This summer, the College of Visual Arts and Design Galleries presents the first-ever solo show of Kongo Astronauts, an artist collective based in Kinshasa, the capital city of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The exhibition, titled "Congo Gravitational Waves // A Metadigital & Tantalean Tale," will be open from June 14 through Sept. 3 in the CVAD Gallery, UNT Art Building. The selected works highlight what the artists describe as “inter-zones of digital globalization, where past, present and future collide with the politics of privacy and the realities of urban and rural life.”
For more than twenty years, Parcours des Mondes is the most important art fair worldwide, dedicated to Non-Western and Asian cultures and Archeology. The fair gathers each year at the beginning of September, around forty galleries, specialised in artworks from Africa, Asia, Oceania, America and Archeology at Saint-Germain-des-Prés, in the centre of Paris.
Set in the vibrant heart of Mayfair, PAD is London’s leading fair for 20th Century art, design and decorative arts. Inspiring a unique spirit of collecting, PAD epitomises how modern art, photography, design, decorative and tribal arts interact to reveal astonishing combinations and create the most individual and staggering interiors. Prominent international galleries from major cities across Europe, North America and Asia come together to offer an exceptional panorama of the most coveted and iconic works available on the market today. PAD is a place to discover and acquire pieces of museum quality with a distinct history. PAD cultivates eclecticism, authenticity and connoisseurship with passion and flair.
Sotheby’s is pleased to present the October 2022 auction of Modern & Contemporary African Art in London. The auction will feature a specially curated collection of paintings, photographs, drawings and sculpture from across the African continent. Highlights include works by highly sought-after artists including El Anatsui, Ben Enwonwu, Hassan El Glaoui, Mohamed Melehi, Cheri Samba and Gerard Sekoto, as well as trailblazing artists presently working on the continent, such as; Olamilekan Abatan, Isshaq Ismail, and Oluwole Omofemi, Tafadzwa Adolf Tega and Nedia Were.
1-54 is the first leading international art fair dedicated to contemporary art from Africa and its diaspora. Founding by Touria El Glaoui, the fair holds annual editions in London since 2013, New York since 2015 and Marrakech since 2018. Drawing reference to the fifty-four countries that constitute the African continent, 1-54 is a sustainable and dynamic platform that is engaged in contemporary dialogue and exchange.
The Fowler Museum at UCLA presents Particular Histories: Provenance Research in African Arts—an exhibition of early 20th-century African objects and accompanying archival materials that came to the Fowler in 1965 from the collection of Sir Henry Wellcome (1853–1936). Five case studies—spotlighting a Nigerian helmet mask, a brass figure group by a Dahomey court artist, a carved wooden throne from Cameroon, a series of gold weights from West Africa, and a carved wooden house post from Nigeria—are presented alongside Wellcome Collection archives. Each grouping takes visitors through the process of tracing the history of these works, a journey that reflects their changing cultural contexts, and sheds light on shifting perceptions of their value.
The 59th International Art Exhibition will take place from 23 April to 27 November 2022 (pre-opening on 20, 21 and 22 April), curated by Cecilia Alemani. “As the first Italian woman to hold this position, I intend to give voice to artists to create unique projects that reflect their visions and our society”, Alemani has declared. Cecilia Alemani is a curator who has organized many exhibitions of contemporary artists. She is currently Director and Chief Curator of High Line Art, the programme of public art of the urban park in New York, and is the past curator of the Italian Pavilion at the Biennale Arte 2017.
Mud cloth, or bogolanfini, originated among the Bamana peoples of Mali and its designs can be spotted in products across the world, although the source is not always credited. Bamana peoples used the dye-decorated cloth to make tunics for male hunters and wrappers for females to mark the most important milestones in their lives. While the cloth was previously associated with rural village life, today bogolanfini is worn by urban people, identifying them as native Malians. The culturally significant designs on bogolanfini are painted by women with a dye made from fermented mud onto cloth handwoven by men. This exhibition explores the complete labor-intensive process and identifies how the distinctive patterns have been used in Western products, from designer clothing to home furnishings.
William Kentridge is internationally acclaimed for his charcoal drawings, animated films, theatre and opera direction, tapestries, sculptures and large-scale performance pieces. Bridging the gaps between draftsmanship, dance and literature, his work – epic in both scale and ambition – responds to the legacies of colonialism and apartheid. Born in Johannesburg, Kentridge’s art developed against the backdrop of South Africa’s apartheid regime and the censorship of the 1980s. His early work often depicts what he has described as the “damaged logic” and absurdity of the era, and the country’s erasure of history. This ambitious exhibition – the biggest Kentridge exhibition in the UK to date – spans all 12 rooms in the RA’s Main Galleries, spilling out into our public spaces, and includes new work created in response to the galleries. Presenting a sweeping overview of Kentridge’s 40-year career, it includes rarely seen works from the 1980s up to the present day, revealing an artist at the height of his creative powers.
The Centre des monuments nationaux and the Al Thani Collection Foundation are pleased to announce the opening of the museum space dedicated to showing artworks from the Al Thani Collection at the Hôtel de la Marine on 18th November 2021. The exhibition – Treasures of the Al Thani Collection – will showcase a rich diversity of approximately 120 artworks drawn from across the Collection, bringing together exceptional works of art from antiquity to modern times. Celebrating the unifying force of art across cultures, it will juxtapose superlative works of art from different civilisations, sharing with the public high points of creative expression across periods and geographies.
The colonial occupation of the Kingdom of Benin by British troops in February 1897 marked the end of one of the most powerful West African kingdoms. In consequence thousands of works of art made of bronze, ivory and wood were looted from the royal palace and dispersed worldwide. In view of the planned restitution, the MARKK’s Benin collection will now be presented in its entirety. In addition to informing on the British colonial war and the current restitution debate, the show offers different perspectives on the original meaning of the objects, their outstanding artistic quality, and their significance for African art and cultural history. A specific focus is given on the provenance of the collection and its intertwined history with the Hamburg trade networks.
For nearly 3,000 years a series of kingdoms flourished in ancient Nubia (present-day southern Egypt and northern Sudan). The region was rich in sought-after resources such as gold and ivory and its trade networks reached Egypt, Greece, Rome, and central Africa. This exhibition presents highlights from the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston's extensive collection of Nubian objects and features superbly crafted jewelry, metalwork, and sculpture exhibiting the wealth and splendor of Nubian society.
The first major survey of the celebrated London-based painter. Widely considered to be one of the most important painters of her generation, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye is a British artist and writer acclaimed for her enigmatic portraits of fictitious people. Her paintings often allude to historic European portraiture – notably Francisco de Goya, John Singer Sargent and Édouard Manet – yet in subject matter and technique, her approach is decidedly contemporary. Through her focus on the depiction of imagined black characters, Yiadom-Boakye’s paintings raise important questions of identity and representation. This exhibition will bring together over 80 paintings and works on paper from 2003 to the present day in the most extensive survey of the artist’s career to date.
Africa Fashion will celebrate the irresistible creativity, ingenuity and unstoppable global impact of contemporary African fashion creatives. Over 250 objects spanning iconic mid-twentieth century designers to the present day, complemented by photographs and textiles from the V&A’s collections, will explore the vitality and innovation of a fashion scene as dynamic and varied as the continent itself. The V&A will explore how music and the visual arts also formed a key part of Africa’s cultural renaissance, laying the foundation for today’s fashion revolution. Following a major public call-out, new acquisitions highlighting African diasporic fashion trends of the day, paired with personal testimonies, will go on show for the first time. Alongside, Africa Fashion will highlight the new generation of ground-breaking designers, collectives, stylists and fashion photographers working across the continent today, transforming global fashions as we know them.