Siegenthaler, Fiona

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art.contemporary.african.(Re-) Mapping the ﬁeld: a bird’s eye view on discourses. Edition 1Featuring:Odili Donald Odita, Otobong Nkanga, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Simon Njami, Sylvester Okwunodu Ogbechie, Riason Naidoo, Chimurenga.3IMPRINT / IMPRESSUMSAVVY | art.contemporary.african.SAVVY | kunst.zeitgenössisch.afrikanisch.Online magazine / OnlinezeitschriftEditor-in-chief / Project InitiatorChefredakteur / ProjektinitiatorDr. Bonaventure Soh Bejeng NdikungDeputy Editor-in-chief Stellv. ChefredakteurinAndrea HeisterEditors of edition 1Editoren von Ausgabe 1Andrea Heister, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng NdikungProofreading for edition 1Lektorat von Ausgabe 1Katja Vobiller, Simone Kraft, Andrea Heister, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng NdikungAuthors of edition 1Autoren von Ausgabe 1Aicha Diallo, Brenda Cooper, Andrea Heister, Prune Helfter, Nancy Hoffmann, Missla Libsekal, Alanna Lockward, Riason Naidoo, Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung, Simon Njami, Sylvester Okwonodu Ogbechie, Annette Schemmel, Fiona Siegenthaler, Kangsen Feka WakaiTranslationsÜbersetzungenKatja Vobiller, Claudia Lamas Cornejo, Johanna Ndikung, Simone Kraft, Andrea HeisterWeb designWebdesignAlice MotangaGraphic designGraﬁkdesignSoavina RamarosonBureauBüroRichardstr. 43/4412055 BerlinGermany4TABLE OF CONTENT 0. EditorialBonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung1. Spotlight on... Go tell it on the mountain Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung / Andrea HeisterA Maestro kicks the bucket: an obituary on Malangatana Der Vorhang fällt:  ein Nachruf auf Malangatana Andrea HeisterWangechi Mutu passes the courvoisier to Yto Barrada Wangechi Mutu reicht den Courvoisier an Yto Barrada Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung House of African Art: First African Art Space in Asia House of African Art:  erstes Haus für afrikanische Kunst in Asien Prune HelfterGoddy Leye is dead Goddy Leye ist tot Annette Schemmel2. EssaysAncient guilt, new tool Alte Schuld, neues Werkzeug Simon NjamiWhere is Africa in the Global Contemporary Art? Wo ist Afrika in der globalen zeitgenössischen Kunst Sylvester Okwonodu OgbechiePainting Fela Fela Malen Kangsen Feka WakaiReﬂections on 1910-2010: From Pierneef to Gugulective. An exhibition on a century of South African art Reﬂektionen 1910–2010: Von Pierneef bis Gugulective. Ein Jahrhundert südafrikanische Kunst – eine Ausstellung Riason NaidooMain discourses of the 2nd Salon Urbain de Douala (SUD 2010) in Cameroon seen by an Indian runner duck Dominante Diskurse auf dem 2. Salon Urbain de Douala (SUD 2010) aus der Perspektive einer indischen Laufente Annette SchemmelLegitimizing the legitimate Das Legitime legitimieren Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung53. Feature(Re)-Constructing Mindscapes Nancy HoffmannThe signifying donkey Brenda Cooper4. InterviewChromatic Symphony. Interview with Odili Donald Odita Missla Libsekal I am still trying out… searching and ﬁnding and searching Interview with Maimuna Adam Andrea Heister“Re-Imagining…”. Interview with Ntone Edjabe Aicha Diallo5. RetrospectMake Yourself at Home Bonaventure Soh Bejeng NdikungThe Idea of Africa (re-invented) #1: Bonaventure Soh Bejeng NdikungAddis Foto Fest Andrea HeisterAFROPOLIS Stadt, Medien, Kunst. Kairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Johannesburg Fiona SiegenthalerThe Era of Negritude. The Short Century, Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa 1945-1994 Alanna Lockward162AFROPOLIS – Stadt, Medien, Kunst. Kairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa, JohannesburgRautenstrauch-Joest Museum, Cologne, 5.11.2010-15.3.2011 Fiona SiegenthalerCurating is a practice that includes not only taking care of the art (curare = lat. to care for), but it also aims at caring for the exhibition visitors by giving them the opportunity of a special experience beyond the everyday routine. To curate is actually to create a setting in which art can be experienced. This task becomes particularly challenging when a team of curators sets out not only to show contemporary art from ﬁve major African cities, but to additionally provide for an actual (however forcibly limited) experience of the African metropolis itself. Afropolis, curated by social anthropologists Kerstin Pinther and Larissa Förster and artist Christian Hanussek, represents such an attempt as one of the ﬁrst exhibition projects of this kind in central Europe – and it does so in a convincing way.Their approach is both highly inclusive and risky. The newly opened Joest-Rautenstrauch Museum in Cologne offers a vast exhibition space that has been sectioned by movable walls, thus creating a number of individual exhibition spaces which are loosely connected to each other. In this spatial choreography, each of the African cities receives its section in which it is reﬂected in art works and documentation. But they also are connected among each other, so that you may, rather unknowingly, suddenly stumble from Cairo into Lagos and from there to Nairobi. The exhibition layout thus suggests that each African city in its individuality has something in common with the others – the notion of the African metropolis, Afropolis, its own way to function and its particular visual, auditory and physical presence. The number and density of art works presented contributes to this experience: Photographs, installations, sculptures, paintings, but also a lot of video and text information reﬂect the city as a visual appearance and as a socially, politically, economically and culturally marked realm of exchange and transition in a permanent state of potential as well as decay. While, on the homepage, the curators attempt to draw a distinction between documentary sections and the art works, this clear delineation is slightly dissolved in the actual exhibition. The amplitude of the material on display, the non-linear path through the exhibition, and the intermingling of creatively produced documentary and art works that use documentary approaches level the distinction between the roles of art and documentation. Information and documentary material thus claim the same degree of attention as the art presented. While this may be criticized – and it has been so by art critics – this combination can also be considered as a remarkably balanced and indeed successful one. Because informational parts as well as the art works interact with each other in such a setting, the exhibition creates something that may best be described as an introduction into visual and popular culture and practices in African metropolises. Surprisingly, and quite different to other exhibitions of this kind, Afropolis manages to deal with a rather small selection of photo artists. It also requires - like an adequate introduction into a real African city - a lot of time and patience from the viewer.The exhibition, however, also induces critical questions – if purposefully or not. How to handle, for instance, a carefully painted part of a Matatu? Is it a singular artistic expression or does it reﬂect urbanity as a designed lifestyle? Is it a residue imported from Nairobi to Köln or is it a curiosity worth to be collected?  Another question rising is: Why are there so many works dealing with the streets, the exterior of buildings and public space? Does urbanity really only take place in a built public environment, and how much do we leave out when we concentrate on the busy streets and not on what is happening within the buildings, in the homes, in the ofﬁces, schools, taverns and shops? In what relation do the visible surfaces of the city stand to the subjective experience of the tourist, the visiting researcher, the local artist and the local residents? While some art works deal with these questions, they are not necessarily reﬂected on a curatorial level. Another interesting question which could be more thoroughly thought about - mainly when urbanity is looked at through the lens of art works - is the role that art plays in the representation of cities, but also in terms of social as well as art historical traditions and visual cultures. For instance, some exhibited works are reminiscent of iconic artworks by other artists which had been circulating for about 20 years in the international art world. Does the utopian Tourist City by Pume Bylex, or Casualities made from beer cans by Kainebi Osahenye, stand in a tradition with the work of Bodys Isek Kingelez or El Anatsui? Are Bylex and Osahenye random ﬁgures in global or globalizing cities, or do they occupy a speciﬁc place in local or transnational art history? Retrospect163Some questions are reﬂected and partly also answered in the exhibition catalogue which without exaggeration can be considered as the ﬁrst relevant and visually rich publication in German language on contemporary African metropolises. It includes contributions by signiﬁcant theorists as well as texts by authors highly familiar with the diverse cities and their cultural history, mixed up with artist interviews and insights into popular media such as city-related cinema or literature history. With its German translation of one of AbdouMaliq Simone’s seminal essays, People as Infrastructure, the catalogue introduces an important ﬁeld of research and discourse from the English-speaking world into German attention.To complete the array of visual, acoustic and scholarly approaches to the African city in this exhibition project, a rich program was set up with public lectures, artist conversations, ﬁlm screenings, concerts, spoken word events and much more, thus contributing to the experience of a broad spectrum of what constitutes urban culture in African metropolises for a German audience. Fiona Siegenthaler is an art historian currently writing her interdisciplinary PhD thesis on Visualizing Urban Transition: Contemporary Art in Johannesburg (working title). She is a co-editor of Art and Artistic Research (Zurich 2010) and author of several essays and exhibition reviews.Link: www.afropolis.netAfropolis will be travelling. Next venue:Iwalewa-Haus Bayreuth, 28.4. – 4.9.2011Retrospect164165166167

Afropolis – Stadt, Medien, Kunst. Kairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Johannesburg

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Afropolis – Stadt, Medien, Kunst. Kairo, Lagos, Nairobi, Kinshasa, Johannesburg

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