Lothar Bottcher | South African Glass Artist

Lothar Böttcher | September 2006


Lothar Böttcher, Ignus Gerber & Justice Mokoena

“The lighter side”

In Lothar Böttcher’s sculptures glass becomes the focal point. Through glass the artist aims to manipulate and in a sense capture light. He attempts to make the viewer aware of the surroundings within the glass. Creating lenses, he offers a point of view (abstractly), changing perspective and observation of the contiguous space.

Böttcher asks whether we really observe or understand our role in the world around us due to filters like beliefs and personal experiences. Everybody has a unique point of view. The variables are infinite.

“Without light there is no subject. Without subject (particles and waves) there will be no light. Call it the “Ubuntu” of the Universe. There’s a funny side to existence if one thinks of everything as black and therefore invisible, until there’s light! Until it happens…” – Ignus Gerber

“Sound is capable to create various environments transporting the listener into a virtual world. Sound cannot only be heard, but can be felt and even seen, creating all kinds of possibilities. Just close your eyes and see the light within”- Justice Mokoena

Mokoena is strongly influenced by his ancestral background and native language, Lobedu. Since his youth he has been fascinated by various sounds from all walks of life. The artist attempts to use these sounds to communicate to others his perspective in life and a unique cultural background.


Source | http://saartsemerging.org/artist/rainforest/

Eria Sane Nsubuga | Uganda

The Source: The Weekly Observer
http://www.ugandaobserver.com/new/ent/ent2007020112.php

A Piece of ‘Sane’ Art

For a young artist in Uganda, Eria Sane Nsubuga is doing well. Recently, the 28-year-old held his fourth solo exhibition sponsored by Alliance Française and held at their premises in Kamwokya.

Nsubuga does paintings, sculptures and illustration print-making in books or magazines. The exhibition attracted an enthusiastic crowd that included French Ambassador Jeremy Garrancher who bought himself a bicycle made of brass.

The jovial Nsubuga began commercial art in 1999 at the age of 20. Nsubuga's work isn't the abstract art that is hard to understand.

He says he's inspired by nature and human activity and most of his paintings and sculptures are of flora and fauna.

"People here want to buy art pieces that are overtly explainable. It's European customers that want the complicated art work. That's why my art is plain and simple."

Gospel music is also part of his inspiration as he reiterates his strong attachment to church work among the youth in Entebbe where he lives. Knowing this, it isn't surprising that he plans to release a gospel music album this year.

"I have been learning the guitar and I am mastering it now. It's for this reason that I want to sing too," he laughs.

Classical music, Bebe and Cece Winans keep him company late into the night in his workroom at home as he thinks up new ideas and draws.

Presently, Nsubuga has two European art collectors who buy his pieces and re-sell them. Also, he has made himself a website www.saneart.com and www.africapainters.com on which his pieces can be seen and ordered for.

Author John Vianney Nsimbe

Etona | Angola

Artist Etona on Exhibit at the Altharetta Yeargin Museum

The work of Antonio Tomas Ana, better known as Etona, was featured in an exhibit held November 4 - 12 at the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum in Houston, Texas in celebration of the 30th anniversary of Angola`s independence. The artist who was present at the opening is well known within his native Angola and has made a name for himself in the international world of art as well. His work has been exhibited in varied venues including the Park of the National Museum and Gallery in England, and the Museum of Africa in Cuba. He has been honored by having his work selected for the Best of African Painters Collection and was awarded The International Prize of Fine Arts by the Aznar Association in Spain in 2005.

The work on display at the Altharetta Yeargin Art Museum was made up of the two major media in which he chooses to work, sculpture and painting. His sculpture is primarily in wood with a few smaller pieces in stone while his choice of painting media is acrylic.

His paintings are of moderate size and show a consistency in style, color and composition from one canvas to another. The majority of canvases feature a thinly painted background made up of areas of flat color divided by narrow lines that allow the white of the canvas to show through. Using an asymmetrical composition a group of human figures may be painted into one of the lower corners of the painting. These will often be monochromatic and, in contrast to the flat background, are carefully modeled to show the depth and shape of the figures although facial features are often omitted. The subjects of these paintings are people from his country in traditional garb engaged in every day tasks such as transporting baskets of produce on their heads or a mother with her children. But these scenes of everyday life are small in relation to the background and are always placed in one corner or another as though they are not really the actual subject of the painting.



In viewing these paintings one feels an emptiness as though the artist has deliberately under painted the richness of his country through choosing to use flat unmodeled and undetailed backgrounds. To add to this impression of emptiness, content is moved to one corner or side with little color or definition provided. In speaking with the artist and reading his statements about his art, we know the pain and sadness he feels about the exploitation of his country and his people. These deep feelings of grief seem well illustrated in the choice of subject matter and composition of his paintings.

Etona`s sculpture, on the surface, presents a different story. In its elegance and beauty it seems a celebration and homage to the long and rich heritage of African sculpture. Most are made of hard woods and are worked to show a high polish and glow. On some of the pieces he has left areas of roughness created by nature or insects or accident and in the same piece may be a beautifully sculpted head with detailed hair and features.

He seems a virtuoso with wood. The pieces may twist and writhe in much the same way as branches grow on trees but at the same time they take on human forms that fit with the movement. Some pieces are completely naturalistic in detail while others are left deliberately unfinished or without detail as though the artist wishes the viewer to stop and ponder on the reason for this inconsistency. Some very interesting ones even reflect themes of African art of the past but these have been brought into the twentieth century with new subject matter and detailing. But, as in his paintings, the sculpture too expresses Etona`s concern for his people and his country. Perhaps none more so than the two small stone figures that seemed to represent strong figures trying to emerge into their own identity much as the country of Angola is trying to do as it gets past its years of being exploited by the strong world powers and becomes a nation with its own identity..

Dr. Phyllis Knerl Miller
Professor Emeritus
University of Houston

Iraqi Artist Living In Tunisia | Samir Nanoo

Meeting the Artists in Tunisia

Last week I was in Tunisia after deciding last minute to take a short break to start out the New Year. Forever dreaming of seeing more of Africa I thought it best to bite the bullet and hook up with some remarkable African artists. Of course I was thrilled and excited by the prospect of being on African soil again. Once more living amongst the Creatives, those known and unknown, all working tirelessly, struggling to be heard. I found, to my delight, that it was a fantastic choice and finally I was living amongst the original, "Vandals" of North Africa. They made me feel truly at home.


The original inhabitants of Tunisia were the Berbers, now absorbed into the Arab population and accountable for much of its culture, especially the introduction of the, now, national dish, "Couscous". The first cities in Tunisia were built by the Phoenicians, a maritime trading nation from the Lebanon, whose Carthaginian colonists carved out an Empire that even dared to challenge the might of the Romans. The challenge ended in the destruction of the Phoenicians and a Roman invasion. The Romans left behind more than just ruins such as the mosaic delights found in the destroyed city of Carthage and the majestic amphitheatre of El Jem, also the intriguing lion eating men of Haidra, now the Algerian/Tunisian boarder town. The Romans established Tunisia's original infrastructure and introduced the olive and cork trees that dominate the countryside even to this day. Tunisia has had it fare share of invaders from the Roman, the Turks, the French and even Islamic invaders yet instead of becoming cultural schizophrenics there is a definite strong sense of National identity. Tunisia is very proud of the country's moderate Muslim outlook and also the country's unique interpretation of the Koran and seems extremely confident in Tunisia's position within the world of Islam.My journey starts in Monastir, a former fishing port on the Sahel coast. The town is infamous as the birthplace of the first President of Tunisia, Habib Bourguiba - 20th March 1956 (Tunisian Independence Day). On arriving at the airport the air was surprisingly cold and one could detect a pleasant scent of the sea and fresh citrus fruit ripening on the branches. Following a quick tour of the town and the Golden Statue of Habib, I jumped on a bus and travelled up the coastal road to a small town just outside the capital, Tunis, the beautiful hideaway known as Hammamet. On the one and half hour journey up to Hammamet the scenery was magnificent, breathtaking in fact, with lush green mountains on the left, warm dusting roads and beautiful views out to the Mediterranean Sea, to my right. Personally, I was surprised at the level of development the country has experienced since Independence with new roads; petrol stations; street lighting and the overall upkeep of the central Squares throughout the country were immaculate. Strangely the Tunisian don't have an abundance of natural resources like neighbouring Libya and Algeria but still the country has a 5% development growth year on year. Ironically, with figures like these within a decade of two Tunisia is likely to become more developed than France.

Hammamet in January is a rich, fertile yet sleepy town waiting for tourists, money and the heat of Spring. Everybody was busy painting, whitewashing their shops; restaurants and guesthouses. They pay little heed to the ramblings of the occasional tourist at this time of the year. Hammamet itself, houses some of the best contemporary artists in the country.My first port of call was to see Baker Ben Fredj and his wife Nadia at their art gallery in the town centre. I spent several days talking, thinking, photographing, eating, walking and drinking expresso coffees and large whiskeys with the Ben Fredj's. Baker introduced me to his famous artistic neighbour Abderrazak Sahli, the best-known artist in Tunisia, who constantly travels between homes in Paris and Hammamet. The time spent with the two artists and their family's was most enjoyable but I was greedy to meet more Tunisian artists, especially those from the capital, Tunis. Baker and Nadia encouraged and insisted that I meet up with the President of the Union of Artists in Tunis. The man in question was Baker's University lecturer and friend, Sami Ben Ameur. They rang Samir on his mobile and we were to meet the following day. That evening I went to bed remarkably early and woke refreshed ready for the day ahead. Subsequent to an atrocious German breakfast, consisting of beetroot, hard-boiled eggs and watery cabbage, I uncomfortably left the hotel and proceeded to stuff myself into an awaiting yellow taxi, which took me to the Louage (local bus station) finally heading forthe capital. Firmly carrying my newly bought bright orange satchel I squeezed into the tightly packed minibus and after a matter of minutes it quickly filled up and we were well on our way. The sights on the way up to Tunis were wonderful. The sun was beating rhythmically overhead and the grandiose mountains loomed over the minibus outstretched to the horizon, casting unruffled shadows to those below. The mountains were full of seasoned trees alive with greenery while, the cool, fresh, clean sea breeze blew in from the coast. We arrived in good time and I was eager to make my way to the heart of the city. Nadia had kindly given me an art catalogue from the Union of Tunisian Artists, which I rapidly produced out of my new beige camel satchel on arrival in Tunis. I clambered out of the minibus and swiftly leapt into another yellow NYC style cab and in my best French asked the driver to take me to Maison de la Culture Ibn Khaldoun, El Magharibia, Rue Ibn Khaldoun. Of course the driver couldn't understand a word I was saying and I ended up hot, sweaty, fed up and furiously pointing at the address on the back of the catalogue. The driver smiled, shrugged his shoulders and took me into the city centre. The two of us silently sat nervously side by side, perpetually puffing away at out cheap Mars Light cigarettes, smoking rapidly to avoid conversation with the occasional eyebrow lift followed by an awkward smile. Oddly enough this was probably one of the most enjoyable drives of my trip. As I went to open the car door the driver handed me a notebook and asked me to leave feedback. So I did and wrote, "Thoroughly impressed with your communication skills. Full marks for the driving and if smoking becomes an Olympic sport this driver should be put forward for Team Tunisia."

I arrived at the Union building mid morning and made my way to the top floor. By the fourth floor I was sweating profusely and panting like an unhealthy aging mutt and by the fifth the Union had literally taken my breath away. Red faced and resting both my arms on the doorframe I seemingly barred all natural light from entering the room. I attempted to introduce myself. Finally, I made a rather pathetic whispery introduction to two exceedingly glamour ladies sitting quietly at their desks, astonished by my behaviour."Hi, my name is Joe. I'm from England. Is Sami Ben Ameur here?" I airlessly gulped.Confident that I had made an extraordinary first impression I continued by puffing out my best pigeon French. The women looked blankly at each other then back at me. Silence; and after a short and uncomfortable pause I eventually and sheepishly resorted to my trusty catalogue and the furious finger pointing technique. I tried to explain about the efforts I had made on the Internet with various websites about African Painters, whilst at the same time trying desperately to explain about the importance of MySpace and YouTube but to no avail. While I was ranting, kneeling on the floor and fumbling around with the women's computers trying dreadfully to bring up numerous websites an elderly man wearing glasses on his forehead entered the room. He opened his case, brought out a pen and calmly started inoffensively to write notes. This charade with the gorgeous women and the congenial gentleman onlooker lasted a good ten minutes, explaining what it was that I did, have done, would like to do scenario. In due course the old man quietly took his glasses off his forehand and carefully brought them down onto the bridge of his nose. He slowly lifted his head and put his hand to his mouth and clearedhis throat with a polite cough. After a dramatic pause he articulated in perfect English. "What is it that you do exactly?"I let out a surprised laugh and shook my head, I briskly introduced myself and promptly returned with, "And you are, Sir?" he abruptly replied and spoke with the confidence only an aging artist has, "Well, I am the Iraqi artist, living in Tunisia. Samir Nanoo. Nice to meet you!"I recognised his name immediately as he was a featured artist in the catalogue and I had been speaking about his work with Baker and Abderrazak in Hammamet.




"Wow, Nanoo. Samir Nanoo. Really it's an honour to meet you," I shamefacedly replied.

Together, we went out of the office and took an interesting tour around the gallery with artworks randomly placed all around the room, some good, some not so good. As we wondered between the different artists we spoke candidly about the quality of the artwork and the general state of contemporary art in the country. I enjoyed the man's company and when he invited me for a coffeeoutside I was delighted to accompany him to the nearby local café. Samir told me he was born in 1944 in Iraq and moved to Germany seventeen years ago and he had chosen Tunisia to make his Arabic home for security reasons. We talked about his son and how he was an Oman in England and he told me how he had brought him up to be clear-headed and quintessentially good and how proud he was of him. I reached into my bag and pulled out a camera to make a record of our meeting. He stood fantastically grand and egotistical as I photographed him in a rather public place. "He, an artist!" I explained and to Samir delighted followed with, "Don't you recognise the artist?"People looked askance as we swiftly made our way out of the café. We made our way onto the busy Avenue Habib Bourguiba between Place de l'independence and Place d'Africque, which is a typical French style tree lined avenue, with an effective tram system running up and down along with plenty of angry, hooting drivers. We stood in the middle of this confusion and spoke about Samir's new work. He withdrew a series of images from his black
workbag.













As he showed me the images he explained the news he had received from Baghdad. He quietly explained to me that the inmates in the American prison in Baghdad, who were there under suspicion of terrorism or anti-establishment behaviour, had been given no rights, no freedoms of expression, no liberty, whatsoever. The prisoners were treated as the true enemy and were tortured and some even died. Many of the inmates weren't criminals or terrorist, weren't even anti-establishment in anyway, mere civilians. They knew that they being bullied and used as scapegoats. Infuriated by the incarceration, some of the inmates in a moment of despair felt that the only thing they had left to do was post their views on the walls of their cell. They decided to cut their legs and arms with their own fingernails and to use their own excrement to post messages back to their families and loved ones with their fingers. They cut and smeared through the night sending love and well wishes to their friends and family members. The cells were awash with desperate Arabic script displayed curiously on the walls.Come the morning the American Guards saw the cells and shouted;

"You filthy Arab! You filthy Arab, bastards! What have you done, you filthy bastards? Are you expecting us to clean your filthy mess? Ahhh…what can WE expect from you dirty Arabs..……?….You dogs…You low-life Osama Bin Laden loving scum."

Throughout the day the Americans tortured the prisoners and over a series of several weeks the noble American soldiers systematically killed their so-called terrorist hostages. Their thinking was; "the fewer the better."When the dust settled and the bodies were taken from the cells a Muslim Oman came to pick up the dead from the cell. He stood in the room stunned. He looked carefully at all the walls, studying vigilantly what graffiti was written. Attentively reading all that had been seemingly smeared onto the walls. Tears started to fall down the Oman's cheeks as he read the smeared Arabic script.




Firstly he read:


"Ismail. My only son - As your father I want you to be the best a man can be!"….


Then beneath read – "Fatma, I have loved you from birth, find happiness and a good man. Love Daddy."



Then below– "Brother Yusuf. I love you . Remember me always!"


And finally – "Mother. Here is your son. I love you and will forever love you. Father don't forget me! Your son Omar."


The Oman walked out of the prison, tears streaming from his cheeks. As Samir finished his story, he too had tears welling up in his eyes and said, "I was so touch by these messages that I felt duty bound to speak out on their behalf", and he continued to show me his interpretation of the graffiti on the cell walls. Picture by picture. Samir's work is so extremely important and needs to be seen and spoken about.It is only now when I have return to the comfort of home that the full impact of his story hits and continues to hit me. What are we doing in the name of Democracy? What a mess we have gotten ourselves into?……

African Painters | The Artists

Here are some of the artists I have met our would have liked to meet. They are heroes each and every one.


Take a closer look at the work of these African heroes.

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Get Your Own! | View Slideshow

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Chris Abani

Chris Abani


Chris Abani`s novels are GraceLand Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2004 and Masters of the Board Delta, 1985. His poetry collections include Dog Woman Red Hen, Fall 2004, Daphne’s Lot Red Hen, 2003, and Kalakuta Republic Saqi, 2001. He teaches in the MFA Program at Antioch University, Los Angeles and is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the University of California, Riverside. A Middleton Fellow at the University of Southern California, he is the recipient of the 2001 PEN USA Freedom-to-Write Award, the 2001 Prince Claus Award and a 2003 Lannan Literary Fellowship.


AWARDS/GRANTS

2003 - Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, USA.

2003 - Hellman/Hammet Grant from Human Rights Watch, USA.

2002 - Imbonge Yesizwe Poetry International Award, South Africa.

2001 - PEN USA West Freedom - to - Write Award, USA.

2001 - Prince Claus Award for Literature & Culture, The Netherlands.

2001 - Middleton Fellowship, University of Southern California, USA.

1983 - Delta Fiction Award, Nigeria.

Alex La Guma | Time of the Butcherbird

Time of the Butcherbird

Synopsis

Out on the flat, featureless South African veld, a small mining town is waiting for rain. As the oppressive summer wears on, the white Afrikaner townspeople seem to be unaware of the storm brewing out on the plain. Out in the bush, a shepherd recalls the riddle of the butcherbird.

---------------------------------

Review by Lexi Wades from United Kingdom

La Guma mixes white decadence with black injustice in this story of segregation and the changing face of South African society in the middle of the twentieth century. Our sympathy is shared between a young white woman bored with her life and the sequence of events that have led her to where she is and a pair of black brothers who are naive to the ways of an unjust society.
TOTB is an interesting an enlightening novel and defiantly worth reading if you are interested in African society.

Alex La Guma | Time of the Butcherbird

Time of the Butcherbird

Synopsis

Out on the flat, featureless South African veld, a small mining town is waiting for rain. As the oppressive summer wears on, the white Afrikaner townspeople seem to be unaware of the storm brewing out on the plain. Out in the bush, a shepherd recalls the riddle of the butcherbird.

---------------------------------

Review by Lexi Wades from United Kingdom

La Guma mixes white decadence with black injustice in this story of segregation and the changing face of South African society in the middle of the twentieth century. Our sympathy is shared between a young white woman bored with her life and the sequence of events that have led her to where she is and a pair of black brothers who are naive to the ways of an unjust society.
TOTB is an interesting an enlightening novel and defiantly worth reading if you are interested in African society.

Alex La Gama | In the Fog of the Season's End

In the Fog of the Season`s End
Synopsis

The story of Beukes - lonely, hunted, determined - who works for an illegal freedom organization, and of Elias Tekwane, captured by the South African police and tortured to death in their cells.

Alex de Gama | A Walk in the Night

A Walk in the Night
Synopsis

This is a collection of short stories set in Cape Town`s notorious District Six. The stories look at issues of poverty, with characters such as Willieboy, Mikey, Miss Gipsy and Raalt.

Alex La Guma | South Africa

Alex La Guma
1925-1985
La Guma was a writer, a leader of the South African Coloured People`s Organisation SACPO and a defendant in the Treason Trial. Born in 1925 in Cape Town, the son of James La Guma. After graduating from the Trafalgar High School, he joined the Young Communist League in 1947 and became a member of the Communist Party a year later. He helped organise the Congress of the People. He was chairman of SACPO in the Western Cape in the 1950s and an executive member of the SACPO later called the South African Coloured People`s Congress in the 1960s. He wrote for New Age from 1955. He wrote many articles for Fighting Talk in which he captured the atmosphere of the trial proceedings. He was placed under 24-hour house arrest in 1962, and then detained again in 1963. He left South Africa in 1966. He wrote four novels and many short stories, and received the 1969 Lotus Prize for Literature, awarded by the Afro-Asian Writers` Conference. He edited Apartheid: A Collection of Writings on South African Racism by South Africans 1972.
`Alex La Guma is considered one of South Africa`s major twentieth century writers. His first book, A Walk in the Night 1962 was followed by And a Threefold Cord 1967, The Stone Country 1969, The Fog at the Season`s End 1972 and Time of the Butcherbird 1979. A native of District Six, Cape Town, La Guma was also an important political figure. Charged with treason, banned, house arrested and eventually forced into exile, he was chief representative of the African National Congress in the Caribbean at the time of his death in 1985.

Liberation Chabalala: The World of Alex La Guma.
From Protest to Challenge, Political Profiles Volume 4, p52

Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora

Maroon Arts: Cultural Vitality in the African Diaspora
by Sally Price, Richard Price
Synopsis

A stunning record of African-American history and culture through anthropological and artistic eyes - Sally and Richard Price`s groundbreaking work put the history back into the art history of the African diaspora, carefully documenting three centuries of struggle, debate, imitation, and innovation in one of the world`s most beautiful artistic traditions. - J. Lorand Matory, professor of Afro-American Studies and Anthropology, Harvard University - Lavishly illustrated with more than 300 images - Will appeal to art lovers, historians, those interested in museum studies, African American history and culture, and collectors of African Art


From the Publisher

Advance Praise for Maroon Arts

Sally and Richard Price`s groundbreaking work puts the history back into the art history of the African Diaspora, carefully decumenting three centuries of struggle, debate, imitation, and innovation in one of the world`s most beautiful artistic traditions. --J. Lorand Matory, professor of Afro-American studies and anthropology, Harvard University

Maroon Arts is a tribute to the continued power of ethnography and careful attention to the people who are anthropology`s subjects. This is a true marriage of anthropology and art history, and there is nothing in the anthropology of art yet like this kind of placement of expression in sociohistorical context. --Fred Myers, chair, department of anthropology, New York University

Another marvelous achievement by the Prices. Building upon years of intimate contact with the Saramaka, they have produced a work that is at once informative, sympathetic, insightful, and richly illustrated. It is a major contribution to our understanding of the cultural systems of the African Diaspora. --Colin Palmer, distinguished professor of history, The Graduate School, City University of New York

The Maroon peoples of Suriname are decended from slaves imported from West and Central Africa who escaped from Dutch plantations in the 18th century. Their art is a rich mix of African American aesthetics and the strong spirit of individual creativity. The authors who share the Dittman Chair in American Studies at the College of William and Mary examine textiles, woodcarving, calabash decorations, and ritual performance with an anthropologist`s regard for historical and cultural context. . . . An important contribution to the literature of anthropolgy and art. --Library Journal --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Kentecloth: Southwest Voices of the African Diaspora : the Oral Tradition Comes to the Page

Kentecloth: Southwest Voices of the African Diaspora : the Oral Tradition Comes to the Page
Edited by Jas Mardis

From the Publisher

Kente Cloth editor Mardis wins Pushcart Prize
From the Dallas Morning News

Dallas writer James Mardis` poem Invisible Man has been selected as one of the 28 poetry winners of the 24th annual Pushcart Prize.

The Pushcart Prize honors the best of small literary presses the winning works are selected by 200 contributing editors.Chosen from 5.000 nominations, the 62 selections--including poems, short stories and essays--will be published in November in the anthology The Pushcart Prize XXIV. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Reviewer: Karen Celestan from New Orleans

KENTE CLOTH WADES INTO STORYTELLERS` WATERS

From a full-length performance poem in script form to a teen-ager`s image-laden perception of self, Kente Cloth: Southwest Voices of The African Diaspora University of North Texas Press revives on paper the ancient tradition of griots or storytellers. James Mardis, an award-winning poet and radio commentator in Dallas, has compiled an anthology that features mostly unpublished writers. Collecting the work of more than 45 scribes primarily from Louisiana and Texas, Mardis has succeeded in capturing the rhythm-and-blues lives of people in a common-folk vernacular. Simple, earnest and true. Kente Cloth is divided into four basic categories: Witnesses, Performers, Tellers and Signifiers, with a range of styles and tales that tantalize the reader into jumping into a pool of griots. Jesse Truvillion`s A Stray Dog`s Great Day, Nadir Bomani`s Someone`s Knockin` at My Door and Phyllis Allen`s The Red Swing run the gamut from tribute to modern-day vignette. The poetry of Monica Denise Spears, Bertram Barnes, Zenaura Melynia Smith, Gayle Bell, Freddi Evans, Glenn Joshua, Mawiyah Bomani and Kalamu ya Salaam are lyrical emotion-rides, while the prose of Bernestine Singley, Charley Moon, and James Thomas Jackson invoke fiery responses. Lovve/Rituals & Rage by Sharon Bridgforth brings the joy of performance art to the page and the gentle Soul Soother by Zenaura Smith, a freshman at John Ehret High School in New Orleans, offers a touch of innocent love. Even editor Mardis slips in a folktale and a couple of poems, most notably Sting, an ode that balances lemonade and death. A dozen New Orleans writers add their unique perspectives to this collection, including Michael Ollie Clayton, saddi khali, Cassandra Bailey, Nadir Bomani, Barnes, Evans, Joshua, Perkins, Salaam, Smith, Spears and Mawiyah Bomani. The African-American literary scene is a steadily evolving and expanding landscape, and Kente Cloth turns the spotlight around to shine on the South. Mardis wanted this collection to represent the joy of the oral tradition, The elders may be gone in body, but their lessons linger in the living and sharing of these stories, poems and plays. Listen for the voices...the oral dance of tongue to teeth and song to heart. Kente Cloth is a visual tribute to the legions of unscripted griots and a worthy addition to any shelf that holds African-American literature.

Ethiopian Passages: Dialogues in the Diaspora

Ethiopian Passages: Dialogues in the Diaspora
by Elizabeth Harney
Synopsis

In the global arena, African artists have contributed significantly to the inventiveness and creative vitality of the contemporary art world. This impact has been more immediate and pronounced for Western audiences as African artists move into the growing and significant diaspora in America and Europe. This study introduces audiences to the importance of the arts in the African diaspora and tells of the important histories of migration and the myriad negotiations of artistic, cultural, group and personal identities among African artists in the diaspora. The book brings together artists from across several generations, who have addressed issues of identity, experienced displacement and created new homelands. The evidence of these encounters and personal experiences can be seen in the works of art that are included, which demonstrate the magnificence and arresting power of contemporary African art.

Diaspora and Visual Culture

Diaspora and Visual Culture
by Nicholas Mirzoeff Editor

Synopsis

This text marks the importance of diaspora as a means of understanding the new modes of postnational identity. In examining the visual culture of the classic African and Jewish diasporas, contributors address different aspects of the multiple viewpoints inherent in diasporic cultures. Two introductory essays by Stuart Hall and the painter R.B. Kitaj highlight the intersections of diaspora and cultural identity. The subsequent essays examine individual instances of diaspora as diverse as homosexuality in the Dreyfus Affair, the Caribbean-Jewish Impressionist painter Camille Pissarro, Yoruba diaspora art and performance in Brazil and New York, identity in the art of African-American women in the 19th and 20th centuries, the formation of American, European and Israeli artistic identity and the possibility that queer culture is diasporic.

Borders, Exiles, Diasporas

Borders, Exiles, Diasporas
by Elazar Barkan Editor, Marie-Denise Shelton Editor
Synopsis

How do the concepts border, exile, and diaspora shape individual and group identities across cultures? Taking this question as a point of departure, this wide-ranging volume explores the ways that people create and represent a home away from home. Throughout, the authors emphasize the multiple subjectivities, cultural displacements, and identity politics that have characterized the postcolonial and post-World War II eras. They simultaneously affirm and challenge previous understandings of these three terms, and they investigate their malleability the extent to which they apply to diverse communities. Once the idea of diaspora is dissociated from the historical experiences of a particular group of people, it becomes a universal designation, applicable to all displaced groups. This understanding of diaspora also allows for the creation of a nonnormative intellectual community, one experienced by many contemporary critics and with which they identify. In the postcolonial context, a global middle voice emerges that incorporates the critic and his or her identity as the participant-observer of the discourses on identity. As personal narratives transcend the autobiographical, they become indispensable guarantors of a free theoretical field, without a priori boundaries. The diaspora s voice is thus national and cultural, but it lacks the nation or the geographical definition that would constrain its subject.

New Talent | Anagossi Gratien | Grek

Grek | Anagossi Gratien
Republic of Benin
b.1974 - Present
Grek Art

Grek is one of the exciting young talented artists of West Africa from the Republic of Benin. Originally from the Republic of Togo he moved to neighbouring Benin in his teens and is now in his early 30`s. He has worked for the French Cultural Centre in Cotonou and most recently, has set-up a design group in the Port of Cotonou.

His work is similar to Alberto Burni and Antoni Tapies of the Art Informel Movement of the 1950`s but I believe this is more by accident rather than design. I use the term Art Informel from the French informe, meaning unformed or formless to refer to the antigeometric, antinaturalistic, and nonfigurative formal preoccupations which is so obvious in Grek`s work, stressing his pursuit for spontaneity, looseness of form, and the irrational. His work is pushing forward new ideas of seeing and using whatever materials are closest at hand. His work is extensively about the plight of the empoverished and his inventive techniques of leaving painted canvas in the sun for weeks on end is extremely effective. The end product is a painting that looks like it`s about to fall to pieces, which is purposefully symbolic in the way in which he chooses to reflect his own condition.

Grek`s work leans towards the gestural and expressive, with repetitive anticompositional formats related to Abstract Expressionism. If ever there was an artist who represented African modernity it is Grek.

He is a dedicated artist and we are delighted to represent him on the site.

New Talent | Krisito Assangni

Krisito Assangni
Togo/France
b.1975 - Present


SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2005 Galerie Pierre-Michel Dugast, Paris

2004 Sela Gallery, Leeds, United Kingdom
Galerie 43, Paris

2003 Mondiaal Centrum, Maastricht, Netherlands
Galerie Mailletz , Paris

2002 Galerie du Médoc, Bordeaux, France

GROUP EXHIBITIONS

2005 Lines on paper, Oö Landesmuseum, Linz, Austria
Limited, Toast Gallery, Brussels, Belgium

2004 Foire internationale des arts derniers, les Afriques, Musée des
Arts Derniers, Paris
15 th, Kolb Halle, Cologne, Germany
Atout coeur d’artiste, Musée du collage, Sergines, France
Symposium Art Kollage , Proldiv, Bulgaria

2003 Mail art, Cultural center of Sucy-en-Brie France,
Belgrade Serbia, Bietighem-Bissigen Germany
Les signes, Galerie Pierre-Michel Dugast, Paris

2002 Africavui, Galeria Greca, Barcelone, Spain

2001 8 artistes, Galerie du Médoc, Bordeaux, France
Grands et Jeunes, Galerie Am Tunnel, Luxembourg

2000 Grands et Jeunes, Espace Eiffel-Branly, Paris
Le Phare Togo-Bretagne, Assemblée Nationale, Paris
1/2000 , Galerie Jacques Cartier, Chauny, France

1999 Journées Photographiques de Lome

-------------

ACADEMIC

2002 Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris

1999 Atelier of Beat Presser, Goethe institut, Lome, Togo

New Talent | Kossi Ankude | Laka

Kossi Ankude | Laka
b. 02/08/1970
The Republic of Togo
Personal Details

Name: ANKUDE
Christian Name: Kossi
Artistic Name: Laka
Date of Birth: 02 August 1970 in Lomé TOGO
Adresse : BP 4806 Lomé TOGO
Formation : Self Taught Painter
Genre : Painting, Drawing, sculptures, installations
Education: Diplômes : BAC série C - DEUG in Economie

Exhibitions

2003 Exposition collective GODODO, au siège du PSIC à LoméTogo
Exposition collective, galerie METISSAGE, Manosque France


2002 Exposition collective, galerie LA TOUR D`ARGENT, Lisle sur la SorgeFrance


2001 Résidence de créations de peintures et exposition collective à l`ATELIER NOMADE ALOUGBINE DINE, Cotonou Bénin


2000 Expositions avec Claude MAKELELA
Restaurant le MAQUIS, MontpellierFrance
Soirée organisée par HANDICAPS SANS FRONTIERES, Laval France


1999 Exposition au GOETHE INSTITUT de Lomé Togo
Musée Municipal d`Art Contemporain de Cocody, Abidjan Côte d`Ivoire
Exposition collective « Grande célébration », Hôtel SARAKAWA, Premier Prix du Concours UAC-WAX-VLISCO intitulé « Le pagne de l`An 2000 » Lomé Togo

1998 Expositions à l`Hôtel MERIDIEN RE-NDAMA de librevilleGabon: . Avec Claude MAKELELA . Avec la galerie LE LUTRIN


1997 Foire Internationale de Libreville, exposition collective à l`occasion du Sommet ACP-UE
Salon de thé le CAFE CHAUD, Libreville Gabon


1996 SALON D`OCTOBRE au CCF de Libreville Gabon
Exposition avec Mr Simon MIZERE au CCF de Libreville
Exposition collective à l`Hôtel INTERCONTINENTAL de Libreville
Exposition collective à la galerie OLIMA de Libreville

1995 18e Foire Internationale de Libreville, salon VIP de Shell- Gabon

1994 Galerie OLIMA, Libreville Gabon

Permanent Exhibition
Galerie OLIMA, Libreville Gabon

Other Events
Logo de la Fêtes des Cultures de Libreville Gabon

Suzanne Ouedraogo

Suzanne Ouedraogo
Artist from Burkina Faso
Features in Anthology of Contemporary African Art
Revue Noire Suzanne Ouedraogo born in 1973, Bestiary no1, 1999

Photo by Joe Pollitt

From Library Journal

Editors with the Paris-based publisher Revue Noire, Fall and Pivin have put together a volume that will inspire and inform experts and neophytes alike. Including 500 color and 51 black-and-white images, this book provides a depth and breadth no other volume can boast of on the subject of contemporary African art. Breathtakingly thorough and overwhelming in its comprehensiveness, this volume contains a representative selection that covers all genres and reaches into every region of sub-Saharan Africa. The undertaking is enhanced by the penetrating insights of several distinguished writers, whose masterly essays recall history, provide context, and interpret uniquely African phenomena while also revealing the universality of selected works, presenting them as expressions of a modernity that is concretely African but has roots in the interconnectedness of all humans. The brief descriptions and histories accompanying each work are invaluable guides. Recommended for public and academic libraries and indispensable for any African studies collection.
Edward K. Owusu-Ansah, CUNY Coll. of Staten Island Lib.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


About the Author
N`Gone Fall is the editor of Revue Noire.
Jean Loup Pivin is the cofounder and director of publications of Revue Noire.


Book Description
The term Modern African Art is not an abuse of language. The 20th century has seen, but not properly documented, the birth, development, and maturation of contemporary art in sub-Saharan Africa, an art which was not simply imported in the 1950s but which finds its sources both in colonial realities and in local cultures and civilizations. Anthology of African Art: The Twentieth Century does not propose to document any one African art, but rather to open up this vast but underexplored field to include a diverse theoretical, historical, geographical, and critical map of this dense and ancient region. Contributions by more than 30 international authors recount the birth of art schools in the 1930s, the development of urban design and public art, and the importance of socially-concerned art during the Independence movements. From Ethiopia, Nigeria, and the Belgian Congo to Ghana, Senegal, and Angola, through the works of hundreds of artists working in every conceivable medium and context, this anthology manages the continental and unique feat of providing a thorough, expansive, diversified, and fully illustrated history of African art in the 20th century. Since 1991, Paris-based Revue Noire Editions has dedicated itself to the multidisciplinary artistic production of the African continent and the African diaspora. Publishers of the critically-acclaimed An Anthology of African Photography, a comprehensive chronicle of African photography from the mid-1800s to the present, Revue Noire also produces a self-titled magazine devoted to contemporary African art and culture. With his proverbial cynicism, Henry Kissinger said some time ago that Africa was for the 21st century to solve. Well, now we`re there. --Josep Ramoneda, Director of the Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona
Edited by Jean Loup Pivin & N`Gone Fall. Essays by Francisco d`Almeida, Marie-Helene Boisdur de Toffol, Joelle Busca, Sabine Cornelis, Elsbeth Court, N`Gone Fall, Etienne Feau, Till Forster, Joseph Gazari Seini, Joanna Grabski, Sigrid Horsch-Albert, Bennetta Jules-Rosette, George Kyeyune, Alexandra Loumpet-Galitzine, Marylin Martin, Elikia M`Bokolo, Adriano Mixinge, Simon Njami, Sylvester Ogbechie, Richard Pankhurst, Blaise Patrix, Thierry Payet, John Picton, Jean Loup Pivin, Sunanda K. Sanyal, Konjit Seyoum, Ousmane Sow Huchard, Yvonne Vera, Jean-Luc Vellut, Sue Williamson and Gaving Younge.
9.25 x 12.5 in.

Olu Oguibe

Olu Oguibe
The Culture Game
Editorial Reviews
Book Description
In self-congratulatory tones of tolerance and open-mindedness, the Western gatekeepers of the contemporary art world-gallery owners and museum curators, patrons and promoters-take great pains to demonstrate their inclusive vision of world culture. They highlight the Latin American show mounted a few years ago or the African works featured in a recent exhibition of non-Western artists. Non-Western artists soon discover that this veneer of liberalism masks an array of unwritten, unspoken, and unseemly codes and quotas dictating the acquisition and exhibition of their works and the success of their careers. In past decades, cultural institutions and the critical establishment in the West resisted difference today, they are obsessed with exoticism. Both attitudes reflect firmly entrenched prejudices that prescribe the rules of what Nigerian-born artist, curator, and scholar Olu Oguibe terms the culture game.
In the celebrated, controversial essays gathered here, Oguibe exposes the disparities and inconsistencies of the reception and treatment afforded Western and non-Western artists the obstacles that these contradictions create for non-Western and minority artists, especially those who live and practice in the Western metropolis and the nature and peculiar concerns of contemporary non-Western art as it deals with the ramifications and residues of the colonial encounter as well as its own historical and cultural past. Ranging from the impact of the West`s appetite for difference on global cultural relations and the existence of a digital Third World to the African redefinition of modernity, Oguibe`s uncompromising and unapologetic criticism provides a uniquely global vision of contemporary art and culture.

Olu Oguibe is a visual artist, writer, scholar, and curator. He is associate professor of art and art history at the University of Connecticut.

Jimoh Buraimoh

Jimoh Buraimoh
The Heritage: My Life and Arts
by Jimoh Buraimoh

Ingrid Mwangi

Ingrid Mwangi
Your Own Soul: Ingrid Mwangi
by Ingrid Mwangi, Gislind Nabakowski, Jan Hoet


Book Description

Ingrid Mwangi is an artist of Kenyan origin, living in Germany since she was fifteen. In her videos, installations, performances, and photo works, Mwangi incessantly explores her blackness as well as her biracial heritage. Her works document the journey to herself, dealing with deeply rooted patterns of behavior and attitudes that lead to social, political, and cultural stigmatization. As a self-confident -person, the young media performer explores and presents her own corporeality determined by her body, her skin, her dreadlocks, and her voice. The unmediated experience of cultural differences has allowed Mwangi to develop a special sensitivity that generates an artistic prism through which she view herself and the world.

Iba N`Diaye

Iba N`Diaye
PRIMITIVE? SAYS WHO? IBA NDIAYE, PAINTER BETWEEN CONTINENTS
by Franz Kaiser and Okwui Enwezor

- For full details contact the Publisher below -

A new book on Iba Ndiaye entitled Primitive? Says Who? - Iba Ndiaye, Painter Between Continents was brought out in January 2002 by renown french publisher, Adam Biro. This well illustrated monograph -- in French and English -- focuses on Iba`s new work, from 2000-2001. The books` authors are Okwui Enwezor, Curator of The Short Century and Director of Documenta XI, and Franz-W Kaiser, Director of Exhibitions at the Gemeentemuseum in The Hague.

The book`s dust jacket sums up the it`s orientation:
Contemporary art is in fashion, particularly if it comes from faraway lands like Africa. But who decides what is art? Who controls the quality of artists? According to which criteria? It is clear that, almost a half-century after decolonization, in order to be recognized, Africans must in one way or another produce art that is primitive, meaning naïve, picturesque, lacking in technique, colorful, tribal, exotic.
The European inventions of primitivism and the noble savage are difficult to overcome. Iba Ndiaye sees himself as neither noble nor savage. He sees himself simply as a painter. One can only be a painter through one`s relationship with the history of painting -- by borrowing, rejecting and innovating in order to build a personal style. Ndiaye knows this, and he rejects the dubious ideology of the clean slate. Like any true artist, he sees painting for what it is: the means of finding his own personal identity, which lies between Africa, where he was born, and Europe, where he lives.

- soft-cover
- 22 x 28 cm
- 40 images, 30 in colour
- 64 pages
- ISBN : 2-84660-332-2
- On Sale : January 2002
- price : 18 €.


Adam Biro publishers
28 rue de Sévigné, 75004 Paris
Contact :
Aleksandra Sokolov
Fax : 01 44 59 87 17
Mobile : 06 08 32 10 39

Representations of Blackness and the Performance of Identities

Representations of Blackness and the Performance of Identities
by Jean Muteba Rahier Editor

This anthology offers a comparative approach for the study of performances of African diaspora identities in various locales of the Black Atlantic. Articles discuss the spatial dimensions of blackness the relations between blackness, gender constructs, and social classes Native American views.

The essays in this volume deal with representations of blackness and the performance of black identities in various historically determined societal contexts of the Americas, Benin and Spain. The book is grounded on the premise that representations constitute, in part, the world in which we live.

Souls of Black Folk by W.E.B. Du Bois

Souls of Black Folk
by William Edward Burghardt Du Bois
William Edward Burghardt Du Bois 1868--1963 is the greatest of African-American intellectuals--a sociologist, historian, novelist, and activist whose astounding career spanned the nation`s history from Reconstruction to the civil rights movement. Born in Massachusetts and educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, Du Bois penned his epochal masterpiece, The Souls of Black Folk, in 1903. It remains his most studied and popular work its insights into Negro life at the turn of the 20th century still ring true.

With a dash of the Victorian and Enlightenment influences that peppered his impassioned yet formal prose, the book`s largely autobiographical chapters take the reader through the momentous and moody maze of Afro-American life after the Emancipation Proclamation--from poverty, the neoslavery of the sharecropper, illiteracy, miseducation and lynching, to the heights of humanity reached by the spiritual sorrow songs that birthed gospel and the blues. The most memorable passages are contained in On Booker T Washington and Others, where Du Bois criticises his famous contemporary`s rejection of higher education and accommodationist stance toward white racism: Mr. Washington`s programme practically accepts the alleged inferiority of the Negro races, he writes, further complaining that Washington`s thinking withdraws many of the high demands of Negroes as men and American citizens. The capstone of The Souls of Black Folk, though, is Du Bois` haunting, eloquent description of the concept of the black psyche`s double consciousness, which he described as a peculiar sensation....One ever feels this twoness--an American, a Negro two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. Thanks to WEB Du Bois` commitment and foresight--and the intellectual excellence expressed in this timeless literary gem--black Americans can today look in the mirror and rejoice in their beautiful black, brown and beige reflections. --Eugene Holley Jr --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Synopsis
First published in Arpril, 1903, Souls of the Black Folk was one of Modern Librarys 100 Best Nonfiction Books of the 20th Century.

The Birth of Cool: Dress Culture of the African Diaspora (Materializing Culture)

Getahun Assefa | Arab 4 | Ethiopia


Focusing on counter- and sub-cultural contexts, this volume investigates the role of dress in the creation and assertion of Black identity. Tracing the home-dressmaking of Jamaican women, through to the Harlem Renaissance and contemporary street styles such as Hip Hop and Raggamuffin, the book identifies Black Britons, African Americans and Jamaicans as being at the forefront of establishing a variety of Black identities through dress.

From the zoot suit and Black dandy through to Rastafarianism and beyond, Black style has had a profound influence on the history of dress in the twentieth century. Yet despite this high profile, the dress styles worn by men and women of the African diaspora have received scant attention, even though the culture itself has been widely documented from historical, sociological and political perspectives. Focusing on counter - and sub-cultural contexts, this book investigates the role of dress in the creation and assertion of Black identity. From the home-dressmaking of Jamaican women, through to the Harlem Renaissance and contemporary streetstyles such as Hip-Hop and Raggamuffin, Black Britons, African Americans and Jamaicans have been at the forefront of establishing a variety of Black identities. In their search for a self-image that expresses their diaspora experience, members of these groups have embraced the cultural shapers of modernity and postmodernity in their dress. Drawing on materials from the United States, Britain and Jamaica, this book fills a gap in both the history of Black culture and the history of dress, which has until recently focused on high fashion in Europe. Because dress can both initiate and confirm change, it provides an especially useful tool for analyzing identity and resistance.

Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora

Looking Both Ways: Art of the Contemporary African Diaspora
Ann Laurie Farrell
Out on the 1 March, 2004

Book Description
This book showcases 12 artists from North, South, East, and West Africa who live and work in Western countries. The title refers to the artists’ practice of looking in the psychic terrain between Africa and the West, a terrain of shifting physical contexts, aesthetic ambitions and expressions.

Exhibition catalogue edited by Laurie Ann Farrell with contributions by Valentijn Byvanck, Allan deSouza, José António Fernandes Dias, Okwui Enwezor, Laurie Ann Farrell, Lauri Firstenberg, Salah Hassan, Kobena Mercer, Steven Nelson, Simon Njami, Edith-Marie Pasquier, John Peffer, Jérôme Sans, and Sue Williamson. Published by the Museum for African Art, New York and Snoeck-Ducaju & Zoon, Gent, March, 2003. 180 pp.

Islam`s Black Slaves: The History of Africa`s Other Black Diaspora

Islam`s Black Slaves: The History of Africa`s Other Black Diaspora
by Ronald Segal


Synopsis

This work tells the fascinating and horrifying story of the Islamic slave trade. It documents a centuries-old institution that still survives, and traces the business of slavery and its repercussions from Islam`s inception in the 7th century, through its history in China, India, Iran, Turkey, Egypt, Libya and Spain, and on to Sudan and Mauritania, where, even today, slaves continue to be sold. Segal reveals the numbers involved in this trade - as many millions as were transported to the Americas - and explores the differences between the traffic in the East and the West. Beginning some eight centuries earlier than the Atlantic Trade, the Islamic Trade was conducted on a different scale, and provided slaves more often for domestic - including sexual - and military service than for plantation labour. Some slaves rose to positions of authority, and a few even became rulers. Because of specific spiritual teachings, Islam was generally more humane than the West in its treatment of slaves and in its willingness to grant them their freedom, although the processes of captivity and transport victimized untold numbers of innocent people, as did the creation of eunuchs for the Islamic market.

Beautiful Nudes

Beautiful Nudes
Marc Baptiste

You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe

You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe
by Michelle Lamuniere, Sidibe Malick
Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
The catalogue of a recent Harvard University exhibition, You Look Beautiful Like That: The Portrait Photographs of Seydou Keita and Malick Sidib‚ chronicles the two portrait photographers` work in Mali. Ke‹ta and Sidib‚ took countless studio portraits of Malinese people before and after the country became independent from France in 1960. Michelle LamuniŠre, a curatorial research assistant at Harvard`s Fogg Museum, includes an essay on the history of West African portrait photography with images dating back to the turn of the century and portions of recent interviews with the two artists. The 79 images ranging from people in strictly traditional dress to friends in hip Westernized get-ups to men posed in a boxing scene are striking for their subjects` arresting gazes and poses as well as for their superior production value.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal

Photographs have been taken in Africa since the 1840s, but only recently have scholars begun to pay attention to the work of indigenous African photographers, who typically blend Western technology and techniques with an African perspective and aesthetic sensibility. This catalog, which accompanies an exhibition at Harvard`s Fogg Art Museum, focuses on commercial portraits by two Bamako, Mali, photographers, whose photos are drawn from the collection of noted African art collector Jean Pigozzi.


Book Description
Seydou Keïta and Malick Sidibé, two important and widely known commercial photographers from Mali, took mesmerizing photographs of members of their communities during the decades before and after the country`s independence from France in 1960. This book presents a range of these portraits, as well as excerpts of recent interviews with the artists and an essay placing the photographers within the context of the history of portrait photography in West Africa since its beginnings in the 1840s. In contrast to the early photographs of Africans produced by Western colonial powers, Keïta and Sidibé`s photographs represent the work of Africans controlling the camera to create images of African subjects for an African audience. Keïta combined formulas of Western portrait photography with local aesthetics to create images that reflect both his clients` social identity and status within the community and an enthusiastic embrace of modernity. Later, as portrait conventions and societal roles became more flexible, Sidibé`s subjects took a more active part in constructing the images of themselves that they wanted to convey. Africans have valued photography for its unique ability to capture a person`s likeness, which, says Sidibé, was regarded as more eternal than the subjects themselves. This book is a striking collection of such likenesses.

Veil: Veiling,Representation and Contemporary Art

Veil: Veiling,Representation and Contemporary Art
David A. Bailey Editor, Gilane Tawadros Editor
Reviews

Synopsis
No single item of dothing has had greater influence on Western images of Middle Eastern and North African women than the veil. The fascination of Western writers, artists, and photographers with the veil reflects the voyeuristic nature of our interest in what is strange and other. Veil, which accompanies an exhibition organized by the Institute of International Visual Arts in London, explores the representation of the veil in contemporary visual arts. Providing a context for the commissioned essays are a number of classical historical texts crossing religions, cultures, genders, and ages - from Greek myths to articles published in the aftermath of September 11, 2001. Some of the contemporary artists and scholars write autobiographically about the meaning of the veil in their lives. Others take a more political approach, discussing, for example, how the events of September 11 changed the use and reception of veil imagery throughout the world. Still others take a historical approach, examining how nineteenth-century technological developments in travel and photography led to photographic depictions of both the veiled and unveiled body in relation to landscape.

Touhami Ennadre: Moira

Touhami Ennadre: Moira
by Okwui Enwezor, Lauri Firstenberg
Book Description

As early as 1978, critics have compared the striking works of French photo artist Touhami Ennadre to the intensity of Van Gogh, and others have since identified affinities with Caravaggio and the poetry of Rimbaud. In the words of author Tilman Spengler, Ennadre presents images that appear and disappear at the same time. Often insistent to the point of obsession, these works imitate Creation in their own unique fashion, posing the question of how light and shadow become form and figure in a dialogue of equals. Author François Aubral coined the term black light with reference to this aspect of Ennadre`s work. Moïra features an impressive selection of Ennadre`s beautifully modeled photographs, and presents for the first time his recent Danse series, shot on the New York City club scene.

Essays by Okwui Enwezor, Lauri Firstenberg and Nancy Spector.

Hardcover, 10.5 x 13.75 in./144 pgs / 110 duotone.

Touhami Ennadre: Black Light

Touhami Ennadre: Black Light
by Francois Aubral
Synopsis

This work is a monograph on Touhami Ennadre, an artist whose visionary photographic depiction of life and death has made him the focus of attention in international photographic circles. His work, especially the Hands and Parisian Suburbs series, has become increasingly popular. Works by Ennadre were included in an exhibition at New York`s Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1996, and his pictures are now to be found in major collections of contemporary photography throughout the world. By intense concentration on the subjects depicted, submerged in a background of deep black, Ennadre excludes superfluous narrative elements. He insists that he is not a photographer, and the unusual methods he uses certainly resemble those of a painter more than those of a conventional photographer. His works are often deeply disturbing and have a strong impact on the viewer. They take us aside into the shadows of our civilization and draw us closer and closer to the subject of birth and death - the extremes of human experience.

The Black Female Body: A Photographic History

The Black Female Body: A Photographic History
by Deborah Willis, Carla Williams
Synopsis

Searching for photographs of black women, the authors of this text were startled to find them by the hundreds. This work offers an array of familiar and many virtually unknown photographs, showing how photographs reflected and reinforced Western culture`s fascination with black women`s bodies.

Photography`s Other Histories Objects/Histories

Photography`s Other Histories Objects/Histories
by Christopher Pinney Editor, Nicolas Peterson Editor, Jack Kramer

Editorial Reviews

About the Author
Christopher Pinney is Reader in Anthropology and Visual Culture at University College London. He is author of Camera Indica: The Social Life of Indian Photographs and coeditor of Pleasure and the Nation and Beyond Aesthetics. Nicolas Peterson is Reader in Anthropology at the Australian National University. He is coauthor of Aboriginal Territorial Organization.

Book Description
Moving the critical debate about photography away from its current Euro-American center of gravity, Photography’s Other Histories breaks with the notion that photographic history is best seen as the explosion of a Western technology advanced by the work of singular individuals. This collection presents a radically different account, describing photography as a globally disseminated and locally appropriated medium. Essays firmly grounded in photographic practice—in the actual making of pictures—suggest the extraordinary diversity of nonwestern photography.

Richly illustrated with over one hundred images, Photography’s Other Histories explores from a variety of geographic, cultural, and historic perspectives the role of photography in raising historical consciousness. It includes two first-person pieces by indigenous Australians and one by a Seminole/Muskogee/Dine` artist. Some of the essays analyze representations of colonial subjects—from the limited ways Westerners have depicted Navajos to Japanese photos recording the occupation of Manchuria and from the changing nature of the contract between Aboriginal subjects and photographers to the surprising range of cultural influences evident in the photographs colonialist F. R. Barton took in New Guinea in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Focusing on photographic self-fashioning and the development of vernacular modernisms, other essays highlight the visionary quality of much popular photography. Case studies centered in early-twentieth-century Peru and contemporary India, Kenya, and Nigeria chronicle the diverse practices that have flourished in postcolonial societies. Photography’s Other Histories recasts popular photography around the world, as not simply reproducing culture but creating it.

Contributors. Michael Aird, Heike Behrend, Jo-Anne Driessens, James Faris, Morris Low, Nicolas Peterson, Christopher Pinney, Roslyn Poignant, Deborah Poole, Stephen Sprague, Hulleah Tsinhnahjinnie, Christopher Wright

In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present

In/sight: African Photographers, 1940 to the Present
Okwui Enwezor
Reviews

Synopsis
Presenting the work of 30 diverse photographers from throughout Africa since 1940, this is the complete catalogue of an exhibition at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. Studio portraits of the 1940s by photographers such as the Ivory Coast`s Cornelius Yao Azaglo Augustt, Senegal`s Salla Casset and Meissa Gay, and Mali`s Seydou Keita depict a period of great transformation in Africa. Examples of the 1950s include work by Bob Gasani, Peter Magubane and Lionel Oostendorp for the magazine Drum, and featured photographers of the 1960s and 1970s include Samuel Fosso Central African Republic, David Goldblatt South Africa, Ricardo Rangel Mozambique and Malick Sidibe Mali. These more recent photographs chronicle the development of independent countries and the emergence of Africa as part of the modern world. Contemporary artists in North Africa and Nigeria are represented by work on new themes. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Flash Afrique! Photography from West Africa

Flash Afrique! Photography from West Africa
by Thomas Miessgang Editor, Olu Oguibe, Gerald Matt Editor, Barbara Schroder Editor, Kunsthall

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
As attention is increasingly directed to the study and appreciation of contemporary African art, the work of indigenous photographers has been made available to a larger audience through exhibitions and publications. This volume, which accompanies a show curated by Matt and Miessgang at Vienna`s Kunsthalle gallery, focuses on the work of six 20th-century photographers from Ghana, Mali, Senegal, and the Ivory Coast. The 57 works range from staged studio portraits to documentary shots of street life. However, this is much more than a simple catalog of images. The text, consisting of essays and interviews by scholars, critics, and the artists themselves, analyzes the aesthetics and meaning behind the photographs. In addition, artists` biographies are separately provided. While the interpretive nature of the text and the variety of works reproduced make this a valuable addition to academic libraries specializing in art or African studies, general collections are still better served by a survey, such as In/Sight: African Photographers, 1840-1981. Eugene C. Burt, Data Arts, Seattle
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.



Book Description
Terra incognito? Heart of darkness? How about stylish continent, as some magazine once wrote? The gigantic landmass that is Africa, over which a colonial shadow still looms, is a territory of projections and misunderstandings. The West African photographers presented in Flash Afrique! tell stories about the tension between dreams and reality. Elaborately arranged studio portraits reveal how Africa sees itself. Documentary images comment on the sheer craziness of overpopulated cities. And conversations with the photographers open up an art scene only recently begun to emerge from shadow.
Edited by Gerald Matt, Thomas Miessgang. Essays by Olu Oguibe, Koyo Kouoh, Simon Njami. Photographers include: Philip Kwame Apagya, Dorris Haron Kasco, Seydou Keita, Boubacar Toure Mandemory, Bouna Medoune Seye, Malick Sidibe.
7.75 x 10.25 in.
57 color and duotone illustrations