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- Convenor:
-
Astrid Starck-Adler
(Université de Haute-Alsace, Institut de recherche ILLE UR 4363)
Send message to Convenor
- :
- B1 1.12
- Sessions:
- Thursday 18 July, -, -
Time zone: Europe/Lisbon
Short Abstract:
Europe is experiencing an increasing craze for contemporary African Visual Art. Simultaneously, the restitution of artefacts and artworks to former African colonies is a burning topic. The panel will investigate and analyse both phenomena.
Long Abstract:
With the new millenium, a craze for contemporary African Visual Art emerged in Europe comparable to that of a century earlier when traditional African Art exerted tremendous influence, for example, on Picasso and Cubism. Thus, contemporary African artists are gaining recognition; suffice it to name here Benjamin Toguo, whose works are thematically related to historical, social and human events, past or present, and are distinguished by their commitment, creativity, originality, inventiveness and material diversity (e.g. Rwanda: Art Basel, 2018); Kifouli Dossou, who uses bright colours and superimposes tradition and modernity (reinvented Guélédé masks: Fondation Zinsou, Cotonou, Benin); or Hazoumé, who employs the recycled and the ready-made to confer polysemic meaning and, above all, transgressive signification to artistic creation (jerry cans). Far from exoticism, the search for personal expression and the ability to attain a collective dimension is one of the characteristic features of multiple artworks. Thus, it is not surprising that famous foundations and museums organize exhibitions devoted to contemporary Sub-Saharan Visual Art, focusing on a single country or on a broad range of countries, e.g. the Fondation Cartier (Beauté Congo 1926-2015, 2015), the Fondation Vuitton (Art Afrique, 2017) or Germany's Vitra Design Museum (Making Africa, A Continent of Contemporary Design, 2015). In a parallel development, this year's Berlin Biennale was marked by debate on the restitution of African artefacts and artworks to former colonies.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 18 July, 2019, -Paper short abstract:
I intend to reflect on emerging trends towards art innovation in the archipelagos of São Tomé and Principe, and Cape Verde, where the renewal of African art and the absorption of European elements are a testament to an originality and resilience that cannot fail to be of interest to Europeans.
Paper long abstract:
I intend here to reflect on emerging forms of innovation on the archipelagos of São Tomé and Principe, and Cape Verde: the logic of bricolage and miscegenation
in São Tomé, so present in Tchiloli drama, and in the creative recycling of the São Toméan artists Geanne Castro, Adilson Castro and Demilson Sousa; the use of waste materials found throughout the urban landscape of Sao Tomé, such as motorcycle fuel tanks, plastic, bicycle parts and tires, in the miscigenated artworks of René Tavares. Another point of interest, which is particularly important for the generation currently coming into its own, is the creation of the Cacau the creation of the Cacau Foundation - House of Art, Creation, the Environment and Utopias in 2018; and finally the way in which the memory of colonialism and its inherited consequences are critically deconstructed by the contemporary artistic language of audio-visual artist César Cardoso and the poetry that permeates his videos, reminiscent of the mythological figures in the paintings of Tchalé Figueira.
Given that the peoples of these islands were abruptly cut off from their identity and communities of origin by colonialism, and were separately brought together in groups of mixed ethnicity, these artistic manifestations, permeated by the memories of colonialism, reflect their capacity to reinvent themselves.
In this context, the unique way in which these artists renew both African art and elements absorbed from European artistic traditions, reveals an originality and capacity for resilience that cannot fail to be of interest to Europeans.
Paper short abstract:
The aim of this paper is to discuss how curatorial choices of African pavilions at Venice Biennale in the last ten years are often the result of political stances and economic influences, which question art's autonomy and turn it into a battlefield of power plays.
Paper long abstract:
In 2007, the African Pavillion Check List Luanda Pop at the Venice Biennale was saluted as the «First African Pavillion» of the world-renowned artistic kermesse. This attribution of an alleged exceptionality, however, is controversial and denies a longer lasting history of participation of African countries to the Venetian exhibition. This includes both Sub-Saharan ones (e.g. Kenya in 2003, South Africa in 1993 and 1995, Ivory Coast and Senegal in 1993) and North-African ones (Egypt is a constant presence at least since 1993 and Morocco since 2005), both as national participations and in the form of collective projects (e.g. the section Fault Lines of contemporary African arts at the Biennale 2003). An explanation for such a statement may lie in the personality of the producer and organizer of the 2007 African Pavillion, Sindika Dokolo, the Congolese-Angolan businessman who is owner of the «first African private collection of contemporary art» and since 2002 financially supports artistic exhibitions and works in Angola. Through the close analysis not only of the exhibited works, but also of other materials such as press releases, advertisement cards, curators' declarations, brochures accompanying the exhibitions and catalogues, the aim of this paper is to discuss how curatorial choices are often the result of political stances and economic influences, which question art's autonomy and turn it into a battlefield of power plays.
Paper short abstract:
How can a young African artist get his or her work known? How can his or her work get attention when he or she is constantly under way and is nourished by « other places »? « « for a man who cries out is not a dancing bear » » Aimé Césaire
Paper long abstract:
I invite you to join me in a voyage and to participate in a debate. The debate is open-ended, for I have no definitive answer. I am a student at an art school. Due to my parents' profession, I traveled widely at a young age. As I passed from one country to another, what made the biggest impression on me was art. Art is shared by all the civilizations I encountered; it is manifold yet brings humanity together. Due to my itinerant education and academic training, I have come into contact with the world of contemporary art and the issues surrounding it. I quickly realized that the question of exhibition is as important as that of production. I also realized that unaccompanied, a work of art cannot be shown and thus cannot exist. My work focuses on the manner in which we are led to perceive and to receive things - above all, images. An important place in my research is occupied by the materiality of images and the different layers of which they are composed. I enjoy playing with the tangibility of the creative supports of photography. Following an ensemble of works focusing on the notions of travel, of movement and of vagrancy which led me to cross all of West Africa, I was able to begin to understand - thanks to the various exhibitions visited - how an « African » work of art can be exhibited. I began to understand how it can be chosen.
Paper short abstract:
In addition to the continuity between the formal expressions of sub-Saharan Sufi artists and the formal characteristics Paul Klee's work developed through his travels to Tunisia and Egypt, this paper attempts to explore the common intellectual and spiritual aspects that underlie in their work.
Paper long abstract:
The continuity between the compositions of Paul Klee and contemporary sub-Saharan visual art of Sufi Mourides is unmistakable. The inward gaze of Klee's mask-like faces anticipates that of Moussa Tine's A chacun son masque; his cryptic symbols evoke a mysterious state common to Yelimane Fall's calligraphy; and the interplay of verticality and horizontality that characterizes Klee's work also underlies many of Viyé Diba's compositions, such as Musical Materiality, in which Diba uses fabric swatches in a manner recalling the colorful patchwork of Mourides' clothing.
Through this interplay of verticality and horizontality Klee reached "the perfect accord of severing, or the resolution of tension" between the high and the low that Giles Deleuze assigns to the Baroque fold. He created an infinite fold that moves between "the pleats of matter" and "the folds of the soul;" (35) thus, Deleuze considers him one of "the great modern Baroque painters." For Deleuze, Baroque is "abstract art par excellence," however, "abstraction is not a negation of form: it posits form as folded, existing only as a "mental landscape" in the soul or in the mind."(35) Moreover, Deleuze speaks of Helga Heinzen's compositions of striped and folded fabrics as a fold that "follow a line now coming from Islam."(37) In this paper, I aim to read Viyé Diba's compositions through the Deleuzian lens of the fold, and to explore the common aspects of the "mental landscape" that connects both Klee and Sufism to the spiritual and intellectual heritage of Africa.
Paper short abstract:
The present paper investigates 1) the influence of globalization and decoloniality on the presence, perception and reception of contemporary African art in France and 2) the role played therein by the Revue Noire and by recent exhibitions at the Cartier and Vuitton Foundations, Paris.
Paper long abstract:
The Paris exhibition Magiciens de la Terre (1989) marked a turning point in the genesis of a global, contemporary art in which "everyone is put at the same level." Highly controversial but rich in implications, the exhibition led to two significant events: publication of the Revue Noire, and Jean Pigozzi's collecting of contemporary African art.
The bilingual French-English Revue Noire was the first international magazine to investigate contemporary creative artists in Africa and in the Diaspora, inserting itself into the decoloniality movement and seeking to make known contemporary African art in its own right. The Revue, whose founding principles included rejection both of exoticism and of Eurocentricity, encompassed all the arts as well as related crafts: "Painters, sculptors, photographers, architects, film directors, artists, gallerists, museum directors, directors of cultural centers and associations […] from three continents: keep us informed of your work and of your activities, make the Revue Noire y o u r magazine." Between the first issue (1991) entitled « Ousmane Sow / African London » and the last one (2018) focusing on "restitution, return to the country of origin" of ancient art works stolen under colonial regimes, the Revue traces the history of the reception of contemporary African art which has become a permanent part of both the Fondation Cartier (Beauté Congo 1926-2015) and the Fondation Vuitton (Art/Afrique), home since 2017 to the Collection Pigozzi.
Paper short abstract:
Paper on the restitution of the African cultural heritage in France and Europe, with reference to the Art of Benin. We'll also focus on the meaning and destination of objects for new dialogues with postcoloniality, art and contemporary Africa.
Paper long abstract:
Motivated by the report on the restoration of the African cultural heritage in France, publication of 2018, this communication reflects on this agenda. We'll focus, moreover, on the meaning of objects that circulate between countries and continents, trying to understand with what past, narratives, appropriations and re-interpellation for creative and reflective dialogues on postcoloniality, art, and contemporary Africa they do it. The report concretises the announcement of President Emanuel Macron, during his visit to Africa in 2017, to take the step of restitution; a historic step in France and, hopefully, a model for other countries in Europe that keep their share of African heritage in the custody or hostage of museums, collections and the market. Where, instead of unanimous applause, there was more expectation, apprehension, reaction to receiving that report that defends "times of return" for a "new relational ethics." We still need to see how gradual and modulated devolution of thousands of pieces to Africa will take place in the future, among those is the unique and precious Art of Benin. We'll focus on this case for its current importance as well as for its past history and possible contemporary destinations besides France.
Synopsis illustrated in https://iscte-iul.academia.edu/idalinaconde/NEXT-PRESENTATIONS-PUBLICATIONS