Africa in Venice

I went looking for my copy of Prospect Magazine yesterday (don’t often get this, but had to read Petina Gappah’s story) and before I found it, I saw this magazine cover and thought, “Who’s the cover boy, then?” Artist Olu Oguibe on the cover of Modern Painters. Inside is an illuminating piece on the significant African presence at the Venice Biennale.

There will be an African Pavilion, including the works of some 31 artists, when the 52nd Venice Biennale opens on 10 June, and goes on till 21 November.

For some sense of what a landmark this is, hear Modern Painters’ editor: “What’s truly indefensible about Venice is the indifference with which the Biennale has treated African art. Several otherwise highly capable curators have regarded contemporary artists from Africa over the past 51 incarnations of the Biennale with something near disdain.”

El Anatsui is one of several African artists featured in Venice Biennale curator Robert Stott’s signature exhibition, “Think with the Senses-Feel with the Mind: Art in the Present Tense.” That is aside from the African Pavilion itself, with artists and works selected for Venice by a panel of experts including Ghanaian director of London’s ICA Ekow Eshun & Nigerian Bisi Silva.

Showing works will be Yinka Shonibare, Tracey Rose, Olu Oguibe, Oladele Bamgboye and many others. Many exhibited works come from the collection of Congolese Sindika Dokolo, who seems to be reversing a trend in art collection and patronage. But the road to Venice has not been without its problems, namely questions about the source of the art-collecting Dokolo’s family wealth and hints of in-fighting between the African artists’ body itself.

Those who make it to the Venice Biennale and get to view the African Pavilion will hope it’s onwards ever for art from Africa.

New Read

Petina Gappah's award winning story, Oration for a Dead Hero, is published in the current issue of Prospect Magazine.

The widow of a powerful man thinks back on her marriage. She schemes to secure herself a future and to get the better of the government and her stepsons, in a story that should give Mugabe the pause. In this excerpt, the widow-narrator remembers her late husband's odd ways....
“I named the first child Rwauya, meaning ‘death has come,’ and the second Muchagura, to mean ‘you shall repent,’ and the last Muchakundwa, ‘you shall be defeated.’ They are messages for the white oppressors, warning signs to the white man.”

Thus had he stamped his patriotism on his children, leaving them with names that could mean nothing to the intended recipient of the messages, to the white man who chose to live in ignorance of native tongues. The white man has been conquered now, twice over, first in the matter of government, and now in the matter of the land that has been repossessed, but the children remain with their ominous names. I got to know them well because I replaced their mother after their father divorced her.