  police officers, swamis, popes,  all of them caught between  the absurdity of our beliefs and acceptance of what is. It is prank-like, simulating "reality" while breaking all the rules.

For this Cattalan  combines sculpture and performance as recipe for irony.  He has pushed the envelope on the contemporary art world poking fun at it with sarcasm and a not so subtle transgression as he discards moral and  ideological standards.

I suppose one could say he is of the world but not in it, as one might deduce as he ruefully points out the incongruities while offering no judgement or criteria. A not so innocent by-stander. He does not move to fix or change it, but simply sits with it grinning.

Cattalan quips  "I tend not to work with a specific person in mind. Art is a matter of statistics, It's not about individuals. It's about people."

"I was a loser, most concerned with making a living. It took me 30 years to understand that if I was a failure it wasn't my fault. I had to reinvent a system, find a way out, and set some rules that could work for me and a few others. I guess in the end that's what we all are trying to do."

For a side show of his work.
And for an amazing video of his Guggenheim Retrospective, All.
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Cattalan, Art Dealer, 1999

2 Comments

    Daniella Sforza

    Il faut cultiver notre jardin. - Voltaire

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