Personal blog of Bisi Silva on contemporary visual art and culture in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, and on life in Lagos and Nigeria.
Thursday 29 July 2010
The Global Africa Project Exhibition
The Global Africa Project Explores the Impact of African Visual Culture on Contemporary Art, Craft, and Design around the World
Groundbreaking Exhibition Challenging Traditional Conceptions of "African" Aesthetic Opens at MAD this November
New York (April 14, 2010) - An unprecedented exhibition exploring the broad spectrum of contemporary African art, design, and craft worldwide, The Global Africa Project premieres at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) this November. Featuring the work of over 60 artists in Africa, Europe, Asia, the United States, and the Caribbean, The Global Africa Project surveys the rich pool of new talent emerging from the African continent and its influence on artists around the world. Through ceramics, basketry, textiles, jewelry, furniture, and fashion, as well as selective examples of architecture, photography, painting, and sculpture, the exhibition actively challenges conventional notions of a singular African aesthetic or identity, and reflects the integration of African art and design without making the usual distinctions between "professional" and "artisan." Read more http://www.madmuseum.org/
CCA,Lagos' Art-iculate presents two lectures by Chika Okeke-Agulu
art-iculate: lectures on contemporary art and visual culture
Sunday 25th July 2010 3pm
Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos has initiated a dynamic platform for discussions on visual art and culture since opening its doors in January 2008. We have invited artists, critics, writers, curators and funders to talk about their work and their ideas and share their skills and knowledge. In 2009, we began the Art-iculate lecture series that aims to increase dialogue, encourage debate and stimulate exchange in visual art and culture in Nigeria. By prioritising the provision of an independent discursive platform through our public programmes, we hope to actively encourage the development of critical perspectives as well as engage with topical issues that affect our society specifically as well as the world at large.
In 2008/2009 Art-iculate invited to much acclaim Didier Schaub (Doual'Art, Cameroon), Solange Farkas (Videobrasil, Sao Paulo) Yacouba Konate (University of Abidjan, Abidjan) Monna Mokoena (MOMO Gallery, Johannesburg) and Shahidul Alam (Drik Agency, Dhaka).
In 2010 Art-iculate is pleased to invite US based Nigerian art historian and curator Chika Okeke-Agulu who will be presenting his lectures on two consecutive Sundays - 25th of July and 1st of August.
Title: “Who Knows Tomorrow at the Nationalgalerie, Berlin” Discusses on the project concept and the curatorial process of the art exhibition Who Knows Tomorrow, which consists of five independent projects by five African artists — El Anatsui, Zarina Bhimji, Antonio Ole, Yinka Shonibare, and Pascale Marthine Tayou — at four museums of the Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany. The lecture will cover issues around presentation of contemporary African art and artists in mainstream Western museums, as well as the politics of representation and identity in the age of globalisation.
About Chika Okeke-Agulu Chika Okeke-Agulu is a Woodrow Wilson Fellow and Assistant Professor of art history in the Department of Art and Archaeology, and Center for African American Studies, Princeton University. In 2007, he served as the Robert Sterling Clark Visiting Professor, Williams College. He co-organized Seven Stories About Modern Art in Africa (Whitechapel Art Gallery, London, 1995), The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945-1994 (Museum Villa Stuck, Munich, 2001), Life Objects: Rites of Passage in African Art (Princeton University Art Museum, Princeton, 2010), and Who Knows Tomorrow (Nationalgalerie, Berlin, 2010)
His writings on African and African Diaspora art and artists have appeared in South Atlantic Quarterly, Meridians: Feminism, Race, Transnationalism, Glendora Review, African Arts, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, Art South Africa, and in edited volumes. He is co-author (with Okwui Enwezor) of Contemporary African Art Since 1980 (Damiani, 2009), co-editor of Who Knows Tomorrow (König, 2010), and editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art.
The lectures are made possible by the Class of ’59 Faculty Fund, Princeton University
NOTE
On Sunday, 1st August 2010,3pm , Chika Okeke-Agulu presents his second lecture on“The Art and Politics of Ghada Amer”
Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos presents Slovenian Artists Collective, IRWIN
Towards A Double Consciousness:NSK Passport Project.
26th - 31st July, 2010
NSK Passport, 1993, courtesy IRWIN
Centre for Contemporary Art, Lagos is pleased to host the internationally renowned artists collective IRWIN, members of NSK (new Slovenian Art). Over a one week period of screenings, lectures and panel discussions, Towards a Double Consciousness: NSK Passport Project will take as its point of departure, NSK’s artistic intervention State in Time and its increasing significance in Africa especially within the context of Nigeria. State in Time, one of the most (in)famous projects produced by NSK, evolved out of their earlier activities, finding formation as a ‘state’ at the collapse of Yugoslavia and the coming into existence of the Republic of Slovenia in 1991. NSK’s State in Time transcends a physical geographical location or a defined statehood within a prescribed ethnic, cultural or religious belief, providing what IRWIN collaborator and writer Alexei Monroe describes as “a conceptual form of identification for individuals from diverse nationalities.”
Since the initial presentations around the world in the 1990s of State in Time the project is currently receiving a substantial number of requests for citizenship of the NSK State from Africa especially from Nigeria. This has resulted in many Nigerians assuming a dual identity as holders of NSK and Nigerian passports. In view of these new developments IRWIN conducted interviews with African/NSK citizens living in London, to ascertain their reasons for applying. Could it be in support of the initial artistic purpose of NSK? Do they see it as an avenue with which to move from one territory to another? Or is it for other socio-political reasons? Towards a Double Consciousness: NSK Passport project will allow further debate on both the artistic and political implications of the NSK State in Time action, offering an examination of their original artistic interventions within the Nigerian context.
This project forms part of CCA,Lagos’ year long programme On Independence and The Ambivalence of Promise celebrating 50 years of independence by seventeen African countries including Nigeria on the 1st October 2010. It provides an avenue to interrogate notions of nationhood at a time when our ideas of citizenship is continuously being challenged by state policies such as Nigeria’s contentious ‘federal character’ system or through religious and ethnic disturbances such as the recent unrest in the city of Jos, as well as the perennial civic unrest of the oil rich Niger Delta. Towards aDouble Consciousness attempts to interrogate the way in which artists propose and individuals search for an alternative - real or fictional - possibility that goes beyond notions of a fixed identity or geography.
IRWIN is a collective of artists Dušan Mandič (b. 1954), Miran Mohar (b. 1958), Andrej Savski (b. 1961), Roman Uranjek (b. 1961) and Borut Vogelnik (b. 1959), which comprises one of the core groups within the artists’ collective Neue Slowenische Kunst (NSK). IRWIN was founded in 1983 in Slovenia. Recent exhibitions include: The Promises of the Past, Centre Pompidou, Paris, 2010; The Eye of the State, The Israel Center for Digital Art, Holon, Israel, 2010; Third New Old Cold War, Moscow Biennial, Red October; Modernities, Museum of Contemporary Art (MACBA),Barcelona; State in Time, Kunsthalle Krems, 2009. The members of the group live and work in Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Programme
26th – 31st July 2010
Screening: Research interview of NSK Citizens as well as artists based in Nigeria.
Friday, 30 July 2010 Time: 3:00pm
Topic: Introduction to media art and the use of video in relation to other forms of new media, technology and performance in contemporary art.
Speakersinclude;Dr. Inke Arns, IRWIN members: Miran Mohar and Borut Vogelnik and Performance artist Jelili Atiku.
Saturday, 31 July, Time 2pm
Screening: 2:00pmScreening of interviews with African NSK passport holders living in London.
Panel Discussion: 3:00pm
Topic: NSK State: The Nigerian connection. A discussion on the significance of an artistic action made in Europe in the 90s on contemporary African consciousness.
Speakers include; Dr Inke Arns, IRWIN members: Miran Mohar and Borut Vogelnik, NSK member Eda Cufer and Nigerian NSK passport holders. Moderated by Loren Hansi Momodu.
Curator: Loren Hansi Momodu
Curatorial Advisors; Dr. Inke Arns, Director, HMKV, Dortmund and Bisi Silva, Director, CCA,Lagos
The Advanced Cultural Management Programme and Towards a Double Consciousness are supported by the Goethe Institute, Johannesburg and Nigeria.
