AFRICA SCREAMS
AFRICA SCREAMS – Das Böse in Kino, Kunst und Kult
Horror als Subgenre der großen Erzählungen über das Böse hat keine klar definierbaren Grenzen, und doch zieht sich die Schreckensproduktion geradezu leitmotivisch durch die verschiedensten Kulturen und Epochen: von den einen als Tabubruch gefeiert – von den anderen als Quelle zivilisatorischer Entgleisungen argwöhnisch beäugt. Das Thema des Bösen ist riesig. Es wurde über Jahrhunderte diskutiert, verhandelt und ausgelegt – von Theologen, Philosophen, Politikern, Erzählern und Künstlern – in Afrika wie anderswo in der Welt. Und gäbe es das Böse nicht, wir müssten es wahrscheinlich erfinden, denn keine Moral ließe sich ohne den Bezug zu einem – wie auch immer gearteten – „Anderen des Guten“ etablieren. Insofern gehört das Böse zum Guten wie das Hässliche zum Schönen und das Fremde zum Eigenen. Ihre Bilder konstituieren sich immer schon in Opposition zum jeweils Anderen, und ihre Inszenierung ist Teil der Dramaturgie einer jeden Kultur.
Africa Screams unternimmt einen Streifzug durch die alten und neuen Mythologien Afrikas, auf den Spuren des Bösen und des Schreckens, des Hässlichen und der Angst, die sich seit dem Siegeszug der Videotechnologie in immer fantastischeren Bildern und Erzählungen Bahn brechen und damit auch die Schattenseite der Moderne in den Blick nehmen: die Expansion der okkulten Ökonomien, die Metaphern der Hexerei, des Kannibalismus und der Zombifizierung.
AFRICA SCREAMS
Ausstellung und Buch sind ein erster Versuch, eine Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte des Bösen und des Schreckens für Afrika zu entwickeln – und zwar in den verschiedensten Medien und Künsten: vom Ritual und Maskenwesen über den Bereich der Populärkultur (Comics, Horrorvideos, Kalenderdrucke, Videoposter) bis hin zur Auseinandersetzung mit dem Schrecken und dem Unheimlichen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst.
AFRICA SCREAMS
Africa Screams
Evil in Cinema, Art and the Occult
There are no clearly identifiable borders surrounding horror as a subgenre of the fantastical; like a leitmotif, the production of horror runs through the most varied cultures and epochs. Celebrated as a breaking of taboo and a cultural critique by some and branded as the source of civilization’s downfall by others, the theme has experienced a new boom with the triumph of video technology. Africa Screams undertakes an expedition through Africa’s hybrid mythologies tracking the trail of evil and horror, ugliness and fear, constantly paving new ways in increasingly fantastic images and tales, and in doing so also taking into view the dark side of modernism: expansion of the occult economies, neo-cannibalism, witchcraft, and zombies.
Africa Screams, a co-production with the Iwalewa-Haus Bayreuth and the Münchner Stadtmuseum, develops an art and cultural history of terror in a wide variety of media and arts: from rituals and masks through to horror films and the confrontation of contemporary art with evil. With this exhibition, the Kunsthalle Wien draws attention to further contemporary scenes beyond the view of the international art world.
curators: Thomas Mießgang, Tobias Wendl
KUNSTHALLE wien, hall 2,
November 05th, 2004 - January 30th, 2005
Die Ausstellung entsteht als Koproduktion mit der Kunsthalle Wien, wo sie vom 5. November 2004 bis zum 5. Februar 2005 zu sehen sein wird. Daran anschließend wird sie im Kunstverein Aalen (3. April bis 12 Juni 2005) und im Museum der Weltkulturen in Frankfurt a. M. gezeigt (8. Juli 2005 bis 15. Januar 2006).
New Identities
Vor zehn Jahren endete mit den ersten freien Wahlen das menschenverachtende System der Apartheid in Südafrika. Das Land ist seither von der Peripherie immer mehr ins Zentrum des weltweiten Interesses gerückt. Soziale und politische Transformierung, wirtschaftlicher Aufschwung und eine durch die Verfassung garantierte Vielfalt der Kulturen kennzeichnen das Bild des neuen Südafrika . Dennoch prägen immer noch diesen Staat die nicht gelösten Probleme massenhafter Arbeitslosigkeit, eklatante soziale Ungleichheiten und die damit verbundene Kriminalität sowie die verheerenden Auswirkungen von AIDS. Kultur und Erziehung haben in diesem gesellschaftlichen Umbruchprozess eine große Bedeutung erhalten. Insbesondere die bildende Kunst leistet schon jetzt entscheidende Beiträge im Integrations - und Emanzipationsprozess: In der Vielfalt und Komplexität der zeitgenössischen südafrikanischen Kunst läßt sich das Streben nach einer neuen nationalen Identität, die auf wechselseitiger Achtung des jeweils Anderen basiert, auf intensive Weise erleben. Der Zusammenbruch der Apartheid hatte auf allen Seiten eine Reflexion und Neudefinition der eigenen Identität hervorgebracht: Vom zielgerichteten Protest und Kampf gegen das Unrechtsregime führte die Entwicklung auch in der Kunst zu neuen Fragen, die sich mit Herkunft und Tradition ebenso auseinander setzen wie mit globalen Fragen der modernen Zivilisation, wie Multikulturalität, beschleunigtem technischen Fortschritt oder Immigrationsproblemen. Zuvor unterdrückte und marginalisierte Stimmen finden nunmehr Möglichkeiten des Ausdrucks; vor allem selbstorganisierte Künstlerorganisationen in den städtischen Zentren und kunsthandwerkliche Initiativen auf dem Lande tragen dazu bei, bildende Kunst als wichtiges Forum eines breitgefächerten gesellschaftlichen Diskurses zu etablieren.
New Identities
Zehn Jahre nach dem Ende der Apartheid gibt das Museum Bochum mit einer engagierten Ausstellung einen Einblick in die aktuelle Kunstszene Südafrikas zu geben, wie er in Deutschland in ähnlich umfangreicher Weise zuletzt 1996 in der vom Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin veranstalteten Übersicht "Colours. Kunst aus Südafrika" zu sehen gewesen ist. Vorgestellt werden 15 Künstler/innen mit zumeist aktuellsten Werken, die eine intensive Auseinandersetzung mit ihren künstlerischen Positionen ermöglichen sollen. Themenkomplexe der Identitätsbefragung, der Auseinandersetzung mit Urbanität und Multikulturalität sowie das bedrängende Thema AIDS gliedern die Präsentation. International bekannte Künstlerpersönlichkeiten, wie Jane Alexander oder die Dokumenta-Teilnehmer William Kentridge und Santu Mokofeng werden in der Ausstellung gemeinsam mit in Deutschland noch weniger bekannten Künstlern und Mitgliedern von Künstlerinitiativen präsentiert. Die klassischen Kunstgattungen Malerei, Plastik, Zeichnung sind ebenso vertreten wie Installation und die neuen Medien Fotografie und Video. Traditionellen künstlerischen Ausdrucksformen - Ndebele-Wandmalereien von Esther Mahlangu, Percussionsobjekte des Venda-Künstlers Samson Mudzunga und Stickbilder der Rossina Maepa - werden in diesem Projekt als gleichberechtigte zeitgenössische Kunstäußerungen gezeigt, die in besonderer Weise den Schöpfungswillen und die spezifische Vitalität Südafrikas charakterisieren. Hinzu kommt ein Spezifikum: Aus ihrer finanziellen Situation heraus benutzen insbesondere Künstler, die in den Townships leben und arbeiten, Abfallprodukte wie alte Zeitschriften, Plakate, Verpackungsmaterialien oder gebrauchte Plastikbehältnisse als künstlerische Ausgangsmaterialien für Collagen, Assemblagen oder Installationen. Gerade diese Werke vermitteln einen starken unverbildeten Schöfpungswillen und reflektieren die Lebenswirklichkeit ihrer Macher unmittelbar. Auch die von Initiativen organisierte kunsthandwerkliche Produktion zeigt einen einzigartigen Phantasiereichtum beim Recycling von Wohlstandsmüll. So gehört zur Ausstellung darüber hinaus ein speziell für Bochum konzipierter Verkaufsshop mit einem breitem kunsthandwerklichen Angebot, welcher in Kooperation mit dem Craft Council South Africa (CCSA, Johannesburg) eingerichtet wird. Hierdurch sollen Kunsthandwerksinitiativen, die zumeist Frauen in ländlichen Gebieten Erwerbsmöglichkeiten bieten, ein Forum geboten und ein neuer Absatzmarkt für ihre Produkte erschlossen werden, der auch über die Ausstellung hinaus wirken soll.
New Identities
Ein Begleitprogramm mit Theater- und Musikveranstaltungen, Vorträgen, Diskussionen , Lesungen und Filmreihen wird die Kunst und Kultur Südafrikas während der gesamten Ausstellungsdauer in ihrer Breite und Vielfalt präsentieren.
Zur Ausstellung erscheint ein umfangreiches Katalogbuch in deutscher und englischer Sprache mit zahlreichen Originalbeiträgen südafrikanischer und deutscher Kunstkritiker und Kuratoren. Die Ausstellung wird im Anschluss an Bochum Anfang 2005 im Pretoria Art Museum und danach in der Johannesburg Art Gallery in Südafrika gezeigt werden.
展出藝術家名單
Liste der beteiligten Künstler
Jane Alexander, *1959, lebt in Kapstadt; Plastik, Fotomontagen
Beezy Bailey, geboren 1962, lebt in Kapstadt, Fotografie
Kay Hassan, *1957, lebt in Johannesburg; Malerei
William Kentridge, *1955, lebt in Johannesburg; Video, Zeichnung
David Koloane, *1938, lebt in Johannesburg; Zeichnung, Malerei
Johann Louw, *1965, lebt in Piketberg; Malerei
Rossina Maepa, lebt in Winterveldt; Stickbilder
Esther Mahlangu, *1936, lebt in Mabhoko; Wandmalerei
Santu Mofokeng, * 1956, lebt in Johannesburg; Fotografie
Zwelethu Mthethwa, *1960, lebt in Kapstadt; Fotografie
Samson Mudzunga, *1934, lebt in Venda; Plastik, Klangobjekte
Sam Nhlengethwa, geboren 1955, lebt in Johannesburg, Fotografie
Bernie Searle, *1964, lebt in Kapstadt; Video, Fotografie
Penny Siopis, *1953, lebt in Johannesburg; Malerei, Zeichnung
Andrew Tshabangu, *1966, lebt in Soweto; Fotografie
Minnette Vári, *1968, lebt in Johannesburg; Video, Fotografie
Sue Williamson, *1941, lebt in Kapstadt; Video, Fotografie
Museum Bochum
Museum Bochum
New Identities
Zeitgenössische Kunst aus Südafrika
31. Juli - 7. November 2004
Black Gods in Exile
展出兩位巴西藝術家的攝影與錄像作品
所傳遞的是跨過大西洋到南美洲的非洲族裔
以及藝術家再回到非洲拍攝非洲生活的對照實錄
展覽中所呈現的是以新的詮釋方法來觀看"非洲"藝術如何呈現當今世界觀
觀點迥異於純粹的人類學探討或是當代非洲藝術創作大展
尤其非洲世界的宗教藝術與儀式如何在藝術家的眼中呈現新的風貌
此展覽將巡迴德國幾個大城市至明年底
2006年巴黎的網球場展覽廳(曾展出畢卡索.馬格利特與趙無極等大師回顧展)將展出藝術家攝影師非格(Pierre Verger)的大型惠顧展
Black Gods in Exile
On September 1, 2004, the cooperative program Black Gods in Exile celebrates the opening of an exhibition by the photographers Pierre Fatumbi Verger and Mario Cravo Neto and begins its interdisciplinary supporting program at the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin.
The project investigates the cultural transfer in the Transatlantic Triangle (Africa - the Americas - Europe) from the period of slavery up to the present. Special focus is given to the works of visual anthropologists, artists and literary personalities, who deal with the cultures of the 'Black Americas'.
Black Gods in Exile will be officially opened by German state minister of culture Dr. Christina Weiss and the Brazilian minister of culture Gilberto Gil, the project's elected patron. The Brazilian musician-composer Gilberto Gil was a longtime friend of the photographer Pierre Verger and documented his life and work in a widely acclaimed film.
The exhibition - a co-production of the Pierre Verger Foundation in Salvador/Bahia and the Goethe-Institut - will be shown until 2006 at the Museum of World Cultures in Frankfurt a.M., the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, the Museum of Ethnology in Munich, the Grassi Museum in Leipzig and the Overseas Museum in Bremen. The catalog is published by Das Wunderhorn publishing house, Heidelberg. The project is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
According to UNESCO studies, 12 million slaves were abducted by Europeans to the so-called New World. The collected memory of this atrocity - the greatest theft of human life in world history - was kept alive on the other side of the Atlantic in ritual practices of the Brazilian Candomblé, Haitian voodoo, and Cuban Santería.
Black Gods in Exile
The Exhibition
No other twentieth-century photographer explored or documented the mutual cultural relationships and continual transfer of knowledge between Europe, Africa and both Americas as thoroughly as Pierre Verger (1902-1996). While in Europe his work remains relatively unknown, in his chosen homeland, Brazil, and reaching into Latin America, Verger has long been considered one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. He played a major role as a forerunner of visual anthropology and also influenced an entire generation of artists, literary personalities and academicians on both sides of the Atlantic. His photographic work, largely created between the 1930s and 1950s, significantly contributed to understanding the (self)image of modern, multiethnic societies in the 'Black Americas' (Roger Bastide). In Germany, Verger became known through Hubert Fichte and Eleonore Mau, whose publications Xango and Petersilie could only be completed thanks to his support.
Black Gods in Exile
Pierre Fatumbi Verger
traveled the five continents as an internationally recognized photojournalist for Paris Soir, Match Magazine, Daily Mirror, LIFE, La Prensa, O Cruzeiro, Unesco Courier, and other publications. It was in the year 1946 that he first went to Salvador de Bahía, henceforth his second home; and alongside his numerous travelogues about Africa, he captured the life of this uncrowned capital of Afro-Brazilian arts and culture (with over 3,000 places of worship) in riveting photographs. Since the 1950s, countless volumes of his photography were published in France and Brazil, but which today are out of print.
Up to his death in 1996, Verger led a modest existence in a suburb of Salvador and was an active member of an Afro-Brazilian religious denomination. Today his former home functions as the Fundaçao Pierre Verger, which makes available for this project various materials from the Verger Estate, consisting of circa 62,000 largely unpublished photographs as well as his library and written correspondence.
Pierre Verger
Presented for the first time in Germany will be more than 300 photographs of the internationally-recognized photographer and forerunner of visual anthropology.
As a photojournalist, Pierre Verger (* 1902, Paris, + 1996, Salvador da Bahia) traveled the five continents and left behind an archive of circa 62,000 negatives. It was in the year 1946 that he first went to Salvador de Bahía, henceforth his second home; and alongside his numerous travelogues about Africa, he captured the life of this uncrowned capital of Afro-Brazilian arts and culture (with over 3,000 places of worship) in riveting photographs.
Mario Cravo Neto
Trance_Territories. Photo-/ Sound Installation, a homage to Pierre Verger
Born in 1947 in Salvador. One of the most important photographers in Brazil. In his own highly poetic manner, Cravo Neto continues the study of the Candomblé initiated by his friend, Pierre Verger.
Black Gods in Exile
The Concept
emphasizes Verger's central importance in the areas of cultural studies, ethnology, and cultural anthropology. The universal approach of this self-taught photographer provided an entire generation of researchers from various fields of study with a new way of viewing multi-ethnical and multi-denominational societies and how they function. Above and beyond that, Verger's friendship and intellectual solidarity with the best-known anthropologists and ethnologists of his time, and with artists and intellectuals of the Parisian surrealist and Brazilian modernismo movements, make him a key figure of the twentieth century Black Gods In Exile gives today's German public the opportunity to rediscover in Pierre Fatumbi Verger an ideal mediator between Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Further venues:
Frankfurt/Main, February - May, 2005
Stuttgart, June - August, 2005
Munich, October, 2005 - January, 2006
Leipzig and Bremen, 2006
Black Gods in Exile
Photo exhibition and supporting program,
September 2004 - Summer 2006
By presenting 88 artists from 25 African countries, the exhibition “Africa Remix” is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of present-day artistic activities on the African continent, comprising northern, central and southern Africa and thus both black and white - off the beaten track of pseudo-naïve art for the tourist industry. The spectrum of the 137 works (and groups of works) exhibited here covers paintings, drawings, sculptures, assemblages, multi-part installations, photography, videos, films and also, as special features, African furniture design, music, literature and fashion. All the works shown here have been created within the last 10 years. Some were made specially for this occasion in Düsseldorf.
The exhibition, which starts at museum kunst palast in Düsseldorf, is a joint venture with the Hayward Gallery in London, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, which will be its final venue. Chief curator of the project is the Paris-based author from Cameroon and editor-in-chief of “Revue Noire”, Simon Njami.
The show is an interrogation. What is contemporary African art and what can we say and show about it today, after all the experiences that took place in Europe. Is there any viable definition ? Is it near or far from the western approach ? In what sense ? We don't pretend to bring answers but to raise questions that were never raised before, and to focus on the magic of a work of art, presented within a curatorial concept that gives an overview of what Africa might be today. What its art might become tomorrow and what are the missing between ancient Africa and actual Africa. We don't have a clear idea of the results. What we know is that we've been trying to escape the numerous traps related to the general vision of Africa. (Simon Njami)
The richly diversified exhibition reflects the lively artistic scene of Africa and of African communities outside the continent. It includes the works of internationally renowned artists such as the Documenta exhibitors David Goldblatt, Bodys Isek Kingelez, William Kentridge, Pascale Marthine Tayou and Yinka Shonibar, who was recently nominated for the Turner Prize. Ranking on the same level as these famous artists, the exhibition also includes the works of several self-taught artists, such as Fernando Alvim, Fernando A. Mabote (also known as Titos) and Abu-Bakarr Mansaray.
Afrika Remix
Moreover, there will be works by artists such as Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Chéri Samba and Bodys Kingelez who have had a place on the international art market since their participation in “Magiciens de la Terre”, an
exhibition set up by Jean-Hubert Martin in Paris in 1989, which was truly ground-breaking in its global perspective. Except for Gera, who died in 2000, the exhibition only comprises works of living artists.
I believe it is worth mentioning that the selection of artists took place through personal visits to studios, including several trips made by Simon Njami throughout Africa.
Two of the oldest artists at the exhibition, both born in 1923, are the graphic artist Bouabré and the sculptor Jackson Hlungwani. Two of the youngest representatives of African art, on the other hand, are the video artist Michèle Magema, born in 1977, and the photographer N’Dilo Mutima, born in 1978.
“It was in fact the enormous diversity among this generation of young African artists that prompted me to set up this exhibition. The attribute “Remix” is intended to mean a reshuffling of cards, to show that our present situation is hybrid in character and therefore a reflection of globalization.
Many of the artists travel a lot, and some have several places of residence and commute between Africa and other continents. This is one of the reasons why the exhibition does not distinguish between artists living in Africa and those in the “diaspora”.
Africa Remix is also an answer to the disappointment of the last Documenta. I think I am speaking on behalf of all fellow curators when I say that the small number of African artists shown by Okwui Enwezor in Kassel was found unsatisfactory by many.” (Jean-Hubert Martin)
“Africa Remix” focuses on the “presence of the present”, and therefore on the link between art and life as reflected by each work – conceptually, aesthetically and formally. Thematically, the exhibition is divided into three basic sections, bundling the diversity of artistic approaches into the three categories:
Afrika Remix
Body & Soul,
History & Identity,
City & Land.
Under History & Identity, artists reflect on cultural incongruities as well as on a historical understanding of nationhood. One artist, Aimé Ntakiyica shows himself in a variety of self-portraits in European national costumes (“WE”, 2003), while Ingrid Mwangi – daughter of a German mother and a Kenyan father – expresses herself through a series of videos (“Down by the River”, 2001). Others again, such as David Goldblatt with his photographs, focus on the condition of humanity in post-apartheid society.
A number of hybrid African constructs, such as Shonibare’s “Salon of a Victorian Philanthropist” (1996/97) and Jane Alexander’s room installation “African Adventure” (1999-2002), are subtle ways of questioning the meaning of authenticity and of focusing on discrepancies in intercultural dialogue – the supposed dichotomy between the “exotic” continent and “civilized” Europe. Fernando Alvim uses a mirror and thus a subtle sense of humour to guide the visitor along the path of knowledge. Next to the mirror, placed on a large-format canvas, we can read in big letters: “We are all post exotics” (2004).
A range of architectural fantasy models express urban utopias in a variety of artistic forms, such as “La Ville de Sète en 3009” (2000) by Kingelez and the architectural collages by Allan de Souza, entitled “The Goncourt Brothers Stand between Caesar and the Thief of Baghdad” (2003). Several complex installations and paintings depict the city as a place of both freedom and failure. City & Land comprises poetic and at times melancholy snapshots of “African” everyday life, created by numerous photographic artists whose cameras open up a kaleidoscopic image of reality, while others, such as El Anatsui, Dilomprizulike and Willie Bester, focus on a series of complex recycling processes that transform civilizational waste and rubbish into new aesthetic forms.
The self-taught artist Titos has even assembled an entire aircraft plus pilot (“Plane”, 2001”) from numerous objects collected in the townships and the jungle of Mozambique, using pieces of tin, cardboard and bamboo. Gonçalo Mabunda, who also lives in Mozambique, even used weapons collected after the civil war – AK 47 guns, rocket launchers and hand grenades – for his “Eiffel Tower” (2002) and “Chair” (2002).
Body & Soul focuses on the body as a matrix of artistic discourse and on gender as a major topic in numerous artistic works. Fragmented and at times bizarrely assembled bodies as expressions of suppressed anxieties and cultural incongruities are presented by video artists such as Tracy Rose (“TRO”, 2000), Loulou Chérinet (“Bleeding Men”, 2003) and the collage artist Wangechi Mutu (“In Killing Fields Sweet Butterflies Ascend”, 2003). These works serve to question culturally conditioned gender-specific stereotypes, an aim which is expressed particularly clearly by Richard Onyango’s paintings of a dominant woman (“The Young Man Hides from the Big Woman”, 2002).
Other aspects in this thematic area are the importance of vision, self-presentation and portraits, for instance of people with gaps in their teeth, such as the photographic series “Grace” (2000) by Eileen Perrier and the phenomenon of masking, expressed, for example, in Hicham Benohoud’s photographic series “Version Soft” (2003). An equally impressive presentation in the Body & Soul complex is Bili Bidjocka’s room installation “Room of Tears” (2004).
Afrika Remix
AFRICA REMIX – Contemporary Art of a Continent
24 July – 7 November 2004
museum kunst palast Düsseldorf
德國最近瀰漫著一股黑色炫風
幾個大城市都以非洲藝術為主規劃特展
最大的特色是都著眼於當今非洲藝術的發展與現況有別於舊式的傳統非洲藝術家年華
引領觀眾開拓更大的視野
BLACK GODS IN EXILE
Black Gods in Exile
Photo exhibition and supporting program,
September 2004 - Summer 2006
On September 1, 2004, the cooperative program Black Gods in Exile celebrates the opening of an exhibition by the photographers Pierre Fatumbi Verger and Mario Cravo Neto and begins its interdisciplinary supporting program at the Museum of Ethnology in Berlin.
The project investigates the cultural transfer in the Transatlantic Triangle (Africa - the Americas - Europe) from the period of slavery up to the present. Special focus is given to the works of visual anthropologists, artists and literary personalities, who deal with the cultures of the 'Black Americas'.
Black Gods in Exile will be officially opened by German state minister of culture Dr. Christina Weiss and the Brazilian minister of culture Gilberto Gil, the project's elected patron. The Brazilian musician-composer Gilberto Gil was a longtime friend of the photographer Pierre Verger and documented his life and work in a widely acclaimed film.
The exhibition - a co-production of the Pierre Verger Foundation in Salvador/Bahia and the Goethe-Institut - will be shown until 2006 at the Museum of World Cultures in Frankfurt a.M., the Linden-Museum in Stuttgart, the Museum of Ethnology in Munich, the Grassi Museum in Leipzig and the Overseas Museum in Bremen. The catalog is published by Das Wunderhorn publishing house, Heidelberg. The project is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
According to UNESCO studies, 12 million slaves were abducted by Europeans to the so-called New World. The collected memory of this atrocity - the greatest theft of human life in world history - was kept alive on the other side of the Atlantic in ritual practices of the Brazilian Candomblé, Haitian voodoo, and Cuban Santería.
The Exhibition
No other twentieth-century photographer explored or documented the mutual cultural relationships and continual transfer of knowledge between Europe, Africa and both Americas as thoroughly as Pierre Verger (1902-1996). While in Europe his work remains relatively unknown, in his chosen homeland, Brazil, and reaching into Latin America, Verger has long been considered one of the most important photographers of the twentieth century. He played a major role as a forerunner of visual anthropology and also influenced an entire generation of artists, literary personalities and academicians on both sides of the Atlantic. His photographic work, largely created between the 1930s and 1950s, significantly contributed to understanding the (self)image of modern, multiethnic societies in the 'Black Americas' (Roger Bastide). In Germany, Verger became known through Hubert Fichte and Eleonore Mau, whose publications Xango and Petersilie could only be completed thanks to his support.
Pierre Fatumbi Verger
traveled the five continents as an internationally recognized photojournalist for Paris Soir, Match Magazine, Daily Mirror, LIFE, La Prensa, O Cruzeiro, Unesco Courier, and other publications. It was in the year 1946 that he first went to Salvador de Bahía, henceforth his second home; and alongside his numerous travelogues about Africa, he captured the life of this uncrowned capital of Afro-Brazilian arts and culture (with over 3,000 places of worship) in riveting photographs. Since the 1950s, countless volumes of his photography were published in France and Brazil, but which today are out of print.
Up to his death in 1996, Verger led a modest existence in a suburb of Salvador and was an active member of an Afro-Brazilian religious denomination. Today his former home functions as the Fundaçao Pierre Verger, which makes available for this project various materials from the Verger Estate, consisting of circa 62,000 largely unpublished photographs as well as his library and written correspondence.
The Concept
emphasizes Verger's central importance in the areas of cultural studies, ethnology, and cultural anthropology. The universal approach of this self-taught photographer provided an entire generation of researchers from various fields of study with a new way of viewing multi-ethnical and multi-denominational societies and how they function. Above and beyond that, Verger's friendship and intellectual solidarity with the best-known anthropologists and ethnologists of his time, and with artists and intellectuals of the Parisian surrealist and Brazilian modernismo movements, make him a key figure of the twentieth century Black Gods In Exile gives today's German public the opportunity to rediscover in Pierre Fatumbi Verger an ideal mediator between Africa, Europe and the Americas.
Pierre Verger travelled all five continents as an internationally renowned photojournalist for The Daily Mirror, Match Magazine, LIFE, O Cruzeiro, Paris Soir, La Prensa, Unesco Kurier and other publications. In 1946 he arrived in the coastal city of Salvador da Bahia, which became his home for 50 years. His house now accommodates the Pierre Verger Foundation, with his library and an archive of some 62,000 photographs. In Germany, Verger became known through Hubert Fichte and Eleonore Mau, whose books Xango and Petersilie were produced with his support.
Mario Cravo Neto studied photography and sculpture under his father, the sculptor Mario Cravo Júnior, who was a close friend of Verger. Cravo Neto lived in Berlin during the 1960s, before moving to New York and then returning to Salvador in 1970. He has an extensive knowledge of Verger's work and curated the last exhibition of Verger's lifetime in New York. Cravo Neto has received numerous awards and is today considered one of Brazil's most important photographers. The 160 photographs in his photo and sound installation Trance_Territories, a homage to Pierre Verger, convey the aesthetics and omnipresence of the Afro-Brazilian religion in Salvador da Bahia. Sensuous and supernatural experiences, which meet in the ritual practice of candomblé, structure his photographs down to the smallest detail.
Glberto Gil, world-famous musician, composer and presently Brazilian Minister of Culture, has given his patronage to Black Gods in Exile. Gilberto Gil was a friend of Pierre Verger for many years and documented his life and work in his widely acclaimed film Messenger Between Two Worlds, which will be shown in the exhibition.
AFRICA REMIX – Contemporary Art of a Continent
24 July – 7 November 2004
By presenting 88 artists from 25 African countries, the exhibition “Africa Remix” is the first to provide a comprehensive overview of present-day artistic activities on the African continent, comprising northern, central and southern Africa and thus both black and white - off the beaten track of pseudo-naïve art for the tourist industry. The spectrum of the 137 works (and groups of works) exhibited here covers paintings, drawings, sculptures, assemblages, multi-part installations, photography, videos, films and also, as special features, African furniture design, music, literature and fashion. All the works shown here have been created within the last 10 years. Some were made specially for this occasion in Düsseldorf.
The exhibition, which starts at museum kunst palast in Düsseldorf, is a joint venture with the Hayward Gallery in London, the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and the Mori Art Museum in Tokyo, which will be its final venue. Chief curator of the project is the Paris-based author from Cameroon and editor-in-chief of “Revue Noire”, Simon Njami.
The show is an interrogation. What is contemporary African art and what can we say and show about it today, after all the experiences that took place in Europe. Is there any viable definition ? Is it near or far from the western approach ? In what sense ? We don't pretend to bring answers but to raise questions that were never raised before, and to focus on the magic of a work of art, presented within a curatorial concept that gives an overview of what Africa might be today. What its art might become tomorrow and what are the missing between ancient Africa and actual Africa. We don't have a clear idea of the results. What we know is that we've been trying to escape the numerous traps related to the general vision of Africa. (Simon Njami)
The richly diversified exhibition reflects the lively artistic scene of Africa and of African communities outside the continent. It includes the works of internationally renowned artists such as the Documenta exhibitors David Goldblatt, Bodys Isek Kingelez, William Kentridge, Pascale Marthine Tayou and Yinka Shonibar, who was recently nominated for the Turner Prize. Ranking on the same level as these famous artists, the exhibition also includes the works of several self-taught artists, such as Fernando Alvim, Fernando A. Mabote (also known as Titos) and Abu-Bakarr Mansaray.
Moreover, there will be works by artists such as Frédéric Bruly Bouabré, Chéri Samba and Bodys Kingelez who have had a place on the international art market since their participation in “Magiciens de la Terre”, an
exhibition set up by Jean-Hubert Martin in Paris in 1989, which was truly ground-breaking in its global perspective. Except for Gera, who died in 2000, the exhibition only comprises works of living artists.
I believe it is worth mentioning that the selection of artists took place through personal visits to studios, including several trips made by Simon Njami throughout Africa.
Two of the oldest artists at the exhibition, both born in 1923, are the graphic artist Bouabré and the sculptor Jackson Hlungwani. Two of the youngest representatives of African art, on the other hand, are the video artist Michèle Magema, born in 1977, and the photographer N’Dilo Mutima, born in 1978.
“It was in fact the enormous diversity among this generation of young African artists that prompted me to set up this exhibition. The attribute “Remix” is intended to mean a reshuffling of cards, to show that our present situation is hybrid in character and therefore a reflection of globalization.
Many of the artists travel a lot, and some have several places of residence and commute between Africa and other continents. This is one of the reasons why the exhibition does not distinguish between artists living in Africa and those in the “diaspora”.
Africa Remix is also an answer to the disappointment of the last Documenta. I think I am speaking on behalf of all fellow curators when I say that the small number of African artists shown by Okwui Enwezor in Kassel was found unsatisfactory by many.” (Jean-Hubert Martin)
“Africa Remix” focuses on the “presence of the present”, and therefore on the link between art and life as reflected by each work – conceptually, aesthetically and formally. Thematically, the exhibition is divided into three basic sections, bundling the diversity of artistic approaches into the three categories:
Body & Soul,
History & Identity,
City & Land.
Under History & Identity, artists reflect on cultural incongruities as well as on a historical understanding of nationhood. One artist, Aimé Ntakiyica shows himself in a variety of self-portraits in European national costumes (“WE”, 2003), while Ingrid Mwangi – daughter of a German mother and a Kenyan father – expresses herself through a series of videos (“Down by the River”, 2001). Others again, such as David Goldblatt with his photographs, focus on the condition of humanity in post-apartheid society.
A number of hybrid African constructs, such as Shonibare’s “Salon of a Victorian Philanthropist” (1996/97) and Jane Alexander’s room installation “African Adventure” (1999-2002), are subtle ways of questioning the meaning of authenticity and of focusing on discrepancies in intercultural dialogue – the supposed dichotomy between the “exotic” continent and “civilized” Europe. Fernando Alvim uses a mirror and thus a subtle sense of humour to guide the visitor along the path of knowledge. Next to the mirror, placed on a large-format canvas, we can read in big letters: “We are all post exotics” (2004).
A range of architectural fantasy models express urban utopias in a variety of artistic forms, such as “La Ville de Sète en 3009” (2000) by Kingelez and the architectural collages by Allan de Souza, entitled “The Goncourt Brothers Stand between Caesar and the Thief of Baghdad” (2003). Several complex installations and paintings depict the city as a place of both freedom and failure. City & Land comprises poetic and at times melancholy snapshots of “African” everyday life, created by numerous photographic artists whose cameras open up a kaleidoscopic image of reality, while others, such as El Anatsui, Dilomprizulike and Willie Bester, focus on a series of complex recycling processes that transform civilizational waste and rubbish into new aesthetic forms.
The self-taught artist Titos has even assembled an entire aircraft plus pilot (“Plane”, 2001”) from numerous objects collected in the townships and the jungle of Mozambique, using pieces of tin, cardboard and bamboo. Gonçalo Mabunda, who also lives in Mozambique, even used weapons collected after the civil war – AK 47 guns, rocket launchers and hand grenades – for his “Eiffel Tower” (2002) and “Chair” (2002).
Body & Soul focuses on the body as a matrix of artistic discourse and on gender as a major topic in numerous artistic works. Fragmented and at times bizarrely assembled bodies as expressions of suppressed anxieties and cultural incongruities are presented by video artists such as Tracy Rose (“TRO”, 2000), Loulou Chérinet (“Bleeding Men”, 2003) and the collage artist Wangechi Mutu (“In Killing Fields Sweet Butterflies Ascend”, 2003). These works serve to question culturally conditioned gender-specific stereotypes, an aim which is expressed particularly clearly by Richard Onyango’s paintings of a dominant woman (“The Young Man Hides from the Big Woman”, 2002).
Other aspects in this thematic area are the importance of vision, self-presentation and portraits, for instance of people with gaps in their teeth, such as the photographic series “Grace” (2000) by Eileen Perrier and the phenomenon of masking, expressed, for example, in Hicham Benohoud’s photographic series “Version Soft” (2003). An equally impressive presentation in the Body & Soul complex is Bili Bidjocka’s room installation “Room of Tears” (2004).
General Director:
Jean-Hubert Martin, museum kunst palast
Chief Curator:
Simon Njami, lives and works in Paris
Curatorial Team:
Marie-Laure Bernadac - Senior Curator for Contemporary Art, Louvre, Paris; Curator, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
David Elliott - Director, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
Roger Malbert - Senior Curator, Hayward Gallery, London
Jean-Hubert Martin - Director General, museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf
and
Els van der Plas - Director, Prince Claus Fund, Den Haag
Project Management
Dr. Claudia Banz, museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf
Exhibition Management
Mattijs Visser – museum kunst palast, Düsseldorf
Number of works:
Over 130 works and groups of works (paintings, drawings, videos, sculptures, multi-part installations, films, photographs and multimedia presentations).
There will also be a Music Bar with furniture designed by Balthazar Faye, African music, selected by Lucy Duran and Dudu Sarr, and an African Literature Reading room with furniture designed by Cheik Diallo.
A specially designed area will be available, showing short African films and videos.
Telephone: +49-(0)211-8992460 (11 a.m. –6 p.m.