Professor El-Anatsui is back in Nigeria after featuring in one of the greatest and most widely publicized exhibition of contemporary African art ever staged in Europe.
The Ghanaian born artist and academician who has lived most of his adult life in Nigeria is one of West Africa’s most renowned sculptors . Anatsui, a lecturer at the University of Nigeria Nsukka ,was one of the artists who represented Nigeria at the Afrika remix exhibition ,a wonderful collection of contemporary African art which is currently on show at the Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. The exhibition which was tagged "Africa Remix" is arguably the most comprehensive display of African talents in the world of modern art.
Slated to run in 4 parts, the exhibition kicked off last year at the Musuem Const Palace in the ancient German city of Dusseldorf . Featuring works of art from about 80 artists of African descent ,the Africa remix exhibition later moved to the prestigious Hayward Gallery in London and is currently showing at the Pompidou centre in Paris, en route to the Grande finale which will be staged next year in Tokyo . The expressive forms of African art at the Afrika remix exhibition range from drawings, paintings, photographic prints, sculptures, installations and implementation of different media including modern video techniques. Artists from 25 countries across the continent, from Algeria to Zimbabwe, are represented, as well as African artists now living in Europe and North America.
The show includes a new works by the outstanding South African photographer David Goldblatt; a spectacular oil painting titled "Own by the river by Ingrid Mwangi"; and an assemblage made from materials found by the Nigerian Dilomprizulike, known in Lagos as ‘the junk man of Africa’. Other notable African artist who featured at the exhibition were Alexander Jane (South Africa) with her work African Adventure, Samba Cheri (DR Congo). Ntakiyica Aime (Burundi). and Musa Hassan (Sudan).
Also about eight Nigerian artists had their works on display. Artists like Yinka Shonibare, Chuks Ofili and Nsikak Essien were present at the exhibition. In a chat, he had with Vanguard Arts on his return from Paris last week, Anatsui explained the thematic ideas behind the Afrika remix project. "There is this general notion that Africa is an amalgam of various external influences ranging from episodes of slavery, colonialism and dictatorship. These influences have in one way or the other impacted on the psyche of the continent.
These sentiments can be seen in so many degrees in the works of artists of African descent. It is an interesting exhibition which tries to fuse all the varying strands of production that can be found in the continent. It mixes the young, the old and those in Diaspora. Indeed, the assemblages at ‘Africa Remix’ are the most moving and significant pieces and they bear true testimony to the fact that African art has come of age."
The renowned Ghanaian artist had just one work on display which he called Sasa , a huge patch work of blankets (10-29 square metres)which was built from flattened bottle tops and cans. When draped over trees and geological features (similar to a Christo installation but more personalised), they tend to assume a delicate new life form.
El Anatsui who uses the power of modern tools, particularly the chain saw, to create works of startling originality in wood. most recently he has begun to add rich depths of complexity to his work by the addition of colour to the surface of the wood. His work Sasa is a part of the new concept in dynamic artistic experimentations: a concept , which seeks to explore new frontiers in art. According to the chief curator of the exhibition ,Simon Njami ,the ‘‘Africa Remix’ is an important attempt to correct the idea that African art has been dead for over 500 years. It has alerted the European cultural elite to the fact that the continent had long ago advanced beyond tribal art, such as wooden masks, votive figures and fertility gods.
The first Oxford African Encyclopaedia, published in 1974, dedicated six paragraphs to African art and ten to Western art. The continent’s influence may be recognized, but rarely is African art considered seriously on its own merits. When art historians try to look at Africa, they cannot see past the Benin bronzes. For them, African art stopped in the 15th century With so much media attention focused on what’s wrong with Africa, and all the pledges currently being made by the governments of the developed world to do something about it, one could be forgiven for thinking that it’s a continent without hope or dreams. The current show at Pompidou Centre in Paris may go some way towards dispelling that notion.
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