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“There is no encounter without ‘cultural contamination'. Culture is a living organism, in continuous mutation, which reinvents itself by passing through the phases of decline, loss of direction and renewal, as determined by its external contacts...No society of sound mind would claim the absolute purity of its culture.” - N'Gone Fall - Things Fall apart.

There is a conflict within me each time I have to repress nostalgia of my childhood visits to my hometown in Ijebu-Ode, to maintain a present state of mind. I remember the words of N'Gone and console myself that even the past is borrowed. The real conflict rises from the fear that I may lose a part of me forever. These parts of me are my roots. There is the general anxiety many traditional communities in Yoruba Land (where I come from) express from the old to the deaf ears of the young. This anxiety is for the eventual death of all their existence. I do not want to be deaf to them. I want to take my grandmother's cultural values and evolve with them. But, is nostalgia stronger than migration? Than imperialism? Than change?

Afro-Surreal Art at its Best

Article by Samantha Payne, published on Novembre 2019, Volume 5

Cameroonia artist Adjani Okpu-Egbe showcases his latest thought-provoking work.

ART BREATH - INTERVIEW

Touria El Glaoui on Contemporary African Art, on 1-54 Art Fair, the Visibility of Art and Changing the Narrative

If you missed out on this year's 1-54 art fair, fear not it'll be back. First in Morocco in February, then in New York in spring and back again to London next autumn. You may though be distressed on the idea that you missed out on so much great art. Luckily there are pictures and it'll give you an idea but nothing does enough justice to the brilliant art on display, than experiencing it in person.

Each year, at each fair, the art takes on the sensitivities of the world, the political and social notions and issues we need to discuss and know about. Through the images, the drips of colours, the threads or the sculpted, those conversations are to be found there, in the art. And amongst the layers of art, the brushstrokes, the installations, the hustle, the bustle, the corridors, the stairs, you will find the passion and integrity of the art and the galleries. The path leads back to the passion of the founder of 1-54, a passion for art that shines out of Touria El Glaoui and for the reasons behind the fair: to showcase contemporary African art and in turn change the narrative of the History of Art (as is currently being taught). Our conversation started by talking about how it all began...

Mille World - ART

5 North African Artists to Watch at 1-54

By Amina Kaabi POSTED 1 October, 2019

The annual acclaimed contemporary African art fair is here. London is buzzing with contemporary African art this week, and for once it hasn’t been looted (looking at you, British Museum). It’s all thanks to the art world’s most anticipated African art fair, 1-54. 

Since its founding in 2013, no platform has championed African artists as ethically as 1-54. And its seventh edition is gearing up to open this week, and by the looks of it, it might be their most exciting year yet. 

For this year’s edition, which is set to take place at Somerset House on October 3, 45 international galleries will head to the British capital to exhibit the work of over 140 artists from across the globe, with a strong focus on a new wave of contemporary North African artists. 

“We are delighted with the exciting line-up of galleries for our seventh edition in London,” says Touria El Glaoui, the fair’s founder and director in a statement. 

If you’re heading over to London, these are the North African artists you need to keep an eye out for.

artnet NEWS - INTELLIGENCE REPORT - AFRICAN ART MARKET

Contemporary Art From Africa Is Seizing Global Attention. Here's Your Guide to Six Emergent Art Markets Making It Happen

By Rebecca Anne Proctor POSTED 2 October, 2019

Here is your guide to six dynamic emerging art capitals: Accra, Addis Ababa, Cape Town, Dakar, Lagos, and Marrakech.

Ask a question about the African art market, and many experts will be quick to tell you that there is no such thing. How could one market possibly encompass 54 countries, 1.2 billion people, and countless aesthetic traditions?

It can't. But that won't stop the global art market from trying. The commercial sector has a way of co-opting talent into the international art slipstream (sometimes flattening history and context in the process). It has done so with artists-and entire movements-from Asia and Latin America in the past. Africa may be next in line.

Know this place

Kwazulu Natal Society of Arts Gallery

Durban, Kwazulu Natal, South Africa - Main Gallery, Mezzanine Gallery, Park Gallery

03 October - 03 November 2019

Opening Reception: Thursday 03 October at 17:30

Participating Artists: Audrey Anderson, Olivia Botha, Jess Bothma, Callan Grecia, Vivien Kohler, Mook Lion, Paulo Menezes, Nabeeha Mohamed, Daniel Nel, Sisipho Ngodwana, Karla Nixon, Angela Shaw, Dane Steps, Jo Voysey, Kylie Wentzel & Luyanda Zindela.

The original ‘Do It’ began in Paris in 1993 as a conversation between artists Christian Boltanski, Bertrand Levier and Obrist himself, who was experimenting with how exhibition formats could be rendered more flexible and open-ended. The discussion led to the question of whether a show could take “scores” or written instructions by artists as a point of departure, which could be interpreted anew each time they were enacted. To test the idea, Obrist invited 13 artists to send instructions, which were then translated into nine different languages and circulated internationally as a book. Within two years, ‘Do It’ exhibitions were being created all over the world by realizing the artists’ instructions. With every version of the exhibition new instructions were added, so that today more than 300 artists have contributed to the project.

'A night with Peju Alatise' by Black Creators Matter

Sulger-Buel Gallery

The Loft, 51 Surrey Row, London SE1 0BZ, United Kingdom

Tuesday 01 October 2019, 18:30 - 21:00

To celebrate the first day of Black History Month but also Nigeria’s National Day, Black Creators Matter & Sulger-Buel Gallery invite you for a special night with artist Peju Alatise. A visual feast and special conversation with curator and critic Bolanle Tajudeen.

Admission is free: Register on Eventbrite.co.uk
Dress code: Smart
Tuesday 01 October 2019, 18:30 – 21:00 BST

Apollo Magazine - ART MARKET

Frieze week highlights: dried cod and the crispness of Caulfield

By Samuel Reilly POSTED 27 September 2019

With hundreds of exhibitions and events vying for your attention in London during Frieze week, Apollo’s editors pick out the shows they don’t want to miss.

‘Péju Alatise: Memoirs of the Forgotten’ at Sulger-Buel Gallery (until 31 October)

Alatise’s recent sculptures are at once elegiac and defiant, lamenting the gradual decline of Yoruba traditions while offering hope of reverse, and renewal. This small but powerful solo show centres upon If Nigeria will not Wear her Own Cloth She Deserves to go Naked (2019) – a monumental frieze of acrylic on canvas, granite, and scorched wood. Reading from left to right, the geometric designs, referencing traditional textiles and vividly rendered in acrylic, are pared away to expose a barren, broken world – but read the other way, they tell a tale of redress. Work by the Nigerian artist will also be on show at Sulger-Buel’s stand at 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair.

Speak Truth To Power

Co-curated by Ingrid Masondo, Jay Pather & Cathal McKee

Afrovibes Performing Arts Festival

Rotterdam, Utrecht and The Hague - The Netherlands

03 - 13 October 2019

With the theme Speak Truth to Power the focus of this year's festival is on truth and power. The world is overflowing with data and information and with the rise of unfiltered (online) sources the question arises: what is real and what is fake? Has truth become an illusion in a world in which social media reinforces existing stereotypes by showing people (fake) news, images and stories with which they already agree?

Afro_Vibes has chosen this theme as an artistic response to current times in which various power struggles are featured in the news every day. From authoritarian regimes to students who make their voices heard for climate change and affordable education. Where women unite for equality and against sexual violence, where refugees and migrants have to defend their position and where online media and news channels are used as a window to look at the world, but also for propaganda and fake news.

THE MAST ONLINE

Mulling Over Art: Artnet “Intelligence Report” magnifies African Art Market

By Andrew Mulenga POSTED 24 September 2019

In its latest “Intelligence Report” released on 10th September titled Welcome to the Age of the Art Industry (The Art World Is Over) which coincides with its 30th anniversary, artnet News advances a thesis: that over the past 30 years, the art world has evolved into an art industry.

This year Africa features prominently in the number-crunching narrative, it is worth therefore not only to gleam where Zambia lies in this global art industry, but perhaps to learn a thing or two from it.

In a co-authored introduction to the report, artnet News Editor-in-Chief Andrew Goldstein and Executive Editor Julia Halperin suggest that the art world was once a modestly sized province of connoisseurs, passion-driven dealers, and hobbyist collectors, but “the art business today exists as an interconnected global network dominated by multibillion-dollar corporations and swashbuckling, profit-minded investors who care about numbers as much, if not more, than they care about the art itself.”

ARTXLAGOS 2019

ARTHOUSE - THE SPACE

The Federal Palace, Victoria Island, Lagos

01 - 03 November 2019

At ARTXLagos2019, ArtHouse - The Space will be presenting the though-provoking sculptures by Péju Alatise alongside Diana Ejata, Ngozi Schommers and Victoria Udodian.

ART X Lagos is West Africa’s premier international art fair, designed to showcase the best and most innovative contemporary art from the African continent and its Diaspora.

Launched in 2016, the art fair has since become a cornerstone of the Lagos art calendar, drawing local patrons and a host of international collectors, curators, and critics annually. Since its debut, ART X Lagos has welcomed over 22,000 visitors to see the works of Africa’s leading established and emerging artists, including representatives of institutions such as the Tate Modern, Zeitz MOCAA, the National Museum of African Art at the Smithsonian, the Art Institute of Chicago and Centre Pompidou. These attendees and the satellite exhibitions that have emerged in response to the fair, are undoubtedly indicators of Lagos’ position as a fast-emerging and exciting cultural hub.

Tribute to Artists in Notre-Dame

Arab World Institute (IMA) - Museum (Levels 5,6 & 7)

21 September - 20 December 2019

Translated from French using Google Translate

Donors Claude and France Lemand, upset by the fire that devastated, on April 15, the iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris, asked artists from the Arab world and diasporas, also affected by this tragedy, to give their testimony.

On the occasion of the 36 th European Heritage Days, the Museum of the Arab World Institute unveils its first "Tribute artists to Our Lady" , exhibition of works of the first artists to have answered the call: the Franco-Moroccan Najia Mehadji, Moroccan Mohamed Lekleti from Montpellier, Syrian Hamburger Boutros Al-Maari and Iraqi Londoner Dia Al-Azzawi.

This exhibition will be followed by other skirmishes. Thus, over the seasons, will be constituted a collection of works in tribute to Our Lady, by artists from the Arab world and diasporas sensitive to this theme and totally free of their expression and their means - the same freedom that had Claude and guided France Lemand in the constitution of the collection Tondo of East and West or 3 e pane Portrait of the Bird-Who Do Are Not.

And So The Stories Ran Away

Curated by Liesl Hartman & Richard Kilpert

Zeitz MOCAA, Level 1 - Tunnels

08 September 2019 - 30 March 2020

And So The Stories Ran Away sees students from Ruth Prowse and Michaelis working under the mentorship of artists: Jill Joubert, Isabelle Grobler, Lynette Bester, Liesl Hartman and Richard Kilpert.

Curated by Zeitz MOCAA’s Centre for Art Education the exhibition is titled And So The Stories Ran Away, and is an innovative collaboration between the museum and Cape Town’s leading art schools - the Michaelis School of Fine Art, the Ruth Prowse School of Art, as well as the Nyanga Arts Development Centre.

This exhibition celebrates stories from Africa and has been created to engage the imaginations of children as the primary audience - inviting them into a multi-sensory, interactive experience with works of art.

“The title is inspired by a Nigerian Ekoi legend of how Mouse visits the houses of all people, gathering stories that she weaves into her story children,” says co-curator and CFAE head, Liesl Hartman.

OMENKA - ART - INTERVIEW

Artist Dossier on Péju Alatise

By Oyindamola Olaniyan POSTED 21 August 2019

Born in 1975, Péju Alatise is a Nigerian artist, poet, and writer, as well as a fellow at the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art. She earned her undergraduate architectural degree from Ladoke Akintola University in Oyo State, Nigeria. While earning her degree, Alatise began to explore her interests in art by visiting Jakande, a crafts market in Lagos. There, she practised various media, including painting, sculpting, and jewellery making. This experimentation led her to begin her art career with painting, subsequently branching out to an interdisciplinary practice, using beads, cloth, resin, and other materials in her work. She would later focus on sculpture, using her art to make statements about social issues, while incorporating literature, symbolism, and traditional Yoruba mythology.

Architecture has a huge influence on her work, Alatise says, especially when it comes to space and structure. In a recent interview, she said, “You can’t go through six years of architecture and not feel structure. Architecture makes you obey all the laws. It makes you so aware of physicality.” As a self-taught artist, she appreciates the huge role architecture has played in her artistic development.

DAKARACTU - HOME - TELEVISION

Diass-Aibd: "The airport is an ideal vector to make known the artists of Senegal" (Xavier Mary)

Published 5 September 2019

Translated from French using Google Translate

As part of the animation of its cultural platform, Aerog'Art, Limak-Aibd-Summa (Las), manager of the airport Dakar Blaise Diagne organized the exhibition "Sunu Thiossane".

For this third edition, the Aibd has hosted the works of Senegalese painter Soly Cissé. Who advocated the erection of a museum of contemporary art to preserve the works of all the old artists disappeared. According to the Dg de Las, Xavier Mary, "the airport is an ideal vector to make known the artists of Senegal".

The Exhibition runs 01 September - 31 October 2019

THE ART NEWSPAPER - NEWS - ART MARKET

For African artists, it pays to be female

By Anny Shaw POSTED 13 August 2019

Four women top the auction market for African art as collectors look to 'fill gaps in the market'

Being pale and male is rapidly going out of fashion at auction and, as a result, demand-and prices-for women artists of different ethnicities is on the rise. Nowhere is this more evident than in the African art market where four women lead in terms of auction prices.

They are: Marlene Dumas ($6.3m), Julie Mehretu ($5.6m), Irma Stern ($4m) and Njideka Akunyili Crosby ($3.4m). Their prices eclipse the likes of Nigeria's star Modernist painter Ben Enwonwu ($1.7m), El Anatsui ($1.5m) and William Kentridge ($1.5m).

It should be noted that two of the four women are white and only one—Irma Stern—lived on the continent until she died in 1966, in South Africa. Indeed, Marlene Dumas could equally be considered European (she has lived in Holland since 1976, representing the country at the Venice Biennale in 1995), while Ethiopian-born Julie Mehretu is based in New York and Nigerian-born Njideka Akunyili Crosby in Los Angeles.