Africa

In Outside, Bunmi Agusto draws us further into ‘Within’, the name she gives the imagined world that has remained at the heart of her practice

Musoke considers herself a semi-abstract painter and is best known for her expressive portrayals of the region’s abundant wildlife, using a range of mediums to develop her imagery.

Gor Soudan is a conceptual artist living and working in Kisumu and Nairobi. Often subtly engaged with contemporary political and social issues and embedded in urban culture, Gor’s artistic practice is an organic process through which everyday material is transformed into powerful work.

Through paintings and mixed media works, the artists reflect on the concept of place and origin in rapidly changing social, political, and economic realities.

Spanning over two decades and following a loose chronological order from 1993 to the present, the exhibition presented over seventy works characterising the artist’s engagement with abstract, symbolic, and thematic themes, and more importantly, his heartbeat for Nigeria.

This exhibition at Circle Art Gallery demonstrates artist Mohamed Otaybi extensive knowledge of painting and his intimate understanding of the evolution of life in Sudan.

Having moved from his place of birth Sidi Bougou, in the Mbour region, to the heart of the city Dakar, Aliou Diack has held his relationship with nature close to his heart. In fact, it has allowed him to view the city as a result of the natural environment and continues to expand viewers’ understandings of the natural world.

Jackie Karuti’s work asks audiences to stretch their imagination, borrowing from and referencing the current and historical circumstances but offering avenues for configuring other worlds.

Rele Gallery is an arts space that is determined to build the audiences and opportunities for emerging and less established artists from Africa and its diaspora.

Emerging South African artists Malebona Maphutse and Natalie Paneng share their created worlds through digital media, sculpture and painting.

The title for the show describes female photographers whose work re-imagines conceptual works of art through lived experiences. Curator Fulufhelo Mobadi shares the details for her curatorial approach and the podcast connected to the exhibition.

eBhish’ is a solo exhibition by Luvuyo Equiano Nyawose (b.1994, eThekwini, South Africa) presented at blank projects from 22 July – 21 August 2021. Through his work Nyawose is contributing to a “contemporary archive of black life ebhish’, one with humanising, tender and intimate moments…”. Read the full text by the artist.

The title for the biennial, How To Build a Lagoon with Just a Bottle of Wine?, was inspired by a line in the poem A Song for Lagos by Nigerian writer Akeem Lasisi. By posing this as a question, the curators were able to encourage the contributing artists to thinking inventively and poetically about urban narratives and imaginaries, and allow them to find direction from the title in their own way.

Curated by Gabi Ngcobo and Dr. Yvette Mutumba, A Labour of Love took place at the Johannesburg Art Gallery in 2017. This show presented 150 of the original 600 works acquired from South Africa by Hans Blum on behalf of the Weltkulturen Museum in 1986. These pieces form a large part of the museum’s contemporary African art collection and were exhibited in South Africa for the first time with this show.

“Hacking Conflict – Indonesia meets Nigeria” was the 3rd edition of the BJ (Biennale Jogja) Equator series, following the first edition in 2011 (India) and 2013 (five Middle East countries). Managed in a new vision and direction by Yogyakarta Biennale Foundation, the Equator series present a strategy that utilises the line the Equator draws around the globe as a concrete practice in exploring and re-reading the world, visioned and projected until the year 2022.

Afro Modern: Journeys through the Black Atlantic took place at the Tate Liverpool in 2010 and was ultimately inspired by Paul Gilroy’s seminal book The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (1993). As the organisers described it, the exhibition identified a hybrid culture that spans the Atlantic, connecting Africa, North and South America, The Caribbean and Europe.

The Short Century: Independence and Liberation Movements in Africa, 1945–1994, was a landmark exhibition exploring the confluence of African culture and independence through art, film, photography, graphics, architecture, music, literature, and theatre. Featuring works by more than 50 artists from 22 countries, the exhibition was notably extensive, occupying the entire three floors of MoMA P.S.1 in New York City.

The 2nd and final Johannesburg Biennale took place in 1997 under the artistic direction of Okwui Enwezor, who at the time had been appointed as the curator at the Art Institute of Chicago. The biennale differed in structure to its 1995 predecessor. It was composed of a series of exhibitions with 6 international curators.