Archive: Issue No. 93, May 2005

09.05.05 'Africa Remix' at the Pompidou in Paris
09.05.05 Hentie van der Merwe at MartA in Germany

USA

09.05.05 'Patriot' at The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore

UNITED ARAB EMIRATES

26.04.05 The Sharjah 7th Biennial

AFRICA

26.04.05 Imagining the Book II at the Alexandria Library, Egypt
 

The mega show of contemporary art from the continent of African and the diaspora, 'Africa Remix', opens at the Pompidou Centre in Paris on May 15, on the third leg of a world tour which opened at the Kunstpaleis in Düsseldorf and continued to London's Hayward Gallery.

Under the artistic direction of Simon Njami and a team of international curators and featuring the production of 88 artists showing work made over the past 10 years, the show also includes furniture design, music, literature and fashion. South African-born artists make up 14 of the total - Jane Alexander, Andries Botha, Wim Botha, Willie Bester, Tracey Derrick, Marlene Dumas, David Goldblatt, Jackson Hlungwani, William Kentridge, Moshekwa Langa, Santu Mofokeng, Zwelethu Mthethwa, Rodney Place, Tracey Rose and Guy Tillim.

Marlene Dumas' work is a sober grid of ink and wash portraits of blindfolded or hooded figures, Jane Alexander shows her 'African Adventure' mixed media installation, Tracey Derrick presents a commissioned series of photographs of Western Cape farm workers, and Tracey Rose is represented by her seminal video, TKO, in which a camera concealed in a punching bag records her attack thereon. Jackson Hlungwani exhibits his outsize wooden figures with a biblical theme.

The exhibition is divided into three categories, with somewhat unoriginal titles - History and Identity, City and Land, and Body and Soul. This may not have been the curator's fault, however. Njami's original title for the entire exhibition was not the one the show now carries. His choice was the much more interesting 'Chaos and metamorphosis', but institutional pressure insisted on the inclusion of 'Africa' in the title.

In London, some critics took the attitude that while what was on offer was undoubtedly art from Africa, it could not be called 'contemporary' in terms of the British art world's understanding of the term. It will be interesting to see what the French critics have to say. Inevitably, comparisons will be drawn with 'Magiciens de la Terre' the 1989 show curated by Jean Hubert Martin at the Pompidou. Endlessly referred to in art journals as the exhibition which for the first time showed artists like Esther Mahlangu alongside western artists, as Njami has pointed out, the difference between Magiciens and Africa Remix is fundamental: not one of the African artists on the former had any art school training. All were self taught.

Plans are underfoot to bring Africa Remix to the Johannesburg Art Gallery after its next date, at the Mori Art Museum of Tokyo.

Opens: May 15
Closes: August 20

South African-born Hentie van der Merwe will be part of a group show entitled '(my private) HEROES' to open in a new Frank Gehry-designed museum called MartA in Herford, Germany. The show is under the direction of one of Europe's top curators, Jan Hoet.

A curatorial statement reads: 'The depiction of heroic individuals is one of art's great themes. This exhibition tells of heroes and the images of them in art stretching from the 19th century until the present day. In the 20th century, artists continuously rediscovered heroic modes of expression sometimes self-mockingly, such as Martin Kippenberger and Andy Warhol, and sometimes with a tragic, existential flavour, such as Jean Fautrier and Joseph Beuys.

'(my private) HEROES' deliberately avoids attempting to present unambiguous definitions of the heroic. Instead, it presents a much wider approach to themes such as idol and star, perpetrator and victim, and wounds and martyrdom. The exhibition calls into question the very nature of the hero. It investigates the ways in which artists nowadays portray themselves and work. The artist-heroes and media stars on show in this exhibition make up a subjective selection.'

Opens: May 7
Closes: August 14

'Patriot' is billed as 'a thought-provoking exhibition that examines the formation of the nationalist subject in the United States and elsewhere', and considers the connection between 'lands' and 'people'. 'Patriot' asks why nationalism, prophesised by figures as diverse as Karl Marx, Arjun Appadurai, and Antonio Negri as obsolete, has re-emerged in seemingly robust and aggressive forms today. The multi-media work of nine artists and collectives whose politically-engaged practices examine nationalism and/or nationalist subject formation is featured.

Siemon Allen's Cards is a new installation that examines US nationalist indoctrination through the presentation of thousands of trading cards, each enclosed in a see through plastic slip cover and arranged in a series of Allen's trademark grids.

Thematically and formally, this new work follows closely on Allen's previous installation, Stamp Collection: Imaging South Africa, in which the nature of the image South Africa wished to present to the world is examined through a display of the postage stamps it chose to issue.

Other artists on Patriot include the 16 Beaver Group of New York, who have produced Act Patriot Act a free newspaper style publication, the Big Noise collective with a film documenting the autonomist Zapatista struggle, German artist Andrea Geyer, who invites viewers to participate in a memory game, and Mexican artist Carla Herrera-Prats.

www.contemporary.org

Opens: April 15
Closes: June 11

A short drive from Dubai in the United Arab Emirates, the Sharjah Biennial opened on April 6 for a two month run under the curatorship of Jack Persekian working with co-curator Canadian artist Ken Lum. Over 70 artists from 36 countries are represented, though South Africa is not one of those countries. On hand for the judging was Okwui Emwezor.

The biennial is being presented as "a new era for contemporary art in the Gulf", and an online tour can be taken at www.universes-in-universe.de/car/sharjah/2005/english.htm. Artists who may be known to South African audiences include Carlos Garaicoa, who exhibited in this country on 'Intimas Marcas Memorias' and Ingrid Mwangi, part of the lineup of the Museum for African Art in New York's 'Looking Both Ways' show. Egyptian artist and Cairo Biennale winner Moataz Nasr, who will show at Johannesburg's Franchise later this year, is also exhibiting.

April 6 - June 6

Appropriately enough, this new biennale at the sculpturally exciting Alexandria Library takes as its central theme the book, in all its manifestations. The interpretations by more than 100 artists vary from exquisite Arab calligraphy to video installations which incorporate text and narrative. A secondary theme presented by curator Mohamed Abouelnaga is 'The Desert', seen as the divide between the countries on the northern perimeter of the continent of Africa and the countries to the south of the Sahara.

Selection was made through the submission of portfolios and proposals, and South Africa is represented by three Cape Town artists, Sonja Rademeyer, Norman O'Flynn and Sue Williamson.

April 16 - May 21