On May 24, following the marquee modern and contemporary auctions in New York, Sotheby’s will offer the Collection of Amy & Elliot Lawrence. Beginning in the 1950s, the Lawrence’s formed a quintessentially American collection of pre-modern sculpture including classical African, Oceanic, and American Indian art, as well as Pre-Columbian, Southeast Asian, and classical Antiquities. Amy was a scholar, teacher, and therapist; Elliot was a famous bandleader in the late 40s and 50s, who went on to have a legendary career as a music director in TV and film. Together the Lawrence’s explored the world through collecting and assembled an eclectic but harmonious group of objects around the grand piano in their apartment on Central Park West.
CIVILISATIONS Brussels Art Fair is a fresh concept focusing on the ever-evolving eclectic taste of international clients and collectors searching for the finest Asian, Ancient & Tribal Art. The biannual show is to become the new cultural beacon in the heart of Europe to foster the shared stories of humanity across time and places.
The Dakar Biennale, or Dak'Art - Biennale de l'Art Africain Contemporain, is a major contemporary art exhibition that takes place once every two years in Dakar, Senegal. The Dakar Biennale was conceived in 1989 as a biennale alternating between literature and art. The biennale has been created thanks to the will of both the Senegalese state which assumes the supervision and the local artists who since the seventies, have been organising regular annual art exhibitions which bring to light the different shapes of the evolution of contemporary art creation. The aim was to make of it a show-window of art and literature in Africa.
Brafa is one of the leading European art and antiques fairs. Here, all art works on show are for sale and quality and authenticity are two of the key requirements exhibitors face. Brafa is an eclectic fair which encompasses a variety of specialities, from antiquity to the 21st century, including archaeology, Oceanic art, African art...
TEFAF Maastricht is widely regarded as the world's premier fair for art, antiques and design. Featuring 275 prestigious dealers from some 20 countries, TEFAF Maastricht is a showcase for the finest art works currently on the market. Alongside the traditional areas of Old Master paintings, antiques and classical antiquities that cover approximately half of the fair, you can also find modern and contemporary art, photographs, jewelry, 20th century design and works on paper.
Pablo Picasso, one of the most outstanding painters of the 20th century is entering the Museum of Black Civilizations. African art played an important role in Picasso's work. Indeed, in 1972 some works had been presented in Dakar thanks to Léopold Sedar Senghor former president of Senegal. Today, 50 years later, his works will be exhibited at the Museum of Black Civilizations. The MCN in partnership with the @museepicassoparis, the @museeduquaibranly, the @museedartafricain inaugurates the Picasso exhibition in Dakar which will be held from April 1 to June 30, 2022 with the participation of the Ministry of Culture and Communication of Senegal, @ franceausenegal and @ifsenegal under the high patronage of Mr. Macky Sall, President of the Republic of Senegal and Emmanuel Macron, President of the French Republic.
This exhibition proactively engages with debates about restitution and the ethics of museums’ owning African heirlooms collected during the era of colonization. The investigation and research into eleven works of African art will be conducted publicly — visitors will have access to documents, photographs, and correspondence that will help UMMA develop a better understanding of each object’s history, grappling in real-time with questions surrounding legal and ethical ownership of these artworks. Though complex, this project presents exciting opportunities for museum transparency and creating new pathways for relationship-building with partners in Africa and its diaspora. Museum visitors can begin to explore this investigation online and in person in Fall 2021.
“The Route des Chefferie in Cameroon. From the visible to the invisible” is dedicated to the art of the communities settled on the high-altitude plateaus of Grassfields, in west Cameroon. Monumental architecture, foundry, bead creations, wooden sculptures, textile production, traditional dances… A unique and historic heritage, carefully preserved for centuries by traditional chiefs. Almost divine figures, these chiefs are the main custodians of this heritage, the guarantors of both tradition and the connection between the world of the ancestors and that of the living. In a collective effort to safeguard and promote traditional heritage, and in collaboration with the association La Route des Chefferies, the exhibition showcases some 300 works, including 260 treasures conserved by several chiefs and family lineages. Interspersed with works by contemporary Cameroonian artists, it highlights the cultural influence of chiefdoms on contemporary art and the living dimension of this heritage through a visitor circuit designed to take you to the heart of Bamileke society.
Tradition, power and culture lie at the core of this exhibition dedicated to the art of the chiefdoms of Cameroon. Framed from a different perspective and led by the association La Routes des Chefferies, it looks at the culture of the communities and the preservation of a unique, historical and living heritage.
For centuries, artists have told and retold the complex histories of the African Diaspora. Explore this enduring legacy in the exhibition Afro-Atlantic Histories, which takes an in-depth look at the historical experiences and cultural formations of Black and African people since the 17th century. More than 130 powerful works of art, including paintings, sculpture, photographs, and time-based media by artists from Africa, Europe, the Americas, and the Caribbean, bring these narratives to life. This exhibition was initially presented as Histórias Afro-Atlânticas in 2018 by the Museu de Arte de São Paulo and the Instituto Tomie Ohtake in Brazil.
The Language of Beauty in African Art presents nearly 250 remarkable works from collections around the world—compelling art that scholars, connoisseurs and collectors outside Africa have admired for more than a century. The exhibition features an incredible variety of objects, including a range of impressive and powerful sculptures, captivating costumes and masks made for ceremonial use, and extraordinary decorative arts. Visitors can experience works in a new way as the exhibition explores how this art was evaluated and appreciated by the local artists and audiences who created and experienced it, through the very words that they themselves used to describe their creations—their language of beauty.
The first survey of Bouabré’s work, and the first exhibition at MoMA devoted to an Ivorian artist, Frédéric Bruly Bouabré: World Unbound spans the artist’s immense production from the 1970s until his death in 2014. A highlight of the exhibition is the Alphabet Bété—Bouabré’s invention of the first writing system for the Bété people, an ethnic group in present-day Côte d’Ivoire to which the artist belonged. Also on view are hundreds of postcard-size illustrations that he drew on cardboard packages of hair products he salvaged from his neighborhood in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire’s economic capital. Tracing the arc of Bouabré’s inventiveness—from the creation of his first writings and drawings focused on the the culture of the Bété, to scenes from everyday life exploring broader themes of democracy, women’s rights, and current affairs—the exhibition celebrates his commitment to collecting, preserving, and sharing knowledge as a way of understanding the world around us.
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.
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.