Art Africa - January 2016

ARTAFRICA
JA N UA RY 2 016 W H O S E S O U T H I S I T A N Y W AY ?
WHOSE SOUTH IS IT ANYWAY?

015 ANNEMI CONRADIE RETURNING TO THE WRECK ALSO IN THIS ISSUE:
022 SOPHIA OLIVIA SANAN VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS BOGOSI SEKHUKHUNI
036 VALERIE KABOV FROM A SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEWS & REVIEWS
070 ComicArtAfrica SUPER / BLACK / COMIX + MORE!
Nelson Makamo
(SOUTH AFRICAN 1982 -)
SO FULL OF YOUTH-
NOT YET ABUSED BY TIME (detail)
signed and dated 15 charcoal on paper
200 by 141cm
Estimate: R 150 000 - R 200 000
SOLD: R 252 604
ARTAFRICA
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Jean - Claude Moschetti I ‘Taïgbe 01’ Rio Kapatchez I 2015

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Lucas Sithole, Witchdoctor (LS8211)

signed; executed in 1982
Swazi Msimbiti wood, on a wooden base
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November 2015
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ARTAFRICA
EDITORIAL
EDITORIAL
As our focus on global discourse expands, we – services and commodities; one of which is
as members of the so-called geopolitical south contemporary art.
– find ourselves at the centre of a much larger
dialogue. With the ever-widening scope of In her article, ‘Voices From the Global South’
debate and varying points of view, it becomes (p.12), AFAI’s research manager, Sophia
almost impossible to construct a cohesive Olivia Sanan touches on the investigation
argument that reflects and represents all of into dominant discourse, recognising the
these disparate voices. At best, we see ourselves “ever increasing migrational flows… and
as facilitators and our platform as one that environmental instability [that] are some of the
poses pertinent questions to leading voices and defining characteristics of globalisation.”
thinkers who deliver their valuable insights.
There is evidence to suggest that artistic
This issue seeks to find, question and report; production from the Global South is further
presenting varying points of view in the hope emerging in its own right – festivals like
that this creates healthy debates and sparks Videobrasil (to which we were invited, p.100)
constructive conversations. are testament to the fact that the South can
host these kinds of collaborations and have
This December issue, titled ‘Whose South been for quite some time now (very successfully
is it Anyway?’ grapples with and addresses too). On our own shores, art fairs like Bamako
some pertinent questions relating to concepts Encounters (ART AFRICA was in Mali for the
of the ‘Global South,’ such as: What is opening event, p.122), the FNB JoburgArtFair
considered the ‘Global South’? Who does this (extensive review by Ashraf Jamal on p.150) and
definition encompass and what are its effects? LagosPhoto Festival have all shown substantial
And, increasingly, are these definitions and growth over the past decade. It is, in part, due
delineations even still relevant? to this growth that fairs such as 1:54 and Also
Known As Africa (see our feature on p.200) have
This particular edition takes its name from our sought to encompass the depth of emerging
positioning piece by Valerie Kabov, ‘Whose talent that Africa has to offer.
South is it anyway?’ (p.11). Kabov lends an
indispensible voice to this issue, both as the Although the ‘Global South’ can be a sticky
founder and director of First Floor Gallery concept to navigate, the positioning piece, ‘A
(Harare) and, we’re pleased to announce, one Concept in Flux’ (p.228), by Brazilian curator
of our team as an ART AFRICA Editor-at- and editor, Sabrina Moura employs new ways of
Large! thinking about it. As she points out, “concepts
are often used as discursive tools to support
As Kabov posits, “terms like Global North and artistic and curatorial projects that need to
Global South are deceptive in their simplicity.”
010 EDITORIAL / BLAH BLAH
resort to the realm of theory.” Our question
While the bulk of economic capital resides in is: What are we doing about it? Hopefully, by
the North, the Global South is home to more keeping a “contextualised perspective, we might
than eighty percent of the population and circumvent getting lost amid generalisations
has become synonymous with the ‘emerging that respond only to the demands of whichever
market’ – providing all manner of resources, practice it helps to validate and edify.”
- Brendon and Suzette Bell-Roberts, founders and editors-in-chief

ARTAFRICA
CONTENTS
031 015 FEATURES
015 RETURNING TO THE WRECK
By Annemi Conradie
022 VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

Sophia Olivia Sanan in conversation with:
Ayeta Anne Wangusa
Aadel Essaadani
Anupama Sekhar
033 FROM A SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE

034 Valerie Kabov in conversation with Gabriela Salgado
040 HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

Andrew Lamprecht In Conversation with Gavin Rain
051 CONTEMPORARY ART IN ANGOLA

By Adriano Maia Internacional, Lda (AM-Arte)
057 THE DOUBLE LAYER OF MEDIATION

By Julie Taylor
065 BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS

065 BOGOSI SEKHUKHUNI
By Negiste Yesside Johnson
061
070 ComicArtAfrica
070 SUPER/BLACK/COMIX
By Su Opperman
018
CONTENTS
039
075 FILMS
075 CRUMBS
By Miguel Llansó
077 HAWA HAWAII

By Amirah Tajdin
079 SHNIT INTERNATIONAL SHORTFILMFESTIVAL
081 UMBILICAL CORDS

By Sarah Ping Nie Jones
083 REVIEWS INDEX

084 FIELD NOTES FROM SPAIN
Swab Barcelona and Summa Contemporary in Madrid By Valerie Kabov
088 KONGO: POWER AND MAJESTY

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. By Robin Scher
068 093 TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK

At Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg. By Kagiso Mnisi
098 AN INTIMATE AFFAIR

START ART FAIR at Saatchi Gallery, London. By Heidi Erdmann
101 AN AFRICAN ALLEGORY REIMAGINED: Matthew Hindley

‘The Five Magic Pebbles’ at David Krut Projects, Cape Town. By Danny Shorkend
104 TESTIMONY: Adejoke Tugbiyele

Goodman Gallery, Cape Town
107
076
ARTAFRICA
MEET THE TEAM
FOUNDERS, PUBLISHERS & EDITORS-IN-CHIEF

BRENDON & SUZETTE BELL-ROBERTS
editor@artafricamagazine.org
DEPUTY EDITOR ASSISTANT EDITOR
SIMONE SCHULTZ FAY JACKSON
simone@artafricamagazine.org fay@artafricamagazine.org
CREATIVE DIRECTOR EDITOR-AT-LARGE

BRENDON BELL-ROBERTS VALERIE KABOV
brendon@artafricamagazine.org
EDITORIAL INTERNS DESIGN TEAM

SVEN CHRISTIAN SIMONE SCHULTZ,
MARIE-LOUISE ROUGET FAY JACKSON,
STORM BROWN BRENDON BELL-ROBERTS
VICTORIA WIGZELL DANIEL RAUTENBACH
SUBSCRIPTIONS ADVERTISING & CAMPAIGNS

LEIGH BASSINGTHWAIGHTE SUZETTE BELL-ROBERTS
keigh@artafricamagazine.org suzette@artafricamagazine.org
ART AFRICA magazine: P.O.Box 16067, Vlaeberg, Cape Town, 8018, South Africa
T +27 (0)21 465 9108 / F +27 (0)86 6565931 / info@artsouthafrica.com
www.artafricamagazine.org
ON THE COVER
Kapela, untitled, 2014. 50cm x 32.5cm, mixed media and collage on paper and cardboard.
From the Jean Pigozzi Collection, courtesy of Adriano Maia Internacional, Lda ©.
Full image on page 54.
CONTRIBUTORS
Adriano Maia Internacional, Lda (AM-Arte)

Andrew Lamprecht
Annemi Conradie
Danny Shorkend
Heidi Erdmann
Julie Taylor
Kagiso Mnisi
Negiste Yesside Johnson
Olivia Sophia Sanan
Robin Scher
Su Opperman
Valerie Kabov
WITH SUPPORT FROM:
APOLOGY
In the September issue of the ART AFRICA COLLECTORS REPORT we incorrectly used an image of Ms
Jane Alexander’s sculpture, Untitled (1985/6). Regretably, we did so without obtaining the artist’s prior consent.
The editorial team apologises to Ms Alexander for any upset or inconvenience that this may have caused.
CONDITIONS OF ACCEPTANCE
No responsibility can be taken for the quality and accuracy of the reproductions, as this is dependent on the quality of the material supplied. No responsibility can be taken
for typographical errors. The publishers reserve the right to refuse and edit material. All prices and specifications are subject to change without notice. The opinions expressed
in this publication are not necessarily those of the publisher. No responsibility will be taken for any decision made by the reader as a result of such opinions. COPYRIGHT
Art Africa All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written consent from the publisher. Art
Africa does not accept responsibility for unsolicited material. This is a quarterly publication. ISSN 16846133 ARTAFRICA
ARTAFRICA
FEATURE / MIGRATION
RETURNING TO
THE WRECK
by Annemi Conradie
The words are purposes.

The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
Adrienne Rich (1973)
The recent recovery of the São José slave ship, wrecked on the coast of Cape Town
in 1794, urges earnest engagement with slavery’s painful heritage, and its relationship
to contemporary senses of belonging and identification. Fundamental to concerted
processes of decolonisation, slavery has been resurfaced by historians, writers and artists
as a product and catalyst of global finance capitalism that has profoundly shaped peoples
and societies.
Here I would like to connect the São José to artworks by Hank Willis Thomas and
Keith Dietrich, both artists who engage slavery’s legacy on different sides of the Atlantic.
Giving visual form to traumatic histories easily eschewed in public understanding, their
different approaches relate the matrices of physical and mental violence foundational to
slave and colonial societies and their present-day descendants.
Slave ships such as the São José and Brooks (the latter immortalised by a 1788 abolitionist
broadside) were central and vital to the boom of a modern and globalised system of finance
capitalism, driven by powerful joint-stock companies with merchant fleets and military
forces defending their trade monopolies. Ian Baucom (2005) stresses that slaves were
not only commodities aboard such ships, they were also valued as objects of insurance,
“a type of interest-bearing money.” For Marcus Rediker (2007), the slave ship was a
RETURNING TO THE WRECK / ANNEMI CONRADIE 1/7 ARTAFRICA

FEATURE / MIGRATION
Hank Willis Thomas, Absolut Power, 2003. Inkjet print on canvas. Courtesy of Jack Shainman Gallery.
FEATURE / MIGRATION
lynchpin of a rapidly growing Atlantic system of capital and labour, setting into motion
a transnational train of people and events. Slave ships were the mechanism of history’s
biggest forced migration and by extension, our hybrid ancestral interconnections and
cultural heritages. They were also the incubators for resistance and revolt. Their routes
are the shadow trails in a fragmented and disjointed contemporary body politic.
According to Jake Harding, archaeologist and one of the divers on site1, the São José
exemplifies the establishment of slave trade routes from East Africa to the Americas, and
the exploitation of new sources of slaves to meet rising demand, particularly in Brazil.
Sailing from Lisbon, the Portuguese vessel rounded the Cape to the Ilha de Moçambique
where it exchanged its cargo for over four hundred Africans kidnapped or imprisoned
in the East African coast and interior. The ship set sail to Brazil yet, on the evening of
27 December 1794, the São José struck a submerged rock approximately one hundred
metres from the coast. The crew and some of the captives were able to make it to land,
but two hundred and twelve slaves drowned, many still chained.
On 3 June 2015, in a gesture to honour those who had died and connect them to their
homeland and ancestors, earth from Ilha de Moçambique was poured in the waves at the
site. Those who survived the wrecking were sold at Cape Town, where they were given
new names and where their descendants were born into slavery.
“The fabrication of the slave trade…still functions in our lives,” says American artist
Hank Willis Thomas, reflecting on his work Absolut Power (2003). He was drawn to
use the print of the Brooks because it articulates the dehumanising aspect of slavery’s
packaging of human beings as cargo, and presents a way to think about commodity
culture in the 21st century.
Built in Liverpool in 1781, the Brooks offered abolitionists the example and empirical
evidence needed for making visible the realities of the Atlantic slave trade: with 11,7%
mortality rate for its Middle Passage voyages, the Brooks was typical of slavers of its time
(Rediker 2007). The schematic representation of four hundred and eighty-two figures
packed into the ship was intended to evoke horror, empathy, and thus spur audiences
into action. Versions of it were printed in the thousands and distributed in the United
Kingdom, America and Europe, with its image playing an important role in abolitionist
debates.
Resembling the well-known liquor advertisements at first glance, Absolut Power punches
quickly. Its outline filled with rows of tiny ciphers standing for human bodies; the bottle
and the brand become prisons. Like a liquor bottle, the slave ship was built for profit,
transporting slaves to plantations and slave-produced commodities – like rum – back to
Britain and Europe.
For Willis Thomas, the slave trade produced ‘blackness.’ Loaded on board were Africans
of diverse ethnic and class backgrounds, yet aboard and across the Atlantic they became

Keith Dietrich, Fragile Histories, Fugitive Lives Book One, 2012. Archival photographs on cotton paper, folded tracing paper with
printed text and pins. Triptych: Side panels 80 x 80cm; Centre panel 180 x 80cm.
Keith Dietrich, Fragile Histories, Fugitive Lives Book Two, 2012. Archival photographs on cotton paper, folded tracing paper with
printed text and pins. Triptych: Side panels 80 x 80cm; Centre panel 180 x 80cm. Both images courtesy of the artist.
FEATURE / MIGRATION
‘black’ or ‘negro.’ Layering the historic and the contemporary, the work urges reflection
about the roots of current corporate power and the construction and entrapment of
black subjects by consumer culture.
Looking back at the work from the context of the #BlackLivesMatter movement and
South African campaigns for decolonisation of higher education, Willis Thomas queries
the use of racial labels borne from slavery and colonialism and calls for acknowledgment
of each other’s humanity. “How does blackness serve us,” he asks, “when we know that
there are […] millions of ways of being black? When you’ve got that range of identity?”
Keith Dietrich’s Fragile Histories: Fugitive Lives (2012) lifts the past into the present by
returning to the traumatic, shameful and often shirked facts of his home country’s colonial
history. For the artist, creating this work was “an endeavour to find reconciliation between
past and present.” The installation of an artist’s book and four photomontage triptychs,
evoking altar pieces or crosses, combines larger-than-life portraits of contemporary South
Africans with court records of one thousand, two hundred and twenty convictions and
sentences issued at the Cape between 1692 and 1803. At this time the Cape was under
administration of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), one of the most powerful
companies in the 17th and 18th centuries and a forebear of today’s multinationals.
Each of the triptychs comprises two modular origami rosettes flanking a portrait with a
rosette positioned on the stomachs of the men and woman in the images. The fan-like
rosettes are carefully pinned down, folds radiating from medical illustrations of vital
organs at their centres. The red of the organs is picked up in the lines of text, connecting
the organs with the terse biographies of the offender’s name, age, origin, trial dates, crime
and sentence.
These entries reveal a global story in the history of the Cape where identities, subject
positions and relationships were forged by trade routes around its coast that brought
migrants – temporary and permanent, free and captive – into its society’s orbit. The
names and surnames, occupations and origins of those tried and convicted reveal
the complexity of the transcultural population living at the Cape – one of the most
polyglot of the 18th century. Its inhabitants and visitors included San and Khoi from
different groups, Europeans from some twenty-seven different countries and regions,
and political prisoners from India and Indonesia. Slaves – brought to the Cape from
1654 – came from Africa’s East Coast, Zanzibar, Madagascar and the Mascarene Islands,
the Indian subcontinent and Ceylon, the Dutch East Indies, as well as the West Indies,
Persia (Iran), Siam (Thailand) and China (Dietrich and Heese, 2012). These entries reveal
the production of racial and ethnic categories, some of which would survive the colonial
period. The records also testify to new hybridity resulting from the mixing of the above
peoples.
In order to make this important maritime node profitable and manageable, the Cape’s
population – indigenous populations, burghers, sailors, slaves and free blacks – fell under
Dutch Law. Brutality and violence were integral to the management of the Cape and

FEATURE / MIGRATION
Keith Dietrich, Fragile Histories, Fugitive Lives Book Four, 2012. Archival photographs on cotton paper, folded tracing paper with
Keith Dietrich, Fragile Histories, Fugitive Lives Book One, 2012. Archival photographs on cotton paper, folded tracing paper with
FEATURE / MIGRATION
could easily be likened to life abroad the slave ships, where slaves “experienced the use
of violence to hold together a social order in which they outnumbered their captors”
(Rediker 2007).
Beautiful and harmonious at first glance, Dietrich’s works kick you in the gut as you
step closer to read the text. This effect is achieved without re-staging the content as
spectacular. Streaming in rays of text over and through the works, the entries reveal
cases of theft, murder, rape, sodomy, and mutiny, and the brutal punishment thereof.
Beheading, strangulation, burning, breaking the body on a cross, flogging, hanging; these
sentences were dreamt up to be spectacular, to shock, repulse, titillate and to instil horror
and fear in onlookers. Designed to cause humiliation and maximum pain, these disciplinary
apparatuses were means of creating control and producing a society of docile bodies.
Pinned onto the stomachs of contemporary South Africans, these accounts become part
of the life-blood of the contemporary body or body politic.
As the entries further attest, power is productive of new identities, cultural formations
and expressions, closely tied to resistance and revolt. Despite the threat of tortuous
sentences and death, attempts at resistance, rebellion and escape were common. As on the
slave ships, those subjected to dehumanising treatment resisted and revolted, whatever
the cost.
It is vital that we return to the wreck with reverence for those whose bodies and stories are
recovered, and with resistance to candy-coating such histories for touristic consumption
and so-called ‘nation building’. The wreck’s emerging histories further refuse neat
conclusions or parallels between past and present, a challenge we must accede.
FOOTNOTES
1.Work on the São José is part of the Slave Wrecks Project, formed
in 2008 as an international research partnership between Iziko
Museums of South Africa, the Smithsonian National Museum
of African American History and Culture, and George
Washington University.
REFERENCES
Baucom, I. 2005. Spectres of the Atlantic: Finance capital, slavery and the philosophy of history. Durham, London: Duke University Press.
Dietrich, K.H. and Heese, H.F. 2012. Fragile Histories, Fugitive Lives | Justice and Injustice at the Cape, 1700 – 1800. Stellenbosch: The
Strange Press.
Rediker, M. 2007. The slave ship: A human history. London: John Murray.
Rich, A. 1973. Diving into the wreck: Poems 1971-1973. New York: W.W. Norton.
Annemi Conradie is currently doing a doctorate in Visual Studies at the University

of Stellenbosch. Based in Cape Town, she writes, makes art and before becoming
a full-time student, lectured in visual studies and art history.

FEATURE / GLOBAL SOUTH INITIATIVE
VOICES FROM THE

GLOBAL SOUTH
Conversations with Global South Initiative members about
the implications of migration on culture, the possibilities
for Southern solidarity and the role of culture in the global
development agenda.
by Sophia Olivia Sanan
While dominant discourses of globalisation are still grounded in a state-centric

understanding of the world, it has been recognised that ever-increasing migrational
flows, alongside environmental instability, are some of the defining characteristics
of globalisation. Within the last decade, there has been a marked increase of South-
South migration. Contrary to the impression that most international media provides
(particularly in light of the recent European ‘migration crisis’ stemming partly from the
war in Syria), the majority of global migration is intraregional, within the countries of
the former Soviet Union, South Asia, and West Africa (World Bank, 2011). Despite the
quantitative significance of South-South migration and its implications for conceptions
of trans-nationalism, globalisation and cultural diversity, the debate on global migration
has tended to focus primarily on migration from developing to developed countries.
This focus betrays the Northern bias of international politics, international media and
the deep-rooted inequality of the global development agenda. As this bias manifests in
the centers of knowledge production, it ensures that the majority of social research and
analytic knowledge (which is supposedly in the service of global problems) produces
knowledge that reflects the North-centric global political economy.
VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH / SOPHIA OLIVIA SANAN 1/11 ARTAFRICA
The conviction of this ‘Northern bias’ has resulted in an abundance of intellectual

and cultural production from a ‘Southern’ perspective. Indeed, choosing to talk about
a ‘Northern bias’ could be seen as the most recent articulation of a very old story of
globalization. Once described in terms of colonised and colonising countries; then in
the Cold War era superseded by concepts of First, Second and Third worlds and finally
in the era of Structural Development, these notions have been replaced by categories
of developed, developing and under-developed countries. The categories of Global
South and Global North seek to eschew the hierarchical conflation of the ‘First’ and
‘developed’ world which designates the rest of the world as lesser or ‘catching up.’ While
Global South and Global North speak to the historical and contemporary divisions in
the global (dis)order, they allow for an assertion of epistemic and experiential equality
that may allow a diversity of knowledges to shape universal categories and terms. It is in
the construction of knowledge and ways of being that culture plays a critical and often
silent role.
In a bid to understand, make a case for and further articulate the conceptual categories
of Global North and Global South, the African Arts Institute (AFAI) with support from
the Commonwealth Foundation, gathered together a group of cultural practitioners and
leaders in the arts from Africa, the Arab region, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America and
the Pacific in the spring of 2014 for the ‘Global South Mini-Summit’ in Cape Town,
South Africa. One of the outcomes of this meeting was the formulation of a developing
initiative, which “broadly describes those countries and regions that generally do not have
the economic muscle, the political and military power and the cultural/media influence
to assert hegemony in the creative and cultural sector,” under the banner of the Global
South.
In order to give cultural content to these global concepts, AFAI’s research manager
Sophia Olivia Sanan spoke with three of the Global South Initiative members about
their take on the implications of migration on culture, the possibilities for Southern
solidarity and the role of culture in the global development agenda.
Ayeta Anne Wangusa

Arts and culture social entrepreneur and thought leader who
advocates for the role of culture in development programmes,
particularly in East Africa. Wangusa is currently one of the
African Experts for the 2005 UNESCO Convention and has
built the early part of her career on advancing literature and
women’s cultural participation in East Africa.
Sophia Olivia Sanan: You are described as an ‘arts and culture’ social entrepreneur
– what does this mean?
Ayeta Anne Wangusa: I describe myself as an arts and culture entrepreneur because I
initiated the idea of a creative think tank that is guided by an innovation and incubation
framework made up of three components, namely: the organisational vision that
places culture at the centre of development; the process – which includes a structured
workplace, a learning program for volunteers and an audio visual incubation lab, all of
which provide the means for research, advocacy and capacity building; and lastly, the
space – for co-working, hire, community building for artists as well as staff and board
teambuilding. The social change we would like to see is an improvement in the policy,
planning and investment ecosystem for the cultural sector, in order for it to be lucrative
in the context of the East African Regional Integration process, as well as improving arts
development in East Africa supported by modern infrastructure and co-creations from
creative organisations and individuals.
To what extent are the social and cultural issues that you encounter particular to
East Africa, and to what extent can they be seen as issues of the ‘Global South’?
From a cultural perspective, East African countries have historically had a North-South
trajectory to support their cultural sectors. This trajectory starts with the global North
initiating policy terms and white papers, introducing these to the South and making
available resources to implement projects aligned to these policy terms. This is the trend
in many other Global South countries, save for Latin America, India and South Africa,
where government has played a pivotal role in investing in their cultural sectors.
A key feature of countries from the Global South that finance their own cultural programme
is that they appreciate the value of placing culture at the centre of development. They
are able to address issues of social justice, ecological balance and self-reliance. The role
of intangible heritage has been recognised by environmentalists – especially in small
states and islands in the Global South – and the role of the arts in promoting social
cohesion is apparent. However, institutionalising the process of development planning
to plan, resource and monitor the cultural sector remains a challenge in the Global South
Midundo radio. Courtesy of

Ayeta Anne Wangusa.
(especially in Africa) due to limited evidence research and indicators. Côte d’Ivoire is
one such country in Africa that has anchored development planning in the history and
cultural context of Africa. This is because it has a Ministry of African Integration that
operates through an inter-ministerial mechanism.
At this point, why is it important to work under the imperative of women’s rights
in East Africa?
Gender equality is not only a fundamental human right, but also a necessary foundation
for a peaceful, prosperous and sustainable world. In the cultural sector, there is need
for a deliberate effort to include women in all stages of cultural programming and
policy planning, as well as in implementation and evaluation. Evidence shows limited
participation in decision-making in policy formulation and programming for the sector,
yet women dominate most of the occupations in the cultural sector in East Africa, such
as crafts, media, advertising and literature (judging by the number of women who have
won awards).
Do you think that there has been progress made in global development discourses
with regards to the acknowledgement of the role that culture plays in shaping
human lives? If not, what needs to be done to challenge the direction of the
global development agenda?
Yes, there has been movement in the global campaign to include culture in the Sustainable
Development Goals (SDG’s). While sector didn’t achieve a goal allocated to culture,
when compared to the Millennium Development Goals, it is a significant step forward
in acknowledging of the role of culture in development processes. Nevertheless, the
inclusion of cultural aspects such as traditional knowledge, education and the role
of creativity and innovation must be encouraged in National Development Plans,
international cooperation mechanisms and other strategies and policies so that resources
can be allocated for implementation, supported by evidence-based research and indicators.
Aadel Essaadani
Former Chairperson of Arterial Network, Essaadani is the
co-founder of Racines, a Moroccan association for culture
and development based in Casablanca, Morocco, the technical
director of various festivals and associate director of the
Institute of jobs in the performing arts. He has a background
in urban planning, urban sociology and the performing arts.
Sophia Olivia Sanan: Do you think that the notion of ‘Global South’ is helpful in
describing the current world-order?
Aadel Essaadani: We do not have much time to lose in the philological study of definitions.
The accuracy will come with the actions, especially in terms of emergencies related to
our ‘Global South.’ The ‘Global South’ is a convention of language like (for example)
the ‘Third World’ was before it. The most important thing is what it gathers and conveys
as information; as a description of the economic world order, in particular to show who
benefits from whom. Even within the southern countries, the ‘Global North’ promotes
the ruling class of the South, allowing them to keep the underdeveloped countries as
markets for northern goods, circumventing the development that could make these
countries competitors of the North. As a concept, the ‘Global South’ could be used
to explain how developed countries impose their rules, particularly economic ones
(Free Trade Agreements, for example). Supported by political influence, they push their
hegemony without addressing the issues of social injustice and economic equity between
North and South.
Is there greater cultural affinity between North Africa and the Middle East or the
Mediterranean region?
I don’t know what the word ‘affinity’ means in this context. If it translates to a ‘convergence
of interests,’ then those who defend the same cause have more affinities to do it together,
regardless of geographical origin. Those who have no interest in things changing work
together to get there. As part of civil society, the nature of our work is to achieve social
development and enable people to learn from each other. As a Moroccan, I listen to
Moroccan, African, Arabic and Middle Eastern music, but also to rock and Chopin.
There are ties between cultural and racial affinities; so cultural affinities may include a
dose of racism in them. Bringing affinities back strictly to identity aspects can result in
what Amin Maalouf calls “murderous identities.” These can be found, for example, in
the Middle East, between Sunnis and Shiites, while we know that states use both cultural
aspects to justify wars. We share cultural affinity with people who nurture a culture of
openness to all cultural affinities.
To what extent is there cultural unity in Africa and is such unity a worthwhile aim
– as opposed to alternative geographic affiliations?
What brings us together should be universal. Respect for human rights, freedom of
creation and expression... from and for all. Unity will come from what we stand for. Let’s
say the alternative to geographic affiliation is Humanism.
What are the greatest barriers to realising greater engagement and exchange
(both cultural and economic) within Africa?
Lack of democracy is the biggest obstacle in Africa. Then there is corruption, not only
related to money but also – and worse – to the corruption of the spirit. Another obstacle
that stems from the first is the amputation that many African countries have suffered from
as a consequence of the structural adjustment plans implemented in the early 80s. This
has not changed, there is always an equity split between Africans in access to education,
health care and culture. Africa is not so poor, and even historically, people in the poorest
countries have developed over the centuries – resilience having enabled them to live on
little. The key is regaining dignity, taking the right to make our own mistakes and to move
forward without dictation from others.
In your experience, does migration (both internal and foreign) in Morocco enable
increased opportunities and instances of cultural exchange or increased cultural
assimilation?
The problem of external migration is exactly the fact that it’s considered a problem
and not as good luck. The meaning of our struggle is to put culture at the heart of
development, at the human and social level. Social development aims to open up minds
to the understanding of other cultures, other ways of thinking and living. There is no
other way to know others than to rub shoulders with them daily. But a common reflex –
especially in times of crisis – is the withdrawal into oneself. This is the reason we must
go back to our old ancestral customs of hospitality, thirsty for exchange with passing
travellers and nomads.
Internal migration in Morocco is primarily economic and due to rural exodus. The living
conditions in rural areas are increasingly hard, especially because these rural areas are the
last to be supplied with utilities. People move in order to find more dignity and liberty,
often just to survive. We need to reframe this move as something other than an escape
from our ‘natural’ environment.
“Africa is not so poor, and even historically,

people in the poorest countries have developed
over the centuries – resilience having enabled
them to live on little. The key is regaining dignity,
taking the right to make our own mistakes and to
move forward without dictation...”
human lives? If not, what needs to be done to challenge the direction of the
global development agenda?
In global discourse, culture is viewed in a negative rather than a positive prism, although
international fora are concerned with interrogating this view. A brief analysis will show
that the countries against the integration of culture into development policies are either
oppressive countries where freedom of creation and expression could be dangerous
for their stability (China or Saudi Arabia), conservative countries where culture and
acceptance of the other is banished (Qatar or again, Saudi Arabia) or countries that
practice a cultural or economic hegemony (United States or France with its concept of
cultural exception).
After two years of global negotiations, the United Nations SDGs for 2030 still only refer
to culture as a tool for development four times on one-hundred-and-sixty-nine targets
within the seventeen goals. The world is still managed by the global economy. Stability
is counted only because it is necessary for the economy. Some countries prefer to instil
forced stability (by the police or the army) rather than stability through human and social
development initiated from and through culture. The world is still cynical.
Anupama Sekhar
Director of the Culture Department at the Asia-Europe
Foundation. Sekhar is also a member of the Expert Facility
of UNESCO and the U40 Network of young cultural
policy experts. She holds degrees in English Literature and
International Studies and is a trained dancer in the Indian
classical style of Bharatnatyam.
Sophia Olivia Sanan: Given your work in the field of cultural policy, to what extent
is it relevant to talk about a ‘Global South’? Is this a helpful categorisation in
relation to the formulation of cultural policy?
Anupama Sekhar: The North-South divide is essentially considered a socio-economic

divide. The relatively similar socio-economic realities of countries in the Global South
– many of which are also post-colonial societies – impact the development of arts and
culture in similar ways, thus opening the door for a useful exchange of ideas, including
cultural policymaking. The mobility of artists from the Global South to the North, for
instance, remains a common challenge. In this context, yes, it is relevant to talk about the
existence of a ‘Global South.’
The established centres of the art world continue to be located in the Global North.
The criterion of traditional art history, for the most part, comes from the Global North.
The compass has been pointing North for a long time. So, once more, we turn to the
term ‘Global South’ to represent all those regions that have remained under-represented
within contemporary discourse. We are now at an interesting time in the history of North-
South relations because the compass is slowly but surely shifting southward towards
Asia, Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America, thanks in no small part to the rise of the
‘new’ economies.
The last decade has seen tremendous shifts in the socio-economic landscapes around
us; powerful economies have gone into recession and countries traditionally known
to subsidise the arts have radically cut funding for the sector. In this scenario, new
opportunities have emerged for conversations across the North-South divide. This reality
should be welcomed, as the opportunities it affords us goes beyond the jargon of the
North and South in relation to cultural policies.
There is evidence of a new interest in multilateral cultural cooperation (in addition to

traditional bilateral ties) by states in the Global North and South. This signals a move
away from traditional cultural diplomacy. Examples of funds, from both the Global
North and South, being pooled together to support cultural cooperation in both regions
is heartening, providing an opportunity to rethink old power equations.
Is the notion of solidarity in the ‘Global South’ a feasible one, particularly beyond
the formal ‘cultural diplomacy’ sphere?
A simple test could provide an answer to this question. Although we frequently speak of
solidarity in the South, it is not often reflected in concrete actions. We have been talking
about greater South-South cultural exchange and cooperation for a while now, but funds
for this are not always easily forthcoming. If they are, they often come from the Global
North. Would we be able to successfully advocate for and raise public or private funding
from the Global South for stronger South-South cultural ties?
Can you envision greater cultural solidarity or exchange happening through

economic and trade connections between India and Africa, and to what extent
might economic arrangements hinder cultural exchange?
Thousands of years ago, Indian traders are said to have used seasonal monsoon winds as
guides to sail to the East coast of Africa in search of gold, ivory and gemstones. Trade
between India and the African continent has a long history. Since the new millennium
set in, India’s trade with Africa has been revived. The India-Africa economic partnership
has been growing to diversify beyond trade and investment to technology transfer and
knowledge sharing. In terms of public-private sector engagement, it appears that trade
relations are largely driven by the Indian private sector, although the continent does
receive a substantial part of India’s technical aid for the Global South.
Since 2008, the India-Africa Summit has been attempting to woo and engage the African
continent on the principles of equality, respect and mutual benefit. At the most recent
edition of the India-Africa Summit in October 2015, we heard from Indian public officials
that this relationship is one between “old friends and old family.” It is here that I notice
a vast gap in our partnership.
While the commercial dialogue is on track and growing steadily; the people-to-people
dialogue needed to justify being ‘old friends’ is conspicuous in its absence. I think it
was Mohandas Gandhi, the Father of the Indian Nation, who hoped for a commerce
of ideas, not merely of manufactured goods between the two friends. More public
and private investment must accompany the current economic arrangements in order
‘Circus on The Edge’ brings circus arts professionals from Asia and Europe to work with local communities in
Thailand. Photograph: Circus on the Edge. Courtesy of Anupama Sekhar.
to create a deeper cultural understanding of each other. This is particularly important

because stereotypes of Africa continue to prevail in Indian popular culture. Also, African
students in India have frequently complained of poor, even racist treatment. Larger
socio-cultural issues need urgent addressing. Advocating for greater cultural exchange to
accompany trade is a responsibility that lies with the civil societies on both sides of the
Indian Ocean.
In your experience, does migration (both internal and foreign) in India enable
increased opportunities and instances of cultural exchange or increased cultural
assimilation?
The migration histories of Indians are fascinating, due to their diversity and complexity.
For nearly two hundred years, Indians have left home to make newer homes elsewhere.
The story of Indian emigrants begins in the early days of British colonial rule and
continues into the first decades after Indian independence in the 1940s and 50s, when
many moved to the UK in search of better economic prospects.
In the last twenty to twenty-five years, professionals (doctors, IT engineers etc) have
moved west and low-wage workers have spread across ‘developed’ Asia. In this long
history of relocation, the tension between cultural exchange and cultural assimilation
remains. In some cases, Indians have adopted local names (often in compliance with local
laws) and local attire to ‘fit in’, while being able to retain many other cultural customs
from home. Is this a cultural loss? Is some amount of cultural assimilation a pragmatic
response to the pressure of being a migrant in a new society? These are challenging
questions that we must ask ourselves.
Internal migration within India is by no means a less complex phenomenon than

international migration. Every day, thousands of Indian citizens move from villages to
cities, largely for economic reasons. The resulting multi-ethnic, multi-religious fabric of
a city like Mumbai, for instance, is a source of great pride for locals. Yet still, outsider-
insider issues exist. Invisible lines keep communities divided and language, in particular,
becomes a friction point. The story of migration, therefore, is not an easy one to tell.
human lives?
There has been progress. Culture is now part of the discussions and is on the agenda
of global development discourses. This is a first step and we must acknowledge that
we have made some progress, but we have to work harder to make culture a significant
(rather than a symbolic) part of the debates.
To this end, we, as the arts and culture community, must learn to talk more with other
sectors such as health and education. We must build alliances with other civil society
groups engaged in the important conversations around development. For me, this is the
critical next step in integrating culture in the development discourse.
In my opinion, the culture sector has remained rather insular in its approach. We talk a
lot to each other – but this is akin to preaching to the converted. What we need to do
now is to talk more to other sectors and to be able to convince them of the value of arts
and culture in daily life. Much remains to be done here. The day a public health expert
or a teacher can also passionately advocate for the arts is the day we can put our feet up
and rest.
Sophia Olivia Sanan holds a Masters degree in Sociology, has an academic

background in both Philosophy and Visual Art, and has worked as a lecturer and
writer in the fields of Visual Culture and Art Education. She is currently working
as the Research Manager at the African Arts Institute, a civil society organisation
in Cape Town.
INTERVIEW / GABRIELA SALGADO
FROM A SOUTHERN
PERSPECTIVE
Valerie Kabov in conversation with Gabriela Salgado
Gabriela Salgado, photograph: Marcelo Brodsky.
Gabriela Salgado is an Argentine-born curator based in London. She has an MA in

Curating Contemporary Art from the Royal College of Art, London, and has worked
as a curator of Latin American Art at the University of Essex collection (SCALA) as
well as curator of Public Programmes at Tate. Since going independent, Salgado works
internationally as a curator and consultant and is currently directing a programme of
artistic exchanges for African and Latin American artists.
In her role as catalogue essayist for the first edition of the ‘Pangaea’ exhibition at Saatchi
Gallery (2014), Salgado drew Latin America and Africa together. Seeking to reflect the
originality and possibilities of these two continents in an era where they are no longer
considered ‘peripheral’ to the art scene, Salgado draws new parallels between their cultural
offerings in the idiomatic, fresh narratives of their contemporary artists.
Valerie Kabov spoke to Salgado about how these continents motivate her work and her
personal interest in exploring their complex, ‘ex-centric’ place in art history through a
‘Global South’ lens.
FROM A SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE / VALERIE KABOV IN CONVERSATION WITH GABRIELA SALGADO 1/7 ARTAFRICA
Oscar Murillo, Dark Americano, 2012. Oil and dirt on canvas, 304. 8 x 429. 3cm. From ‘Pangaea I.’ © Oscar Murillo.
Rafael Gómezbarros, Casa Tomada, 2013. Resin, Fiber Glass, Madera, Screen Cotton, Cuerda Arenas, Cerrejón Coal,
Dimensions variable. From ‘Pangaea I.’ © Sam Drake. Both images courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London.
ARTAFRICA
Valerie Kabov: You were born in Argentina, and have studied and lived in London
for a long time. How did you first engage with art from Africa?
Gabriela Salgado: I arrived in London in the mid-1990s to pursue an MA in curatorial

studies and I had the chance to mingle with a number of artists and cultural activists
from the African, Asian and Caribbean diasporas, whose concerns were similar to mine.
With that, I refer to the idea that multiculturalism and globalisation were based on the
assimilation of ‘ex-centric’ art production provided that they fulfilled two categories: they
had to be recognisable by virtue of their emulation of Western modernism or they had
to be super exotic. None of those paradigms interested me, so I became concerned with
exploring the complexity of our own place in art history from a Southern perspective.
Furthermore, I began traveling throughout Africa nearly a decade ago and from the start
I have felt very much at home in most places. That familiarity naturally pushed my desire
to know more, to enquire and to work across our two regions, in order to connect artists
and histories, because we have much in common and most of us are not aware of this
fact.
In many ways, Latin America has historically been at the forefront of anti-colonial,
post-colonial and decolonial struggles – intellectually, politically and creatively.
Even some of the key African liberation thinkers, like Marcus Garvey and Frantz
Fanon, emerged from the Caribbean. Does this inform your approach to art and
artists emerging from the ‘Global South’?
Yes, these and other thinkers – such as decolonial theorist and semiologist, Walter Mignolo,
and sociologist, Achille Mbembe – definitely inform my work as a curator.
One of the inspirational forces behind my will to connect to Africa is the example
given by the first two Havana Biennials in the mid and late 1980s. The biennials created
a platform for the presentation of art from what is now called the ‘Global South’. Of
course, that directive was the result of a political ideology that very much sought to
expand socialism to other parts of the world.
Africa, being right at the peak of the independence movements, was a fruitful stage for
that strategy. But the essential idea is that we are united by a common history; firstly
by the traumatic history of the Middle Passage, which brought Africa to the Americas,
changing it forever more and, secondly, we share the idea that we can achieve greater
goals when we collaborate.
Our regions are extremely rich in natural and human resources and we can be a magnificent
force to create an alternative for the future, based on the merging of modern technologies
and traditional wisdom.
Juan Fernando Herrán (Colombia), Floating Key, 2013, Douala, Cameroon. Curated by Gabriela Salgado and Doual’art.
Photograph courtesy of and © Doual’art, Cameroon.
Amadou Kan Si (Senegal) in residence at Mas Arte Mas Acción Foundation, on the Pacific coast of Colombia.
Creative education project for the school in the village of Termales (Chocó, Colombia). Curated by Gabriela Salgado.
Photograph courtesy of and © Gabriela Salgado.
What are some of the shared issues between emerging art scenes coming from
Latin America and Africa? What are some of the differences?
We have been in what was called the ‘periphery‘ of the international art scene and markets
for most of the 20th century. Since the advent of globalisation, things have changed,
but not always in our favour. Practitioners of the ‘Global South’ have become more
visible in their own right and not only as exotic fulfillers of colonial fantasies. Artists and
curators acquired more mobility and museums began collecting our artists to enrich the
canon. Although this is very promising, we need to continue studying and expanding our
horizons as intellectuals with a difference. In other words, we need to decolonise our
minds so that we can proudly embrace our complex heritages and create a place in the
world in which to grow, communicate and exchange by means of a fair trade system.
What do you feel are the key issues going forward for artists from emerging art
sectors – particularly those who have experienced the art market spotlight, such
as BRIC countries and now Africa?
Public performance by dancer Benjamin

Abras (Brazil) in Ouakam, Dakar (Senegal)
in collaboration with Compagnie 1er
Temps for the 10th Dakar Biennale OFF
programme. Curated by Gabriela Salgado
and Lucrezia Cipitelli. Photograph courtesy
of and © Gabriela Salgado.
It’s a slippery terrain because the hypes do not help differentiate the wheat from the
chaff. One must remember that ‘hype’ is generated by interests that are foreign to art
making. That is to say that they are guided by investing impulses in times of economic
confusion and other such factors. The art world love-stories are short lived and as a
curator specialising in Latin American art, I have seen it before – the Mexican season,
the Cuban fad, the Brazilian fascination and so forth.
My advice for young practitioners is to not pay attention to those issues and concentrate
instead on learning, doing the best they can, traveling if possible, taking up residencies
and mingling with artists and other practitioners from around the world. They must
endeavour to study and research, to expand their minds and be conscious of what they
are proposing to the world. I try to partake in pedagogical work as much as I can and I
always tell artists that it is highly competitive out there, so we all need to be focused and
unique in order to make a real impact.
In your essay on ‘Pangaea’ for the exhibition catalogue, you mentioned

photography as an artistic medium that has “surpassed all expectations” in the
context of African contemporary art. Do you feel that African photography is
moving African contemporary art significantly enough away from the ‘exotic
otherness’ of yesteryear?
Nowadays, there is a growing diversity of approaches and quality in African photography.

Some photographers contribute to a conceptual development of the medium by focusing
on original local concerns; others are producing documentary material that somehow
evokes what you termed ‘exotic otherness,’ focusing primarily on recording rural subjects
with an ethnographic touch.
But even if the West has recently discovered it, we must remember that the production
of images by mechanical means has existed in Africa since the 1800s, predominantly in
coastal areas more exposed to external influences. From the masters of studio portraiture
Vincent Michea, Untitled Nº264, 2013. Acrylic Dillon Marsh, Assimilation 1, 2010. C-print, 184 x 232cm. From ‘Pangaea.’
on canvas, 182 x 130cm. From ‘Pangaea.’ © Dillon Marsh. Both images courtesy of the Saatchi Gallery, London.
© Vincent Michea.
(such as Mama Casset from Senegal) to the ‘father of African photography’ Seydou
Keïta (Mali), photography constituted a sophisticated visual language that set the tone
for subsequent generations of artists.
With a variety of approaches – from social documentary, portraiture and gender critique to
landscape – the production of photography by a number of African artists is illuminating
the rich dynamism of the multiple cultures coexisting in African cities today.
Les Rencontres de Bamako, Biennale Africaine de la Photographie (know as the Bamako Biennale
in Mali) has been exploring and showcasing photography for two decades. This year sees
the 10th edition of the biennial take place under the artistic directorship of Bisi Silva,
a curator who has been researching and promoting photography in Africa for a long
time. I believe that this edition promises to provide a fresh and rich approach to the
photography currently produced in African cities.
Valerie Kabov is an art historian with a focus on cultural policy and cultural
economics. Her research, writing and educational practice ranges from
interculturality and globalisation, emerging art sectors and sustainability as
well as art market analysis. She is the Co-Founder and Director of Education
and International Projects at First Floor Gallery Harare, Zimbabwe’s
first independent, international, contemporary emerging artist led
gallery and educational space.
‘Pangaea’ ran from 2 April – 2 November 2014, while ‘Pangaea II’ ran from 11 March – 17
September 2015. Both exhibitions were hosted by Saatchi Gallery, London.
INTERVIEW / GAVIN RAIN
HIDDEN IN
PLAIN SIGHT
Andrew Lamprecht in conversation with Gavin Rain
South African artist Gavin Rain is best known for his op-art pointillist paintings that
combine mathematics, precision and a love for analogue photography. Practicing as a
painter throughout his career, he developed his specific pointillist style from 2003. Since
then he has built up an impressive collection of pointillist portraits, cityscapes and other
interesting subject matter. Andrew Lamprecht spoke to Rain about neuropsychology,
his creative process, participating in the 54th Venice Biennale and his Masters in Space
Studies.
Andrew Lamprecht: I want to start by telling you a story that happened not very
long ago. I was giving an opening speech for a design and art show at Eclectica
Design and Art gallery (in Cape Town). As I was taking photographs of the interior
and your work at the back, something very strange happened. When I looked at
your paintings through the lens of the cellphone they dissolved and looked totally
different. Everything else looked the same, but suddenly your paintings look quite
different. It was like a neuropsychological phenomenon or an optical illusion.
Gavin Rain: Did you know that I studied neuropsychology? I began this process by
trying to come up with a different style of art – like everyone does. It took about two
years to come up with this style of painting, this way of expressing myself. I knew that
I wanted to say something with the art and to impart a message. I’m tired of going into
galleries and not being able to understand the art. I blame the artist, because I think that
one’s message should come across easily. As an artist I feel the necessity for a person to
‘get it.’ I think it’s quite a tragedy to not ‘get’ Klein or Rothko. On the surface Rothko
is perhaps quite difficult to understand, but if you don’t then you miss how elegant and
beautiful his work really is.
HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT / ANDREW LAMPRECHT IN CONVERSATION WITH GAVIN RAIN 1/11 ARTAFRICA
Gavin Rain, Venus, 2014. Acrylic on canvas,120 x 120cm. All images courtesy of Worldart Cape Town.
On one level, yes. But on another level, I only ‘got’ your work when I looked at it
through a camera lens.
I never thought of a camera lens. What I planned was the message behind the art. The
idea – that people should step back and think about things in themselves – was formulated
before the art. I wanted the art to be the vehicle that makes you physically step back
in order to experience the painting. Up close, there is this overwhelming mass of dots,
which is hard to interpret besides for a few little patterns. It’s hard to see anything else.
In this way my paintings are like our lives, where in order to make sense of it, we need
to step back to see the big picture. It’s made up of everything that informs life; people,
ideas, and so on. My subject matter is the things that make people who they are.
So are the individual dots laden with symbolism and meaning?
Yes. At an individual dot level I play around or I will pick contrasting or complementary
colours – here I have a bit of dialogue or artistic license. But at a group level, the dots
create an immersion of colour and pattern where there’s a form, but its hidden in plain
sight. The beauty of this is that you know you’re looking at something, but you can’t get
a sense of what it is until you remove yourself.
What about the colours you used to create the flag of the world cup?
That’s where my colour painting started. Initially I used to paint only in varying colours
of the same hue. I moved to multiple colours for that FIFA project. I don’t know all that
much about soccer and I decided to try it as an experiment. The process involved taking
every flag of the world and creating a set of five colours. Initially I had created all the
maths for five rings, and then I came to South Africa (which is the only country with
more than five colours in its flag) and I realised that I had made a mistake.
Let’s chat about the maths – your working method is fascinating. I’ve read that
the preparation time can take up to eleven months before any paint is put on
canvas. What procedure do you follow to create this incredible effect?
There are two mathematical procedures that are done independently of each other
and then combined. The first is a bit like a halftone cut and creation where I take a
photograph, divide it into a grid and then photograph each section of that grid with my
camera on blur. I blur the grid image to get a single grayscale colour or tone in all of the
blocks. I have a set of ten to fifteen cards ranging from white to black and I then pick
the one closest in colour. This gives me the size of the circle and creates a halftone. The
proportion of black on a white background then either hides all the white or shows the
black through the white background. This makes the general form of the painting.
Gavin Rain in his studio. October 2015. Photograph: Dale Yudelman.
It’s more complicated to get the same result with colours. I repeat the process to get a
blur, but in this case the colour will be closer to a peach tone. I created a library of 12462
dots by photographing and blurring them individually. Then with the resulting colours, I
created an index of blurs. It’s almost like this reverse index phonebook of blurs. So when
I need a specific colour, I go into my index and look at the different versions to choose
the closest one.
Because the optical effect of your work is so overwhelming, it’s easy to miss how
this process is metaphorical of human relationships between people close and
far. Does the texture have anything to do with this?
The texture is important as it shows another side to my thinking. The texture is perhaps
the reason that I came up with this style; it puts the focus back into the painting – the
tangible, creation-based aspect of my work. I think that we’ve lost a lot of this due to the
advent of digital photography and the digitisation of images. This is significant to me
as photography has always been a big part of my life. Growing up, I learnt photography
“The idea – that people should step back and think

about things in themselves – was formulated before the
art. I wanted the art to be the vehicle that makes you
physically step back in order to experience the painting.”
from my grandfather who was a professional portrait and landscape photographer. I

used to carry his camera bags and sit with him in the darkroom.
This was where I fell in love with the magic of analogue photography because the beauty
of it is found in the process and the art of the labour. That all changed with the new
kid on the block; digital photography. At the time, I really disliked digital photography,
the quality of the imagery was dreadful but it was so convenient! That’s the drudgery of
our society today and it’s such an analogy for who we are. If it’s easier, we do it. Digital
actually means ‘distinct interval’ or lack of flow. Film photography allows a beautiful,
limitless gradient of tone and colour that you just can’t get with digital.
I believe that digital photography is something quite distinct from photography.

On a visual level it looks the same, but it’s actually a completely different thing.
Yes, digital imaging is very different – and there is a vast divide between the two approaches.
I’m currently studying a Masters in Space Science and one of the modules is about space
application, studying satellite imagery and how it works. We look at things like hyper-
spectral or multi-spectral images that allow you to see the most amazing things. But its
important to know that that’s imaging, not photography – even though they both create
an image. Using data to create something visual doesn’t make it a photograph and I think
that should be the division.
And how does that relate back to your painting style?

I wanted to take something ostensibly digital and put it back into the analogue realm. In
terms of style, this is achieved by pointing out that the gaps between the dots are a dead
area. It works in the same way that zooming in on a digital photograph would, as the
image starts to pixelate. So, this dead area is really just sacrificing quality for the sake of
convenience. In order to return to that quality and craftsmanship, I use paint to texture
the digital imagery, which I see as inherently dead, flat and lifeless. However, over time I
have found digital images massively useful, so my perception has changed.
Gavin Rain, Marilyn, 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 120 x 120cm.
You seem to have a general frustration with art. Are there any painters with whom
you don’t experience this?
I admire artists who can translate their message. I adore artists like Rothko and the
Russian Expressionists such as Kandinsky and Stepanova. I enjoy the chutzpah they have
and I like their attitudes. Often, art movements are named only after the artists are dead,
but the Expressionists went up and made their own movement. They said, “This is what
we stand for, this is what we’re going to do and this is why we are going to do it.”
Speaking of the Expressionists and the chutzpah in naming their own work, when
referring to your work, the terms ‘pointillism’ as well as ‘neo-pixelism’ have been
used.
I guess if I were asked, I would call myself a pointillist or neo-pointillist, although many
people call me an op-artist like Victor Vasarely. When I was younger, I alternated between
M.C Escher and Vasarely. They were my two greatest artists. I loved the precision and the
mathematics that created the dimensionality in their work. Last year I actually got to do
an exhibition in Venice alongside some of Vasarely’s work.
I wanted to ask you about the subject matter. You work primarily in portraiture,
although I know that you’ve done cityscapes too. What is the link between the
subject matter and the technique and the form?
There often is a link. I like to paint popular icons like Audrey Hepburn and Marilyn
Monroe. Marilyn Monroe has been dead for fifty-odd years and yet she’s still probably
one of the most well known pop icons out there. They are still drivers in our society. I
find myself fascinated by the individuals who become nodal in our society. They’re at the
centre of relative clusters that make up our society and I want to know why.
So then, are you driven by celebrity or identifiability?
I think its identifiability, but usually the two become equal. I also enjoy political figures.
Tell us more about Aung San Suu Kyi, the political figure who is a great inspiration
to you.
I painted her for the 54th Venice Biennale. I thought it would be this huge political
statement, but no one gave a fuck. It was in the back area of the biennale so maybe it
just wasn’t that visible. But, I’ve been in touch with her foundation and we are trying to
get one of the works into the London Portrait Gallery. We created a work for each year
that she was under house arrest. I made eleven identical works in an attempt to reverse
Gavin Rain. Detail. 2014/2015. Courtesy of Worldart Cape Town.
“I think that art and science are trying to do

the same thing – they are trying to take you
into an area of the unknown and make you
feel comfortable with being there.”
engineer a pop icon. I want to put her face out there so that it becomes well known,
because the worst thing about her is that nobody knows who she is, despite her being
such an important force in the area.
And why were you drawn to her particularly?
My partner is a lawyer – she’s interested in human rights law and thus became interested
in Kyi. I read about her and she piqued my interest, too. Her life is basically a song of
tragedy and I’m amazed by her resilience – it’s something I really admire more than
anything else. The obvious reference is Nelson Mandela. I remember being involved in
the ANC in varsity. When I think about that I feel fear and horror, I never thought that it
was going to end. I just thought that sooner or later they would come get us. I’m amazed
by people who endure that feeling for years and years. Aung San Suu Kyi should be an
example to the world for that, yet she’s as well known as Steve Biko, which is ridiculous.
Another political figure that I painted was an ex-Mayor of a town in Mexico. She was
assassinated by the drug cartels because she fought against them. I’ve done some Steve
Bikos as well, but I never wanted to do a Nelson Mandela painting. I thought it was
completely overdone – then I ended up painting one anyway.
As someone who has many degrees, accomplishments and areas of expertise,

you must know a fair deal about resilience. Tell us about your trajectory from Fine
Art to a Master’s degree in Space Science?
I never map my routes; I usually just pick the roads in front of me. I started studying
Art at Ruth Prowse and then did History of Art, followed by neuropsychology at The
University of Cape Town. After I graduated I did an Honours degree in psychology. I
was always painting, but I was never content because I felt that I wasn’t saying anything.
Finally I got to the point where I had something that I wanted to say and I knew how to
say it. Now I’m studying Space Science. I think that art and science are trying to do the
same thing – they are trying to take you into an area of the unknown and make you feel
comfortable with being there.
Gavin Rain, New Biko, 2014. Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 150cm.
Gavin Rain. Details. 2014/2015. Courtesy of Worldart Cape Town.
The final question; what of the future?
My current style is based on observations around photography, and through these

explorations, I have also made observations about our society in general. I’ve been
inspired by old publications on traditional photography techniques. In investigating these
different kinds of photography, I came across a technique called ‘Autochrome Lumière.’
It is the most beautiful early-Victorian attempt at colour photography. It involves dyeing
potato starch beads and then randomly distributing them on the canvas in reds, greens
and blues. They become little lenses to filter the light, so your subject has to stay still, but
that’s true of Victorian photography anyways. It creates the most amazing grain in the
background and it’s also different in that it creates the colour. I’ve been investigating the
mathematics around this technique for quite some time and I’m moving towards using
a completely random distribution of dots. Well, it’s pseudo-random, because I try to
ensure that the dots are more or less equidistant but instead of using the grid, I base the
sizing on certain points in the image, which creates a different texture.
Exactly. Your work has taken on a softness, which is different.
Absolutely. The hardness is a result of the fact that the painting came from a digital
image. I wanted to move away from that and more into a painterly resolve. I have created
these patterns which allow the eye to move in a geometric manner and travel around a
lot more. As I said, I’m inspired by Autochrome Lumière; the way it makes the viewer
want to engage with the work up close, so that you can see the colours. But the result is
almost more painterly and vibrant, so it looks like very little is happening. I also wanted
to have a level of engagement with the work from afar, which I found was lacking here.
Andrew Lamprecht is a curator and lecturer at the Michaelis School of Fine Art
(UCT) in Cape Town, South Africa.
FEATURE / ART SCENES
Contemporary
Art in Angola
by Adriano Maia Internacional, Lda (AM-Arte)
Despite the strong foundations established by Sindika Dokolo and Fernando Alvim in the
2000s, Angola´s contemporary art scene is going through an identity crisis – increasingly
polarised and fragmented – resulting in a breeding ground for producers who believe
they are curators when indeed they are simply peddlers.
The best example of this is a dynamic duo that exudes smiles, trivial conversations and
selfies (often visible on Facebook), which turn the heads of some artists and, indeed,
some collectors; this duo, however, invariably mixes and matches emerging artists with
established ones at social events, as if selecting sweets from pick-and-mix candy shop.
There is no academic positioning, no curatorial rationale, only a decision to show the
most number of artists in the least amount of space in order to maximise the commercial
upside.
More often than not, these works are sold to expatriates who want a souvenir of Angola
as their oil-imposed-exit is increasingly more probable. This means that most of the art
sold by this dynamic duo will probably leave the country and won’t be traced or kept for
future generations of Angolans to view. This commercial emphasis, nay obsession, is a
fundamental flaw.
There must be a need to educate and persuade Angolans to buy this art instead, much
like the Chinese nouveau riche have taken pride in showing and collecting national art.
Instead of purchasing a third or fourth clutch, why not purchase a canvas or sculpture?
Similarly, institutions like banks and insurance companies should increase their patronage
in the arts, not necessarily quantitatively but qualitatively; shifting the audience from a
small employee-only viewership to the general public at large. This will generate social
and cultural awareness and involve the Angolan communities, undoubtedly stimulating
interest for some members in acquiring art for their personal consumption.
CONTEMPORARY ART IN ANGOLA / ADRIANO MAIA INTERNACIONAL, LDA (AM-ARTE) 1/6 ARTAFRICA
Kapela, no title, 2008 - 2013. Installation. Courtesy of the Jean Pigozzi Collection.
Installation view of Tamar

Golan Gallery at ´1:54´.
Photo: © Adriano Maia
Internacional, Lda.
The desire to collect art often derives from the moment one sees an impressive collection
and aspires to imitate it, albeit on a smaller scale. In this sense, Angolan art cannot be
held in the exclusive realm of a few, mostly non-Angolans, but should instead be a
process by which people from all walks of life (preferably including Angolan nationals)
are included.
In Angola, there is a widely held belief that if something is expensive, it is good. This
is largely due to a lack of information, documentation and structure in the art market.
Indeed, it seems irrational that the highest grossing living artist in Angola is a woman in
her forties, who sells individual pieces for as much as USD $30,000, when the Angolan
Masters are selling at around half that value.
It would appear that the contemporary art world in Angola is more about networking and
who gets a cut than the path artists have taken to creating the work. Curiously, Kapela,
the father of contemporary art in Angola, recently sold all his works on exhibition with
Tamar Golan Gallery at 1:54, London, to a leading African art collector. The installation
comprised of 2 installations comprised of fourteen individual works, displayed in a
shrine-like fashion. The artist is sixty-eight years old, has spent most of his life living
in terrible conditions and has taken over twenty years to develop his unique aesthetic.
Having had his first solo exhibition in February and sold most of that, and with the
success of London, he is now independent and lives entirely off his works of art.
Kapela, untitled, 2014. 50cm x 32.5cm, mixed media and collage on paper and cardboard. From the Jean
Pigozzi Collection, courtesy of Adriano Maia Internacional, Lda ©.
Kapela, no title, 2008 - 2013. Installation.

Courtesy of the Jean Pigozzi Collection.
So perhaps the answer is this: art cannot and must not be accelerated for the purposes
of financial gain. It is a game of patience, which must be conducted in a strategic and
holistic fashion, so that there is a balance and somewhat natural equilibrium between all
those that have an important part to play. It is not a part-time summer job or a foreign
posting for one or two years; it is a life-long mission. The only way contemporary art in
Angola will thrive is if there is this long-term view and not an opportunistic perception.
Ultimately, there can and should be accomplishment on a national and international level
and the Angolan flag can fly high at all times.
Adriano Maia Internacional, Lda (AM-Arte) is a leading Angolan Art institution

responsible for projects like Vidrul Photography, (JAANGO) National,
ContainerArt and others, which are hubs and growth platforms for Angolan
Artists. More recently AM-Arte has pioneered the first international residency
programme with the Delfina Foundation in London, UK looking to host one
Angolan Artist per year over the next four years.
Kapela, untitled, 2014. 50cm x 32.5cm, mixed media and collage on paper and cardboard. From the Jean Pigozzi
Collection, courtesy of Adriano Maia Internacional, Lda ©.
FEATURE / TECHNOLOGY & CURATORSHIP
THE DOUBLE LAYER

OF MEDIATION
Online Exhibitions and Technology in Curation
by Julie Taylor
The rise of the Internet and of new, rapidly-evolving web technologies has had profound
consequences for all aspects of society and economy, and in particular for the flow of
information. This article explores some of the implications of the Internet for exhibition
and curatorial practices. How are museums and institutions using new technologies,
what are the implications for audiences and publics, and what are some of the practical
and epistemological concerns therein? In turn, how should we think about the rise
of online exhibitions? In the politics of online curating, it is clear, as Premesh Lalu
(2007) has persuasively argued, that “technology is not mere mediation” and there are
new intellectual challenges that arise in the wake of society’s growing dependence of
knowledge on technology.
The art history literature has amply analysed and significantly critiqued the role of the
curator as ‘mediator’, ‘author’, ‘undertaker’, ‘iconoclast’ and so on. (for example, Anton
Vidloke 2010, Boris Groys 2008, Chika Okeke-Agulu 2008). The rise and application of
new technologies in exhibition and curatorial practice, however, adds a complex dynamic
to the curator’s role, arguably creating a ‘double layer’ of mediation as the relationship
between the virtual/digital and physical assumes an increasingly important role.
New technologies have dramatically changed the ways in which publics access information.
Since the late 1990s, understanding how institutions use and deploy technology and,
conversely, understanding online audience behaviour has become a new profession and
area of expertise. Museums are using (or could use) the web and social media in many
new ways, and this affects publics’ access and experience of exhibitions and related
information. Yet as Antonio Padilla and Ana Rosa del Aguila (2013) show, there is a
surprising sparsity of research in this area.
THE DOUBLE LAYER OF MEDIATION / JULIE TAYLOR 1/7 ARTAFRICA

Figure 1: Screenshot of some of Tate Britain’s searchable online asset repository available via the Google
Cultural Institute. Accessed 14th September 2015: https://www.google.com/culturalinstitute/u/0/browse/
tate?q.8129907598665562501=78974797&q.openId=8129907598665562501&projectId=art-project.
Most often, virtual displays complement real displays, or provide a window into collections
which are not permanently on display. The web has often been seen as the answer
to the ‘problem’ of museums or institutions not having enough physical space to do
justice to large collections. Padilla and del Aguila (2013) and Cesar Carreras & Federica
Mancini (2014) give some examples of how museums/institutions are using the web, and
the Google Cultural Institute website provides dozens of examples of online materials
shared by well-known global art institutions. In addition to these examples, there is also
a rise of online-only exhibitions.
Just a few of the questions that we might ask include: Does a museum have a website?
If so, what kind of information does it disseminate, and what is the related intention?
Does it include only basic information for visitors, such as opening hours and exhibition
overviews? Does it actually present images of some or all of a current exhibition, or
perhaps images of some of the institution’s collection? Does it have repositories and/or
online-only exhibitions? (see Graciela Kahn 2014). Furthermore, is the real exhibition
echoed by an online exhibition, and how long does the online exhibition ‘live’? What
does this mean for how exhibitions are remembered, and by whom? A related question
is whether online displays are also integrated into real displays - for example, interactive
digital screens and monitors being included in the same physical space as artworks or
artefacts.

Collection Wall at the Cleveland Museum of Art's Gallery One, winner of the Best of the Web award in 2014 for
the Digital Exhibition Category. Image courtesy Cleveland Museum of Art.
Next, once exhibition-related content is brought onto the web, what kind of online
visitor behaviour is subsequently observed? Does the website provide opportunities
for online visitors to interact with or respond to these images - to leave comments, for
example, save an image to their own technology device, or share what they find via social
media? Related to this, where do online visitors come from? Are they from the same
or different geographies demographic(s) as real visitors, and what does this mean? How
long do they spend on the website, and where exactly do they spend their time? Do
they only visit once, or do they come back for more? Does their experience or learning
change over the course of multiple visits? What does this mean for the ways in which
knowledge about an exhibition is built, further disseminated and indeed remembered?
As Padilla and del Aguila (2013) highlight, online and in-house museum visitors are
not separate entities, and it is important for museum professionals to understand how
the needs of museum visitors change over time and to develop a complementary
relationship between a museum’s physical space and its website. Curators’ fears about
online exhibitions being a ‘competitive replica’ of the real thing - and thus dissuading in-

person visits - have proved to be unsubstantiated. Here we are led to a critical point for
curators: that real and virtual exhibits very often have different audiences. In this vein,
whilst virtual exhibits were originally seen as complementary to real exhibits, it may be
better to understand them as independent (Carreras and Mancini 2014).
The web has often been heralded as a new form of democracy. Broadly speaking, no
longer does information flow just one way, for example, from government mouthpieces
to citizens. Instead, citizens actively participate in the creation and dissemination of
information which can potentially shape their own futures. We see this no better than
in the way that current affairs news has been affected by the rise of social media (for
example, the Arab Spring), and the relevance and timeliness of first-person accounts of
events.
In this vein, in the case of museum and gallery experiences, participatory technologies can
and do subvert the ‘traditional’ unidirectional relationship between the museum/gallery
and its audience. For example, mobile phone videos and YouTube have revolutionised
what is publically remembered about exhibition openings. This in turn is shaping
institutional and curatorial practices (Greenberg 2009; Carreras and Mancini 2014). As
Greenberg (2009) writes, “individuals who record, interpret and post their own exhibition
experiences on shared sites have become acknowledged contributors to contemporary
modes of producing and disseminating knowledge. The pressure of so much individual
remembering has pushed institutions to adopt and adapt to the newest forms of online
remembering”. As wider access to information has challenged the status-quo narratives
of states and corporates, peer-to-peer communication is often more trusted than that
from an institution.
These developments have important implications for curatorial strategies and responding
voices, to the extent that publics engage with and respond to exhibitions, often sharing
those personal responses with large online audiences, for example, Facebook and Twitter
followers.
Curators and institutions can now better measure whether intended curatorial ‘messages’
have been effectively communicated (or not).
Yet the access to information provided by the web, and its accompanying strands of
democratization are unequal, and this can particularly be said of less developed economies,
including many in Africa. Although internet penetration across the continent continues to
rise each year, significant inequalities persist. Access to connectivity is one matter; internet
speed and loading time also becomes critical when considering the online presentation
of high-resolution images. One or two seconds can be the difference between an online
visitor staying on the website or leaving it in impatience.

Moffat Takadiwa, Disinformation Super Highway to Africa, 2014. Found Objects. Courtesy of Vigo Gallery, London.
There are also related questions about the resources required to create online museum
platforms, and or online exhibitions. Who creates them? What skills and education
do such people require? Who later maintains and updates website? Do individuals and
institutions in countries like South Africa have the necessary resources? If they don’t
commit those resources, where does this leave them in relation to sister institutions in
Europe or North America?
One of the greatest practical advantages of the digital world, long proclaimed by web
evangelists, especially for exhibitions focused on historical archival materials, is that
it creates a safe environment for fragile and priceless materials to be displayed. For
example, the Dead Sea Scrolls, or miniscule letters that Nelson Mandela smuggled out of
prison, both of which can be viewed via the Google Cultural Institute . These items can
now be seen (and ‘zoomed’ in on) by anyone in the world, and the holding institutions
can rest free from concerns about damage by natural light, or about theft and insurance,
for example.
One of the biggest disadvantages, however, is how to present a tactile material via a digital
format. What does it mean *not* to have a physical experience of a work of art? How
does a viewer really judge and experience scale? Hiscox (2014) has reported this to be a
major hurdle for online art buyers and, although not conclusive, it could be extrapolated
that virtual visitors to a virtual exhibition may perceive their experience to be limited,
altered or negatively impacted. This may be particularly so for three-dimensional objects
like sculptures or for multi-media materials with strong textural qualities, like cloth or
fabric-based wall hangings.
As Groys (2008) writes, “every exhibition tells a story, by directing the viewer through
itself in a particular order; the exhibition is always a narrative space”. In the same way
that physical spaces present conundrums for curators, so do online spaces. In a physical
space, to what extent does the curator guide the visitor’s physical path, or alternatively
give them free reign to move in several possible directions? For an online curator, what
‘click through’ options does one include? Is it easy to move ‘backwards’ and ‘forwards’
through the online exhibition? Is the display linear, and what does this mean for story-
telling? Is it necessarily linear? Are there ways to escape linearity? How does a curator
take into consideration the fact that an online visitor may at any point be easily distracted
from the tab at hand, by other (non-museum, non-art) online offerings which are only a
click away? What silences or erasures become possible and what does this mean?
Having outlined a number of practical and technical opportunities and concerns, we

must also nod to epistemological and conceptual concerns, even if briefly. The politics
around the web and related technologies, particularly when used for curating exhibitions,
may be likened to the politics surrounding ‘the archive’. As eloquently described by

Moffat Takadiwa, Disinformation Super Highway to Africa (DETAIL), 2014. Found Objects. Courtesy of Vigo Gallery, London.
Achille Mbembe (2002), any exhibition, like the archive, is “a product of judgement -
which involves placing certain documents in an archive at the same time as others are
discarded”. More significant, however, is the degree to which technology makes curating,
like the archive, a site of contested knowledges (Hamilton et al 2002). The archive is a site
where power operates, where inclusions and exclusions come to bear on how knowledge
of the past is produced, and “where the politics of history is rendered meaningful and
effective” (Lalu 2007). We can usefully extend this critical lens to ask how knowledge of
both past and present is produced through online practices.
Web practices and new technologies have the potential to help reimagine, recontextualise
and re-present the items in an exhibition. That is, digitisation projects are not simply
about technical matters of preservation and access, but the production of new forms of
knowledge, and the constitution (not just reflecting) of identities (Okeke-Agulu 2008).
In summary, this article has explored some of the practical and epistemological concerns
surrounding the use of new technologies in curatorial practice, looking at the ways in
which the web is being used to complement or supplement real exhibitions, as well as at
the rise of online-only exhibitions. Questions of audience are critical here: not only is
it likely that online audiences may be quite different from ‘real’ audiences who visit an
exhibit, but audiences now have much greater power and capacity to engage, interact and
respond to exhibition content and messages. This presents new issues for curators to
grapple with.
Furthermore, the web can be harnessed as “a remembering space and vehicle” (Greenberg
2009) which prolongs the life (and therefore public engagement with and memory) of an
exhibition. In so doing, the economic and intellectual effort behind an exhibition may
also be extended. This also has implications for curatorial strategies and messages.
If curation is already a political act, and the curator an active agent with her own agenda(s),
then the incorporation of technology creates additional layers of contestation, creating a
‘double layer’ of mediation between art and audiences. This is particularly so in a global
environment where online conversations are not unidirectional but rather ‘many-to-
many’. Per Greenberg’s (2009) description of an exhibition within an exhibition, rather
than a “seemingly neutral, nodal medium for presenting individual art works”, we should
understand an online exhibition as a curatorial form in and of itself.

BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
BYT
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
no.89
Bogosi Sekhukhuni:
Post Internet
by Negiste Yesside Johnson
It is a tempestuous morning in Jeppestown, Johannesburg, as I make my way to meet

Bogosi Sekhukhuni. The weather chooses to play into the indecisive mood, constantly
changing like the inner city itself – an architectural and social face that shifts continuously
between corporate banking houses, gentrified social spaces and industrial warehouses. I
look up at the ABSA tower, the clock reads 10:23. I hurriedly make my way down Fox
Street in Maboneng, turning into Arts On Main where Sekhukhuni sits, isolated from
everything and everyone on the street below. Having known Bogosi through URL spaces
for some time via Tumblr, for the first time in a long time we now get to construct
dialogues IRL (in real life). I apologise for being late and explain that my cellphone
broke. He laughs, smiles broadly and tells me “It’s fine, cellphones give you cancer bro.”
An interesting comment considering Sekhukhuni’s artistic fascination and advocation for
all things digital.
2015 has seen Sekhukhuni participate in multiple collaborative driven projects; exhibiting
alongside the CUSS group (who work primarily in digital art) at the Goodman Gallery
Johannesburg’s ‘Post African Futures,’ as well as with NTU, a group that was founded
by Sekhukhuni (together with Nolan Oswald Dennis and Tabita Rezaire) in an attempt
to enhance intersubjective virtual user possibilities, seen during the exhibition ‘CO-
WORKERS’ at the Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville in Paris. Sekhukhuni was also included
in the 89Plus panel discussion Nouvelles Expériences en Art et Technologie at Foundation
Cartier, Paris.
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS / NEGISTE YESSIDE JOHNSON ON BOGOSI SEKHUKHUNI 1/5 ARTAFRICA
Bogosi Sekhukhuni, THUS SAITH THE LORD, 2015. Print and video installation. Image courtesy of NTU.
Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Unfrozen RAINBOWCORE, 2014. Installation, sound design.

Image courtesy of WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town.
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Tile pattern for Unfrozen RAINBOWCORE, digital collage, 2014.
Image courtesy of WHATIFTHEWORLD, Cape Town.
In and amongst all this Sekhukhuni has been working on establishing his studio practice
which is housed by a network, called ‘Open Time Coven’ – “a visual culture bank and
research gang” he founded. The Coven was established when he and Dennis shared
an apartment, with the two deciding to convert their home into a pop-up studio space.
Sekhukhuni is however temporarily grounded, having recently won a year-long residency
at the Bag Factory in Johannesburg.
The residency will provide Sekhukhuni a space in which to engage and experiment with
new, individualised ideas around the ‘post-Internet,’ removing himself from aesthetic
conversations and an obsession with the image, which is heavily influenced by European
philosophies. With a viewpoint inspired by mythology, he provides an entry point into
what the future might be for both the black body and himself, through channels that are
accessible and recognisable. Sekhukhuni is not critical of the Internet as a technology
but rather with what people choose to do with it. His work revitalises what black bodies
have been doing for millennia, namely creating communication networks of people – a
concept which has been explored spiritually by the Khoisan, shamanic and countless
other tribes – with an approach that augments one’s sense of self – an extension of the
soul.
Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Consciousness Engine 2 absentblackfather, Bogosi bot avatar, screenshot, video, 2014. Courtesy of the artist.
BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS
“Sekhukhuni makes a point that the promise

of virtual reality is the understanding that our
physical reality is in itself a virtual reality.”
Sekhukhuni makes a point that the promise of virtual reality is the understanding
that our physical reality is in itself a virtual reality. Whilst studying at the University of
Johannesburg, Sekhukhuni became frustrated with the curriculum and sought alternative
means to inform and educate himself in a manner that was relevant as a young black male
art student. The Internet became his lecture hall; a rich democracy of information that
allowed him to manifest and engage with his ideas. Upon reflection Sekhukhuni notes
that the first time he realised his potential as an artist was during an acid trip in 2012
while studying. “My computer screen tried to suck me in, and I knew then and there, it
was a self-actualisation moment. An unbreakable relationship was formed between both
realities. I did not need recognition from anyone else. I knew I had it.”
For Sekhukhuni, the act of self-awareness is the first step to maintaining a sense of
authenticity or as he puts it, a way to “force myself to face myself.” Opposing the branded,
traditionalised ideas of mainstream contemporary art, Sekhukhuni’s work speaks directly
to the human condition. Here he notes that the relationship between the current black
consciousness movement occurring within the youth and the advancement of technology
is no coincidence. In many regards, the sentiment is empowered by what the Internet
offers – a global village and the ability to view movements across borders. Sekhukhuni’s
obsession with archetypes has allowed him to create a dialogue for himself. His work
creates a platform for his peers to contribute to the conversation, seeking no validation
other than the self, creating a legacy of knowledge and a narrative of young black bodies
imagining and actualising their realities. “It is inevitable that the black body will have a
role in history,” he says.
As we sit in the midday sun against a backdrop of high-rise buildings covered in smog,
laced in litter and bodies moving to stay afloat, I ask him what his daily motivation is to
create and explore. His response; “This is all I got.” And in that moment I know that
what he refers to is the powerful mind that resides within and far beyond this reality.
Negiste Yesside Johnson (Nigerian-English), is a South African raised art

practitioner and co-founder of The Collectors Club.
SUPER/BLACK/COMIX
The Rise of Positive Black Heroes in Sequential Art
by Su Opperman
In South Africa, race is overtly politicised. When it comes to diversity, representation is

stressed, often for appearance sake. Being confronted by black faces instead of white on
a billboard doesn’t make for much difference when framed against the broader backdrop
of capitalism. The following questions come to mind: What embodies true diversity?
What encapsulates a degree of authentic change in representation?
With the birth of Superman in 1938, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster ushered in one of the
strongest white power narratives – the Superhero. Superman, as a narrative construct
was both popular and easily replicable. He became archetypal of all superheroes that
followed. The issue of diversity in mainstream comics has been problematic ever since.
Though Marvel and DC do have a string of black characters, their blackness is often only
skin deep.
When compared, mainstream characters like Warmachine (Marvel) and Steel (DC) come
across as mere copies of their more original white counterparts, Iron Man (Marvel) and
Superman (DC). Mainstream comics’ lack of enthusiasm for creating authentic black
characters is best illustrated in the cinematic superhero franchise. Now we’ve got a black
Nick Fury, popularised by the Avengers movies and in the 2015 version of Fantastic Four,
Johnny Storm changed colour. Though ‘black,’ these heroes function in a Eurocentric
value system and are, for the most part, removed from the experiences of African people.
Whilst the prevalent target market of mainstream comics is Eurocentric, the fact remains
that it’s not just a white audience that reads these comics. The fear of ostracising white
readership has led mainstream comics to lag behind in creating and promoting authentic
black fictional characters.
ComicArtAfrica / SUPER/BLACK/COMIX / SU OPPERMAN 1/5 ARTAFRICA

Charlie Goubile (lines) and Mshindo
Kuumba (colors), Jaycen Wise and
Apedemak, 2013. Traditional/Digital.
Courtesy of URAEUS.
ARTAFRICA
Milumbe Haimbe, The Revolutionist, page 3, 2015. Milumbe Haimbe, The Revolutionist, page 9, 2015.
© Milumbe Haimbe. Courtesy of the artist. © Milumbe Haimbe. Courtesy of the artist.
In creating their own power narratives, a new wave of creators has orientated themselves
to specifically fill this void. In the USA, Richard Tyler (a.k.a Uraeus) created Jaycen Wise,
an immortal, scholar and warrior. Originating from the ancient empire Kush, Jaycen Wise
is often referred to as the ‘last son of Kush.’ As an immortal, Jaycen Wise bridges the gap
between ancient African antiquity and the modern world, thereby connecting African-
Americans with their old-world heritage. According to Uraeus, Jaycen Wise embodies all
the positive values of black culture and black masculinity, specifically. To Uraeus, Jaycen
Wise is not some kind of caped crusader – though immortal he is, above all, human.
Jaycen Wise’s only power, if you can call it a power, is that of ‘ultimate potential;’ the
ability to reach his goal once he’s set his mind to it – whether that’s through working
hard, training hard or studying hard – an ability inherent to all humanity.
In South Africa, we’ve got Kwezi. A local superhero created and illustrated by Loyiso
Mkize. Kwezi, which means ‘star’ in isiXhosa and isiZulu, tells the story of a nineteen-
year-old protagonist with superpowers. Mkize defines it as a ‘coming of age’ narrative, in
which the character is initially divided between his responsibilities towards his traditional
heritage and the hustle or temptations of big city life. Situated in Gold City, a representation

Loyiso Mkize, Kwezi cover art, issue #3, 2015. Courtesy of Loyiso Mkize Art.
of Johannesburg, Kwezi resonates with the South African youth of today.
As a South African superhero, Kwezi deals with local issues, but unlike his predecessor
from the 70s – Mighty Man – Kwezi is not relegated to the township. His impact is larger
than life. He is a hero of today, one that South African youth can associate with and
recognise themselves in.
When it comes to comics, black super heroines are even more marginalised. For that
reason, the project of Milumbe Haimbe, titled Ananiya the Revolutionist, stands out. A
combination of sequential art and Afrofuturism, Zambian-born Haimbe has framed
Ananiya as a diversity project.
Though not endowed with any superpowers, the protagonist, Ananiya, is a covert operative
fighting against ‘The One Conscious Corporation’ – a patriarchal conglomerate. The
narrative is contextualised within a conformist dystopian world, where flesh and blood
women have become obsolete. In the face of a robotically engineered ‘perfect woman,’
called Freja, Ananiya, has to deal with issues of gender, race and representation – Freja
only comes in one model; Caucasian, blonde-haired, green-eyed and soon to be mass-
produced.
With this comic, Haimbe aims to express alternative experiences of womanhood. The
constraints placed on imagination by the stereotypical portrayal of women engender
a limited view of what womanhood can be. In comics, this becomes important since
the strongest factor in sequential art is the visual component. Visual representation of
characters becomes codified, which means they are reduced to their appearance – how
they are depicted then, is a critical concern. When taken into context, these characters
fill an enormous culture gap. They are transcendent, creating a positive attitude towards
difference. Their creators have taken one of the most powerful narrative constructs and
made it their own.
Su Opperman is the Comic Art Co-ordinator for the Centre of Comics and
Illustrative Book Arts, an NPO affiliated with the University of Stellenbosch. She
is also co-editor of ComicArtAfrica.

FILMS
Crumbs A film by Miguel Llansó
Film still from Crumbs, 2015. Images: Israel Seoane (DP of Crumbs).
Once, when speaking about my plans to make this film, I was told by an old Ethiopian
Professor that, “The American dream will soon enough end up devastating you. Then
you will return to your village with your tail between your legs.”
Spurred on by this dramatic and doom-laden prophecy, Candy’s journey to prove himself
became my own and I knew that I had to make this film. Crumbs is a post-apocalyptic
sci-fi film set in Ethiopia. It is the tale of a man called Candy, who dreams of being a
hero and sets out to prove this to himself, as well as his beloved, Birdy. Centuries after
the apocalypse, the remaining humans are scattered and lonely on the Earth’s surface,
isolated in this unique corner of the cosmos. Candy is compelled to leave his home in an
old bowling alley to solve the mystery of the ball-returning machines that have suddenly
come back to life. He first seeks counsel with the local witch who sends him further into
the post-apocalyptic landscape on a surreal journey of discovery.
When I sent a copy of the first cut to my Professor, he said gently: “You idiot, you’ve
turned my parable into a joke to get into Hollywood. Quit dreaming of the Oscars. They
don’t really exist. The best thing you can do with the tinplate prizes you’re going to win is
to melt them and turn them into a spoon that allows you to eat soup once you lose your
teeth.” Thanks to the response from the international community so far, I’m designing
such a beautiful spoon.
FILMS / CRUMBS 1/8 ARTAFRICA

FILMS
Film stills from Crumbs, 2015. Images: Israel Seoane (DP of Crumbs).
Ultimately, Candy’s journey begins as the journey of a hero and ends up being the voyage
of an ordinary person in extraordinary circumstances. Candy’s lesson is the universal
lesson to discover who we are as individuals, and to discover that heroism lies in accepting
life for both its possibilities and limitations.
Crumbs was featured in the film programme of the ‘African Futures’ festival, which was held by the
Goethe Institut, South Africa at the Bioscope in Johannesburg in October 2015.
FILMS / CRUMBS 2/8 ARTAFRICA

FILMS
Hawa Hawaii A film by Amirah Tajdin
Film still from Hawa Hawaii, 2015. Images: Amirah Tajdin.
“The American dream will soon enough end

up devastating you. Then you will return to
your village with your tail between your legs.”
HAWA HAWAII / FILMS 3/8 ARTAFRICA

FILMS
Film still from Hawa Hawaii, 2015. Images: Amirah Tajdin.
Hamedi – a Swahili wedding singer who performs in drag as his alter ego, Hawa Hawaii
– desperately tries to mend his deeply fractured relationship with his dying mother by
communicating to her through the language he knows best; love songs.
Thus the world and struggles of the characters are articulated through the sounds of
old Bollywood songs, Egyptian orchestral music and Taarab love songs – traditional
East African orchestral music that is becoming increasingly rare due to the new wave of
radical Islam taking over the Island and the Muslim world as a whole. Throughout the
film, the music emanates from vinyl players, television screens, car radios and Hamedi’s
singing.
The film is set in Mombasa, Kenya, and takes place over seven days. During this week,
Hamedi finds closure from the pain he has been running away from all his life, spent
as a misfit in the Swahili community and a son who never could live up to his mother’s
expectations.
HAWA HAWAII / FILMS 4/8 ARTAFRICA

FILMS
shnit
Film still from Père (Father), 2014. Image: Lofti Achour
Born in 2003 in Bern, Switzerland, the shnit International Shortfilmfestival has made
it its mission to promote short films as an independent art form and to present them
to an ever-broader and more culturally varied audience around the world.
The festival has since grown exponentially, spreading to every corner of the globe. Each
edition presents a diverse programme of short films in a variety of genres, including
fiction; documentary, animation, experimental and more. Over the last decade shnit has
made its mark with its bold selections, its sly, edgy take on the world and its perpetually
raised eyebrow. But perhaps most important is the raw humanity of its films and the
festival’s efforts to programme films from far and wide.
Playing host to the South African leg of shnit, Cape Town is the second oldest
Playground city in the festival network. The programme is simultaneously hosted in
Bern, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Cairo, Hong Kong, Moscow, San Jose and Costa Rica,
ending in a global finale in New York, where five filmmakers will be presented with
The Flaming Faun trophy and cash prizes of $20,000 in each category.
Two of the prizes are audience awards, determined by voting that takes place in each
city. That audiences in vastly different cities can collectively decide on winners is just
one of the appeals of such a festival. Driven by the love and passion of filmmakers
and film lovers, shnit works tirelessly to bring the best in short films from all around
the world, to the world, every year.
FILMS / SHNIT INTERNATIONAL SHORTFILMFESTIVAL 5/8 ARTAFRICA

FILMS
Title: Père (Father) (2014)

Writer & Director: Lofti Achour
Country: Tunisia / France
Duration: 18mins
Hédi is a taxi driver in Tunis. One evening he

drives a pregnant young woman to the hospital
while she is in labour. This brief encounter
will bring with it a series of random, tragic and
unexpected events that lead to a life-changing
experience for both of them.
Film still from Père (Father), 2014. Image: Lofti Achour
Film stills from My Honeymoon, 2014. Image: Eileen Hofer.
Title: My Honeymoon (2014)

Writer & Director: Eileen Hofer
Country: Switzerland
Duration: 4mins
In 2013, eleven thousand six-hundred asylum seekers, most of them Syrian, arrived in
Bulgaria – one of the poorest countries in the European Union. Hofer’s friends and
family gave her funds to take food and useful items for the refugees during a trip to
Sofia. This is how she briefly met Berivan and her husband. As a result, the film was
improvised in less than an hour. all around the world, to the world, every year.
FILMS / SHNIT INTERNATIONAL SHORTFILMFESTIVAL 6/8 ARTAFRICA

FILMS
Umbilical Cords A film by Sarah Ping Nie Jones
‘Volcano’, still from Umbilical Cords, 2015.
Umbilical Cords began as a journey that started with the question of whether or not I
knew my mother, and if she knew me. My mother was born in Medan, Indonesia and
her family struggled to make ends meet amidst a storm of political violence. I was born
in London, whisked around the world and raised between and across multiple cultural
realities or ‘ways of doing things.’
Strangers co-exist in any family, but a transnational upbringing adds its own touch of
alienation. I tracked the relationship between my flatmates and our mothers over five
years. Born in Argentina, Mayra moved to South Africa when she was eight. Zanele’s
mother was from Lesotho, but Zanele was raised in Zimbabwe and Botswana. None of
our parents started life well off, but made a plan and made life work across continents.
A small flat in Cape Town brought us and our transnational neuroses together. Making
the film illuminated the gulf between our mothers and us. The elderly women had, both
willingly and unwillingly, raised their daughters across borders of class, culture, language
and values. We are their mutant children – belonging everywhere and nowhere, inherently
strange(r) to our mothers. The film acted as a vehicle for us to confront the images we
held of each other. This process proved to be harrowing, but ultimately liberating.
UMBILICAL CORDS / FILMS 7/8 ARTAFRICA

FILMS
‘Shadows’, still from Umbilical Cords, 2015.
‘Garden’, still from Umbilical Cords, 2015. All images: Sarah Ping Nie Jones.
UMBILICAL CORDS / FILMS 8/8 ARTAFRICA

REVIEWS
Nina Chanel Abney, Untitled (C x 2), 2015. Spray paint, paper collage on wood panel.
84 Field Notes From Spain 88 Kongo: Power and Majesty 93 To Be Young, Gifted
and Black 98 An Intimate Affair 101 An African Allegory Reimagined 104 Testimony
REVIEWS
FIELD NOTES
FROM SPAIN
Valerie Kabov, Director of First Floor Gallery Harare,
weighs in on the African presence at Swab Barcelona and
Summa Contemporary in Madrid
It is not news that in the past couple of years ‘everyone’ is ‘doing’ African contemporary
art. However, if we look at the lie of the land in detail, the ‘everyone’ I refer to means
former colonial capitals, and visibility therein: London, Paris, Brussels and incursions
in Amsterdam, followed by the USA and Dubai, both of which can claim a nexus. This
is significant in market terms, but not necessarily what would be described as ‘global’
reach. This is why engaging with art scenes, without an immediately referenced historical
or cultural nexus becomes interesting and important. These regions are in some ways
a no man’s land or neutral turf, where merit has to count for a lot more than any other
sentiment and where the educational foundations are limited if not non-existent. If we
consider the totality of the art market, this is in fact far more of a paradigm than what
African contemporary art has been experiencing to date.
In September and October 2015, two Spanish fairs included special African contemporary
focus sections in their presentations: Summa Contemporary in Madrid, curated by Gabriela
Salgado, and Swab Barcelona, curated by Eva Barois-de Caevel. The ‘Africa focus’ section
of each fair comprised four galleries1 and First Floor Gallery Harare was the only gallery
from Africa partaking in each fair. The small number of galleries is reflective of how
challenging it is to convince galleries – especially galleries from the continent – to take a
risk in a new market.
Apart from being invited by supportive and progressive curators, there were a number of
other reasons for our participation. One of the primary draw cards was the opportunity
to meet new audiences and diversify the pool of collectors. As the number of artists we
work with grows, it is important to hear from a broader spectrum of ideas and tastes.
Politically, we are also conscious of the problematic colonial lines of market engagement.
FIELD NOTES FROM SPAIN / VALERIE KABOV 1/4 ARTAFRICA

Wycliffe Mundopa, Myths of Harare (Right Way Down), 2014. Mixed media on canvas, 245cm x 178cm.
Courtesy of First Floor Gallery Harare , Zimbabwe.
REVIEWS
Kiluanji Kia Henda, The Fortress - The building series II, 2014. Silkscreen and inkjet print on photographic paper,
100 x 100cm. Courtesy of Galeria Filomena Soares, Portugal.
This is not the route to pursue if contemporary artists from Africa want to engage
international audiences, establish reputations and gain recognition outside of the current
market niche, which is unlikely to last beyond the next few years.
Spain is an interesting market to begin engaging with. After the financial crisis of 2008,
the Spanish economy is on the move again – as is the Spanish art market, according to
many sources. With Spain being a popular holiday destination and home to some of the
finest institutional art collections in Europe, contemporary and historical, it is also well
positioned to become part of art destination tourism. Artsy2 reported the Spanish market
being on a major rebound following ARCO Madrid (February 2015). This rebound is
bolstered in particular by preferential tax treatment for the art market which saw the
reduction of VAT for art transactions down from twenty percent to only ten, as well
as new laws requiring banks to support publicly beneficial events, thereby increasing
sponsorship of exhibitions and art-focused activity.
Given the astronomical (and growing) costs to participate in art fairs in London and
Basel, Spain presents a real advantage for galleries in terms of costs. If we consider
that artworks are priced internationally, this creates a serious advantage as Spanish art
fairs market themselves to galleries beyond the Spanish and Portuguese speaking world.
Conversely, its history and wonderful institutional art collections such as Prado make
Spain a natural destination for art collectors, especially as London starts to feel somewhat
predictable and over-saturated with fairs, despite its ongoing strength as a market.

REVIEWS
Installation view of Summa Contemporary 2015. Photograph: Antonio Fafián. Courtesy of Summa Contemporary.
From this experience, what we have discovered is that there is genuine interest in and
excitement around contemporary art from Africa, but the collecting audiences haven’t yet
had sufficient exposure to the field. In this regard, part of our role in the fairs has been
collector education, not only about our artists, but also about the emergence of art from
Africa. We also discovered that collectors in Spain, as everywhere else, go home and do
their research about the artists they’re interested in. In some ways, being a gallery from
Africa and representing African artists proved to be an advantage for us as collectors
appreciated the fact that we made the effort to be there. It was also refreshing to be in
the space and in Spain, where preconceptions and political issues – which cast shadows
on art reception in the context of former colonial centers – were not an issue.
Diversifying the market for African artists is imperative. It not only increases opportunities
for different artists and different styles, but also decreases the risk of over-exposure to
any one market or any one currency. The influx of investment-driven collectors into the
market in recent years has made the market more vulnerable to fluctuating fortunes in
the globalised economy and stock markets. Many of us have had to become exchange
rate specialists and economic forecast analysts. The downturn in the Chinese economy
has already had an impact on the art market internationally as the economies dependent
on the Asian superpower are hard hit. At present, African contemporary art has the
advantage of not being overpriced but it won’t be exempt, so as the adage goes, it would
be savvy to not put all of one’s eggs in one basket.
Summa Contemporary ran from 10-13 September 2015 in Madrid and Swab International
Contemporary Art Fair from 1-4 October 2015 in Barcelona.
FOOTNOTES
1. African Focus at Summa Contemporary: Carlos Carvalho Arte Contemporânea, Lisbon; Gabriela Salgado
Projects, London; Galeria Carles Taché Projects, Barcelona; Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon.
SWAB GATE at Swab Barcelona: Maëlle Galerie, Paris; Angalia, Meudon; Gallery Van de Weghe, Antwerp.
2. Artsy ‘Art Market Watch: Spain is Back, and so it is its Art Market.’

REVIEWS
KONGO:
POWER AND MAJESTY
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
by Robin Scher
In comprehending ‘Kongo: Power and Majesty’ – the Met’s latest special exhibit featuring
artwork from the historical central African region of the Kongo (modern-day Republic
of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Angola) – one need look no further
than the Mangaaka. Commissioned in the late 1800s by Kongo chiefs as a way to assert
their diminishing autonomy, these wooden, shrapnel-laden male figures were meant as
power symbols, ritualised through ceremony and consecrated by a priest who imbued
the objects with a spiritual force that lends them their name. It’s thanks to the efforts of
conservators and scientists at the Met that we know about the origins of the Mangaaka
today.
In this sense, ‘Kongo’ can be viewed as an earnest attempt to redress prior ahistorical
imbalances in an attempt to shape a new, more complex narrative of this region and its
artistic traditions. The question is: does it succeed and, if so, to what end?
Alisa LaGamma, the Met’s African art curator and organiser of the exhibit, expanded
on the mysteries of the Mangaaka during a recent panel discussion at the museum’s
Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium. According to LaGamma, following a process that
involved CT scans, X-rays and material chemical testing, her team “uncovered deliberate
interventions that suggest that the spiritual efficacy and potency of these figures was
disassembled by their original owners, before being relinquished to foreign invaders.”
LaGamma argued that these “interventions” revealed the strength of the Kongo people,
whose compliance with European powers was rooted in sabotage. “It is the ultimate
compliment to their Kongo authors that their creations resonate with viewers today, so
that their achievements are assumed to be timeless,” she said. “This exhibition celebrates
their bold ingenuity and resilience in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.”
KONGO: POWER AND MAJESTY / ROBIN SCHER 1/5 ARTAFRICA

Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi: Mangaaka). Kongo peoples; Yombe group, Chiloango River
region, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, or Cabinda, Angola, 19th
century, inventoried 1906. Wood, iron, resin, cowrie shell, animal hide and hair, ceramic, plant
fiber, pigment 106cm (h), 45cm (w), 44cm (d). Photograph: © Wereldmuseum, Rotterdam.
Photograph by: Studio R. Asselberghs / Frederic Dehaen, Brussels.
REVIEWS
Power Figure (Nkisi N’Kondi:

Mangaaka). Kongo peoples;
Yombe group, Chiloango River
region, Democratic Republic
of the Congo, Republic of the
Congo, or Cabinda, Angola,
19th century, inventoried
1912. Wood (Vitex thonneri
De Wild.), iron, resin, cowrie
shell, animal hide and hair,
ceramic, plant fiber, textile,
pigment. 132cm (h), 49cm
(w), 35cm (d). Museum of
Belgian Congo, Tervuren,
Belgium. Photograph: ©
RMCA, Tervuren. Photograph
by: Peter Zeray.
Comprising one hundred and forty-six artworks that reflect a five-hundred-year period
(from about 1500 - 1900), ‘Kongo’ is unprecedented in its size and scope. The exhibit
is painfully successful in conveying the story of the suffering undergone by the Kongo
people. But the unavoidable fact that these works were drawn from over fifty institutional
and private collections across Europe and the United States – and will return to these
places – takes its place alongside engraved tusks depicting enslaved people of the Kongo
as a rather large elephant in the exhibit hall.

REVIEWS
Tusk with Figurative Relief, Kongo peoples; Vili group, Loango Tusk with Figurative Relief. Kongo peoples; Vili group, Loango
coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the Congo, coast, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Republic of the
or Cabinda, Angola, ca. 1880–90. Ivory, H. 81.3 cm. Collection of Congo, or Cabinda, Angola, ca. 1880–90. Ivory, H. 68.6 cm.
Drs. Daniel and Marian Malcolm, Tenafly, New Jersey. Courtesy of Collection of Drs. Daniel and Marian Malcolm, Tenafly, New
the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Jersey. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
REVIEWS
Congolese dancer and choreographer Faustin Linyekula indirectly addressed this issue
at the panel discussion. “With time,” he said, “we’ve come to exist only through the
outside eye – how the world, how the West, shapes our image; how that image, being the
dominant image, occupies all mental spaces and even our own mental spaces; because
even in the Congo we look at ourselves through the eye of Europe and somehow I’d say
we’re still in a colonial state – legitimacy has to come from outside.”
Citing ‘Kongo,’ Linyekula critically raised the notion of the “responsibility” that must
come with confronting history. “It’s in the most desolate places that we need the most
beautiful art, which is why I take it as my personal responsibility to work and develop my
work from [the Congo], to try as much as possible to help share that work with audiences
there,” he noted, adding, “How many Congolese people will get to see this? It’s not for
us. It’s about us, but it’s not for us.”
While this exhibition is as much an historical account of the Kongo-with-a-K, told through
the region’s aesthetic traditions, it is equally a painful reminder of the lingering effects of
history on Linyekula’s present-day Congo-with-a-C. Its title, ‘Power and Majesty,’ which
was intended to honor the former Kongo, more appropriately offers a descriptor for the
Western institutions that house its relics today. The fact that there’s no acknowledgement
of this imbalance by the Met, says more about history than any exhibit ever could.
Robin Scher is a New York-based cultural reporter, currently working as an

editorial intern at ARTnews magazine. In light of prevailing trends, his current
focus is on demystifying/decolonising the term ‘African’ as it pertains to art.
‘Kongo: Power and Majesty’ was on at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from 18
September 2015 - 3 January 2016.

REVIEWS
TO BE YOUNG,
GIFTED AND BLACK
Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg
by Kagiso Mnisi
‘To Be Young, Gifted & Black’ is an invitation to observe the multiplicity of blackness.
The exhibition, held at Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg, is curated by Hank Willis
Thomas and investigates critical moments in the interconnected histories of global
black life, as they speak in a myriad of tonalities. In a time when people of colour
across the globe are in perpetual response to their circumstances via movements such
as #BlackLivesMatter and #FeesMustFall; ‘To Be Young, Gifted & Black’ finds itself in
the company of the prevalent rhetoric. The show features a range of artists across the
diaspora and peers into the complex allegiance to the re-imagination of blackness within
the context of universalism.
At the heart of the exhibition are works by artists such as Nina Chanel Abney, Nolan
Oswald Dennis, Omar Viktor Diop, Shinique Smith, Gerald Machona and Adam
Pendleton amongst others. Speaking on the criteria of artists, Thomas says, “This first
exhibition featured artists who I feel are especially speaking to complicated notions of
blackness.” He expands to say, “These are a number of artists that I have met around the
world, whose work is very different from mine, but I feel speak to the essence of many
of the issues that I am concerned with.”
When labouring for answers whilst looking at ‘To Be Young, Gifted & Black,’ one can’t
help but think of poet Fred Moten when he paraphrases Denise Ferreira da Silva’s paper,
‘No Bodies- Law, Raciality and Violence’ and states that, “Sovereignty is characterised by
self-determination as its attribute and self-preservation as its highest duty.” In the case
of ‘To Be Young, Gifted & Black,’ the artistic voice possesses arresting creativity as its
attribute and preserves itself by adopting new forms of black expression.
TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK / KAGISO MNISI 1/5 ARTAFRICA

REVIEWS
Nina Chanel Abney, Untitled (C x 2), 2015. Spray paint, paper collage on wood panel.

REVIEWS
Omar Victor Diop, Frederick Douglass, 2015. Pigment ink jet printing on Hahnemühle paper by Harman.
So, in what way does the artist advance the conversation beyond monolithic notions of
‘black’ and ‘white’ to re-imagine blackness as a spiritual, cultural and political alignment?
Omar Viktor Diop’s photographs, Frederick Douglass and Omar Ibn Said, have the artist
assuming characters of historical black figures who embodied progressive traits through
their scholarly and revolutionary pursuits. Shinique Smith’s Bale Variant evokes graffiti
through its pop references and bold colours; Smith’s work also ponders on the soul
of material objects long after they have been discarded. Similarly, Nina Chanel Abney
continues the trope of assertive colours with her untitled work. Abney’s suspended figures
can easily pass off as signage likely to be seen on the front end of Lagosian barber shops,
but the paper collage lends itself a lo-fi aesthetic and is less of a caricature.

REVIEWS
Shinique Smith, Bale Variant No.0023 (Totem), 2014. Clothing, Gerald Machona, Keep calm and untie the noose I, 2015.
fabric, accessories, ribbon, rope and wood. Digital print in pigment inks on cotton rag paper Edition of 5.
All images courtesy of Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.

Adam Pendleton, Untitled (if the function of writing is to express the world), 2015. Vinyl.
Zimbabwean-born Gerald Machona, whose work in recent years has focused on

displacement in the wake of South Africa’s Afrophobic attacks, extrapolates the narrative
with a digital print entitled Keep calm and untie the noose. At a glance, it is a response to the
idea of ‘foreigness,’ whereby blackness is displaced within the suit and tie apparel of
corporate capital.
Taking inspiration from Nina Simone’s song, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, the exhibition
is guided by prayer. This prayer has no distinct timeline – it gives life to the varying
shades of blackness belonging to the past, present and future. The different tones that
the artists use present blackness as a muse and idea which goes beyond literal meaning.
‘To Be Young, Gifted & Black’ rests on a progressive plateau in our times as we labour
and protest to explore who we are.
Kagiso Mnisi is a Johannesburg-based South African writer and independent

curator with a deep interest in the evolution of his city.
‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black,’ curated by Hank Willis Thomas ran from 26 September - 11
November 2015 at Goodman Gallery, Johannesburg.

REVIEWS
An Intimate Affair
START ART FAIR at Saatchi Gallery,
London, UK
by Heidi Erdmann
The Saatchi Gallery is a dream location for an intimate art fair. Its fifteen interconnected
galleries are generously spread over three floors; the double volume ceilings, architectural
minimalism and all white interior were purposefully designed to focus on the display of
contemporary art. The temporary walls installed for the purposes of the art fair are solid
and sturdy and clad in thick canvas – a seamless addition into this luxurious museum
environment. The Saatchi brand offers an established and loyal audience. Admission
to this gallery is free (not during the art fair) and its location, just off Kings Road in
Chelsea, is easily accessible and extremely family-friendly.
“A high-quality location” was the prerequisite for husband and wife team, Serenella and
David Ciclitira, who founded this fair in 2014. They were also clear about its identity; a
fair for emerging artists from across the globe with a strong emphasis on Asia. For the
second edition they introduced a new section, ‘This is Tomorrow,’ and selected fourteen
international galleries to present solo exhibitions by emerging talents.
Mingling and networking with a hand-picked guest-list is what art fairs are all about.
The Ciclitira’s initiative of hosting dinner parties, spread over two evenings prior to the
preview with selected participating gallerists, artists and collectors deserve a mention.
It is not often that gallerists have an opportunity to meet fellow exhibitors, particularly
when the group is drawn from across the globe. Tuesday evening’s dinner was in support
of the Singaporean art industry, but the talk at the table was very much centered on the
vibrant commercial gallery industry in Teheran. The quality, spread and variety of works
on offer at START did not disappoint. Fair Director, Niru Ratnam did an excellent job in
START ART FAIR / HEIDI ERDMANN 1/3 ARTAFRICA

teamLab’s Butterfly Room. Courtesy of START Art Fair.
Donna Ong, And We Were Like Those Who Dreamed (Cocoon #5) (detail), 2013. Paper cuts-out, wood, acrylic, LED lighboxes and
furniture, 48 × 63 × 38cm. Courtesy of the artist.
REVIEWS
selecting his range of galleries from countries like Hungary, Vietnam, Iran, Slovakia, South
Korea, Colombia, Saudi Arabia, Latvia and India. The START Projects sections, which
occupied a whole floor, underpinned the fairs identity of discovering and presenting new
art scenes. The Prudential Eye Zone exhibition was dedicated to art from Singapore,
which is a fast developing young and exciting art world. An impressive, interactive and
immersive installation by the Tokyo based teamLab was definitely an audience favourite
and attracted queues of visitors on Saturday and Sunday.
After the preview evening, the London media gave the fair the thumbs up, with loud
applause going to the ‘This is Tomorrow’ section. START is an intimate affair; visitors
needed nothing more than a morning to do the rounds. No sore feet, no fair fatigue,
no endless food halls, no coffee or champagne booths, no sponsored VIP lounges; just
three floors of art. It also has its problems, however, and perhaps its greatest one lies
with its strongly focused identity. Although the fair managed to attract a large audience,
particularly over the weekend, its ability to attract the major collectors to an art fair with
generally unknown talents proved to be trickier. Many of the artists presented are at
the start of promising careers and in many cases are included in museum and private
collections, but major collectors are interested in the latest auction prices. This index is
still absent on the curriculum vitae of an emerging artist, particularly those represented
by countries with a young art world, and a small and developing secondary market for
contemporary art.
START’s greatest success came via its secondary tagline, “a strong emphasis on Asia.”
Young artists from these regions are tapping into global inspirations, keeping up with
world affairs, producing arresting works and simultaneously finding and growing a
collector base.
Heidi Erdmann is a gallery owner in Cape Town, South Africa. Her gallery,
Erdmann Contemporary, participated in START 2015.
‘START art fair’ ran from 10 - 13 September 2015 at Saatchi Gallery, London.
START ART FAIR / HEIDI ERDMANN 3/3 ARTAFRICA

REVIEWS
An African Allegory
Reimagined
Matthew Hindley’s The Five Magic Pebbles at
David Krut Projects, Cape Town, South Africa
by Danny Shorkend
Matthew Hindley’s visual interpretation of the ‘Five Magic Pebbles’ is a delicate, yet
poignant set of illustrations for the title story in the republication of poet and social
activist Don Mattera’s African stories. Better known for his oil paintings, Hindley’s use
of watercolour shows a confident hand and understanding of the alchemy that this
medium allows. In this light, the exhibition and visual description parallels the poetic and
literary, establishing a fruitful dialectic between narrative and non-verbal image making.
The narrative is an archetypal journey of Tarruwah, ‘the chosen one’ whose task it is to
slay the ‘evil one’ in order to restore peace and harmony to the ancient African village
of Kambira. The story culminates with a classic battle between good and evil, when
– armed with the five magic pebbles, a spear and a shield – Tarrowah defeats the ‘evil
one’ (a darkly, demonic, fiery, blood-sucking, five-eyed creature) that has wrought havoc,
destruction and death on her people. She courageously confronts the scourge, whose
only vision is to decimate all that is good – the beauty of birth, life and peace. It is a
timeless story (for adults and children alike) about courage in the face of great adversity
and one that works best when told in the African storytelling tradition, although the
story is certainly pertinent beyond the continent.
THE FIVE MAGIC PEBBLES / DANNY SHORKEND 1/3 ARTAFRICA

Matthew Hindley, The Silver Cup, 2012. Mixed media on Catiera Magnani.
Matthew Hindley, The Last Magic Pebble, 2012. Mixed media on Catiera Magnani. Both images courtesy of
David Krut Projects, Cape Town.
REVIEWS
How then has Hindley ‘shown’ the story? What devices has he used to transmit the
tradition? As is the artist’s style, he straddles the boundary between an almost fantastic
realism and abstract mark making. He is able to achieve this through the medium of
watercolour, with splotches, splashes, sensitive line, gentle surface colouring, a sense of
compositional weight and harmony of colour. These elements conspire to render the
works simultaneously foreboding and yet full of the promise of salvation and ultimate
victory. The delicate hand of the artist is itself the ‘magic’ that creates a vision where the
forces for ‘good’ will not succumb to those who seek to plunge them into ‘the dark night
of the soul’.
Just as Tarruwah uses the magic given to her by her predecessor, so Hindley uses paint
to weave his spell in the ‘magical’ combination of finely balanced light, space and colours
to outdo the haphazard, chaotic and fiery. Just as the artist has one chance to get it right
with watercolour paints, so our heroine must prevail in her once-off duel. The artist and
our heroine succeed and perhaps, most significantly, Mattera succeeds with his poetic
words that are testimony to the legacy of Apollo.
His words vanquish the dark, destructive forces, the Dionysian within and without, that
only wants and wills destruction. That being said – although it contains allusions to the
Western canon – this is an authentic African tale. It is a tonic against despair, conjuring
hope that the ills of our modern society will be overcome. That it takes a brave, courageous
woman to do this is itself instructive, for the female principle is a metaphor for the soul.
Hindley’s paintings are marked by a luminosity that seeps through even when the
monster looms. The works are never haunting to the point where one should surrender
to negativity, even when impending doom feels imminent and inescapable. At times,
the finely textured surface paper of the works is visible and adds to the translucent,
transcendent quality of the medium and subject matter. Paint, in this case, is not simply
paint – it bespeaks a people and a land in Africa that shall prevail, notwithstanding the
insane and the confused, the violent and bestial.
Based in Cape Town, Michaelis graduate Danny Shorkend continues to paint,

theorise and write about art. He is currently completing a doctorate in art history
through UNISA.
‘The Five Magic Pebbles’ ran from 17 October – 28 November 2015 at David Krut Projects, Cape
Town.
THE FIVE MAGIC PEBBLES / DANNY SHORKEND 3/3 ARTAFRICA

REVIEWS
TESTIMONY
Adejoke Tugbiyele at Goodman Gallery, Cape Town
Adejoke Tugbiyele was born in Brooklyn, New York to Nigerian parents. At the age of
five, she and her family moved back to Nigeria, returning once again to Brooklyn seven
years later. Like most families from Nigeria, Tugbiyele was equipped with religion as her
moral compass, a tool adversely unfit for the taboo terrain of her homosexuality. Not
having the words to interpret her feelings, nor the solidarity of a single cultural affiliation
to relate to, Tugbiyele found solace in the imagined landscapes of her art.
Her recent exhibition ‘Testimony’ at the Goodman Gallery in Cape Town offers a hand to
those who have suffered from cultural, religious and gender specific bigotry; challenging
the destructive effects of an exploitative elite. In 2014, Nigerian President Goodluck
Jonathan signed into effect the Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, the implications of
which are far more surreptitious than the title suggests. Organisations that cater to the
LGBT community (such as clinics working with HIV/AIDS), as well as parents who do
not report their children are considered to be operating illegally and are liable to fourteen
years imprisonment. What is even more alarming is the high level of public support for
the Act at a time when basic civil rights are being neglected. As Tugbiyele points out in
her drawing Real Danger: “These daily problems weigh on Nigerians, more so than gays
causing a so-called danger to society.”
TESTIMONY / ART AFRICA 1/5 ARTAFRICA

REVIEWS
Adejoke Tugbiyele, Still from AfroOdyssey IV: 100 Years Later, 2014. Location: Corpus Christi, Baltimore, MD, USA. Costume De-
sign and Mosquito net by Adejoke Tugbiyele. Movement by Lindsey Bauer and Olushola A. Cole. Image courtesy of the artist.
Adejoke Tugbiyele, Still from the confession booth as part of AfroOdyssey IV: 100 Years Later, 2014. Location: Corpus Christi, Balti-
more, MD, USA. Image courtesy of the artist.

REVIEWS
Her mindful approach to materiality and the incorporation of text in her work both
harness the vocabulary of the church, mingling with both the converted and condemned.
Her symptomatic translations of life in Lagos, Johannesburg and Brooklyn speak to the
collective moral hijacking of the colonialist legacy; placing Omo, Heineken, Total, Boko
Haram and Superman under a single translucent canopy.
One particular work on show is a video entitled AfroOdyssey IV: 100 Years Later. The
title is a reference to Homer’s The Odyssey in which the protagonist journeys home to
Ithaca after the Trojan War, returning years later to oust the intruders who have tried to
takeover in his absence. Here however, the journey is specific to the African context. Not
only that, but it appears to be continuous – an ongoing series. Set within the confines of
the church, Tugbiyele‘s protagonist is removed from both time and place, emphasising
the notion that the church has become something of a veil in Africa; simultaneously
able to protect and blind. Without consciously recognising one’s ‘blindness,’ one cannot
identify the problem and it is here that Tugbiyele steps in, speaking directly to the church
as a zone of influence.
In 1972, Steve Biko attempted a similar thing by presenting a paper entitled ‘The Church
as seen by a Young Layman’ to a congregation of black Christian ministers in Kwa-Zulu
Natal. The conference was organised by Biko to address growing concerns around the
imposing effects of Christianity’s rigid and alienating modus operandi on black South
Africans. To Biko, “each religion has a message for the people amongst whom it is
operative.” Within the context of Black South Africa, the message was one of moral and
civil inadequacy, a problem that has been felt in almost every colonial subtext to date.
“Stripped of the core of their being and estranged from each other because of their
differences, the African people became a playground for colonialists. It has always been
the pattern throughout history that whosoever brings the new order knows it best and is
therefore the perpetual teacher of those to whom the new order is being brought.”
Adejoke Tugbiyele’s ‘Testimony’ is an attempt to redress our understanding of what ‘the

new order’ might mean within the context of Nigeria, Africa and the diaspora at large;
an indictment to the absurd concerns over homosexuality at a time of socio-economic
crises.
‘Testimony’ ran from 5 September – 10 October 2015 at Goodman Gallery, Cape Town.

Adejoke Tugbiyele, Real Danger,
2015. Ink and paint on parchment,
106 x 96cm. Image courtesy of
Goodman Gallery, Cape Town .
Adejoke Tugbiyele, Omo Homo, 2015. Ink and paint on

parchment, 126 x 121cm. Image courtesy of Goodman
Gallery, Cape Town.
4/5 ARTAFRICA
Installation view of Adejoke Tugbiyele’s ‘Testimony’ at the Goodman Gallery, Cape
Town. Image courtesy of Goodman Gallery, Cape Town.
D’ZAIR, DESIGN AND

CRAFT FROM ALGERIA
Coming on 28 January 2016
FREE ADMISSION
Wed - 11am to 5pm
Thur to Sun - 11am to 11pm
Oliewenhuis Art Museum is a satellite of the National Museum,
Bloemfontein, an agency of the Department of Arts and Culture.
GALLERY
Ndidi Emefiele, Untiled, 2015, acrylic, mixed pen,compact disc and fabric on paper, 80 x 70cm
24, Modupe Alakija Crescent, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria

T: +234 8184 55331 | www.omenkagallery.com
Opening Hours: Monday - Friday 9am - 6pm, Saturday 10am - 4pm

Absa Gallery
SMITH maintains a fine art studio that values and contributes to the discourse of
contemporary art in South Africa, while disregarding convention and favouring the
brave, joyous and timeless.
Exhibition
A Celebration of Artist Proof Studio artists, alumni and
students
29 November ‘15 - 29 January ‘16
Absa Towers North

161 Main Street
Johannesburg
DAVI D B R I TS S N A K E M A N Mo nda y - F r i d a y : 9 a m - 5 p m
19 N OV - 9 JAN 20 1 6 S a t ur da y: 1 0 a m - 1 p m
Proof of identification is required for Gallery entrance

G R O U P E X H I B I T I O N S K ETC H 5 6 C hur ch S t re e t , C a p e Tow n
14 JAN - 13 F E B 2 0 1 6 021 422 0 814
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_ART FAIR_3.indd 1 2015/11/03 9:51 AM
Salon Show
26 Nov 2015 – 9 Jan 2016
From Alexandra
Karakashian to Thania
Petersen & Lien Botha
+ more
First Thursday Event: Spier Pop-up Bar
IMAGE: Thania Petersen, LOCATION 4: Late District Six, 2015. Photograph.
AVA Gallery | 35 Church Street, Cape Town | +27(0)21 424 7436 | www.ava.co.za
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ARTAFRICA

WHOSE SOUTH IS IT ANYWAY?

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Cape Town Art Fair 19 – 21 February

- Brendon and Suzette Bell-Roberts, founders and editors-in-chief

022 VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH

033 FROM A SOUTHERN PERSPECTIVE

040 HIDDEN IN PLAIN SIGHT

051 CONTEMPORARY ART IN ANGOLA

057 THE DOUBLE LAYER OF MEDIATION

065 BRIGHT YOUNG THINGS

077 HAWA HAWAII

079 SHNIT INTERNATIONAL SHORTFILMFESTIVAL

081 UMBILICAL CORDS

083 REVIEWS INDEX

088 KONGO: POWER AND MAJESTY

068 093 TO BE YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK

098 AN INTIMATE AFFAIR

101 AN AFRICAN ALLEGORY REIMAGINED: Matthew Hindley

104 TESTIMONY: Adejoke Tugbiyele

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The words are purposes.

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Annemi Conradie is currently doing a doctorate in Visual Studies at the University

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VOICES FROM THE

by Sophia Olivia Sanan

While dominant discourses of globalisation are still grounded in a state-centric

The conviction of this ‘Northern bias’ has resulted in an abundance of intellectual

Ayeta Anne Wangusa

Midundo radio. Courtesy of

“Africa is not so poor, and even historically,

Anupama Sekhar: The North-South divide is essentially considered a socio-economic

There is evidence of a new interest in multilateral cultural cooperation (in addition to

Can you envision greater cultural solidarity or exchange happening through

to create a deeper cultural understanding of each other. This is particularly important

Internal migration within India is by no means a less complex phenomenon than

Sophia Olivia Sanan holds a Masters degree in Sociology, has an academic

Gabriela Salgado, photograph: Marcelo Brodsky.

Gabriela Salgado is an Argentine-born curator based in London. She has an MA in

Gabriela Salgado: I arrived in London in the mid-1990s to pursue an MA in curatorial