The Bag Factory turns 30 this year, having finally acquired the building that has become a second home to a community of emerging and established artists. While it is a momentous achievement and their grounding principles remain the same, a lot has changed and needs updating since our doors first opened. They have big plans.

It is with that celebratory spirit in mind, that this year’s edition of the Summer Salon, is titled Bag Factory Re-imagined: 300 Drawings. The Bag Factory is inviting the larger art community to celebrate with us by submitting A3 works on paper (including drawings, paintings, and any mixed media work) that illuminates the future of the Bag Factory but also brings together “our history and legacy”. 300 drawings by 300 artists will be exhibited to highlight the tentacles of the Bag Factory’s reach over the last 30 years.

The work should consider the existing architectural space, urban location, and/or the essential character of the community to breathe new life into it according to the artist’s visions of the future. 

The work should consider the existing architectural space, urban location, and/or the essential character of the community to breathe new life into it according to the artist’s visions of the future.

Some ideas could encompass the following concepts:

• Environmental friendliness
• Green spaces
• Identity and culture: our place in the city and in the world
• Reception: welcome, first impressions
• Public interaction
• Learning
• Light
• Community

Hopping this will encourage Bag Factory’s current arts community and yet-to-join family to highlight the positive aspects of the Bag Factory and reinforce the impact and pivotal role it continue to play in the development of the arts in South Africa, the continent, and the rest of the world. Bag Factory is looking forward to receiving work that communicates a reimagined Bag Factory through a contemporary lens.

If you are interested in participating, please complete the submission here https://bit.ly/3jmD9gV 

DEADLINE FOR SUBMISSIONS: Sunday 29 August 2021, 22:00 (SAST). Incomplete submissions will not be accepted. 

Successful artists will be informed by Friday 03 September 2021.

Important

• All works must be in the format of an A3 work on paper. Artworks not in this format will not beconsidered for the Summer Salon exhibition at the Bag Factory.
• All selected artworks should be delivered to the artist’s nearest drop off point in an A3 envelope.
• The submission form must be printed and securely affixed to the front of the envelope.
• Selected works must be delivered to the artist’s nearest drop off point from Monday 6 September until Friday 10 September 2021 at 4pm. Artworks delivered after this time will miss the courier collection and will not be included in the Summer Salon exhibition at the Bag Factory.
• Unsold works will be returned to the drop off point after the exhibition has ended and must be collected from the relevant drop off point within one week after being requested to do so. Any works not collected by this time may be destroyed by the organisation acting as the drop-off point.

Drop Off Points

• Bag Factory (Johannesburg, Gauteng)
• Greatmore Studios (Cape Town, Western Cape)
• KZNSA (Durban, KZN)
• NWU Gallery (Potchefstroom, North-West)
• WHAG (Kimberley, Northern Cape)
• ARTEC Gallery (Gqeberha, Eastern Cape).

CONTACT

For more information, get in touch with: Zanele Kumalo Communications Manager Bag Factory Artists’ Studios. zanele@bagfactoryart.org.za Tel. +27 11 834 9181. Cel. +27 83 381 874

The post Open Call | The Bag Factory’s 2021 Summer Salon appeared first on Artskop.

Alex Ayivi was born in 1993 in France from Togolese parents and grew up near Paris. He is a French contemporary visual artist. He graduated from the Beaux-Arts de Bourges and later from ENSAV La Cambre in Brussels, in 2018 in printmaking. In 2019, Ayivi benefited from the first residency of the Culture & Diversity Foundation in collaboration with the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, where he exhibited his famous project La MUA for a month.

He also exhibited at the Centre de la Gravure de la Louvière in Belgium. As a second-generation Togolese immigrant, his work explores Afrotopia, Pan-Africanism and family; subjects that are intertwined in an uninterrupted technical wandering. His work is multidisciplinary and borrows from drawing, silk-screening and painting. I met Alex Ayivi in his studio. This is the content of our discussion.

Louise Thurin (L.T): Thank you for accepting this interview in your workspace, Alex. You graduated from the Beaux-arts de Bourges and ENSAV La Cambre in engraving and printmaking. At the end of your studies, you produced a particularly promising and acclaimed first project, “60 years is too much”.

Alex Ayivi (A.A): Thank you. “60 Years is Too Much” was an anticipatory project based on the political crisis in Togo in 2017-1018. Following the dictatorial declarations of Faure Gnassingbé – in presidency since 2005 and “worthy” successor of his father Gnassingbé Eyadéma who ruled the country for 38 years – large-scale protests took place in Lomé with the slogan “50 years is too much”. The aim was to constitutionally prevent Faure from standing for a fourth consecutive presidential run in 2020. It was a familiar, daily, omnipresent subject. At home, we talked about politics all the time. I wanted to deal with the situation and contribute in my own way to this popular resistance movement.

The idea was to create the fictional character of a Togolese journalist and press illustrator called Kossi Sossou, who was killed in 2027 by the forces of law and order during yet another demonstration against the president – who would still be Faure Gnassingbé. I created his identity card, protest tools and a fictitious opposition party to which he was attached, the Ligue for Freedom. The party even had its own t-shirts.

The heart of the project are these silkscreens on cardboard. I attribute these works in this fiction to Kossi Sossou, who has them published in the major Togolese and French-speaking newspapers.

L.T: Why did you choose to create with cardboard?

A.A: It is a simple and beautiful medium. It reminds me of the roots, the resourcefulness, even the urgency – “Quick, I’ll take what I have!”of the signs of the demonstrations I saw organised in front of the Togo embassy in Paris. In Dialogue interrompu, we recognise Nana Akufo-Addo, the president of Ghana, Togo’s neighbour, by his small round glasses. On the left, of course, is Faure Gnassingbé with his youthful features. Back in 2017-2018 when Gnassingbé was scheming, Nana publicly and frontally opposed him. It is the image of a man I hope has integrity that I represented.

A.A: It’s a project that was made at a distance from its subject. I was inspired by the images broadcast in a loop on continuous news channels – hence these effects of superposition, of fragmentation. I was very inspired by the format of the plasma TV screen and if you look closely at this series, you see the scrolling banner motif appearing repeatedly.

L.T: Now that it’s said, some of the motifs remind me of the front pages of Jeune Afrique and the photomontages of election results…. Who are the people in the crowd behind the two men? Supporters plebisciting Gnassingbé? Or Togolese opponents who want to overthrow him?

A.A: It is not clear, but one can make out signs superimposed on them – which also act as a mise en abime of the medium.

L.T: Your characters are represented with closed eyes, blind – and mute: no words, no chanted signs. Only a kind of bubble, in which you do not write.

A.A: Yes, they are empty bubbles. As a nod to the comic strip, which I like very much, but I consider that a text would focus attention too easily. That’s all you might see.

The work Crise – Crisis – depicts a street in Lomé on a day of protest. There is an armed soldier and a military van. Superimposed on the picture is a profile of President Faure, and at the bottom, a scrolling strip of news channels. On the right, there is a sort of bubble and a pie chart, which obviously evokes polling figures and election results. I like all these forms of visual dynamics which TV news are full of these days. There’s beauty, I think, in PowerPoint, screen splits, little logos in the top right-hand corner…

I am pessimistic about Togolese political developments. Elections are always held, well or not. The opposition never manages to stop this charade operated by the military to ensure the illegitimate president in place. Sadly, I feel that I have done this work of foresight: we are approaching “60 years is too long”. In the same way, the utopia of the Monnaie Unique Africaine (MUA) – African Single Currency – is likely to remain a utopia. There is a project for a common West African currency, but it is not happening.

L.T: Tell us about this second project. In 2019, you were the laureate of the first residency of the Fondation Culture et Diversité in collaboration with the Cité internationale des Arts for which you propose the MUA.

A.A: The idea was to create a common pan-African currency that would replace the colonial currency of the CFA Franc. It is a project with a Francophone prism and it is not meant to be perfect. I have put together a non-exhaustive list of African political figures from the 20th century – some classics and some more atypical figures like Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia or Julius Nyerere of Tanzania. All are worth 99 MUA. In this monetary fiction, I did not want to rank the personalities on the currencies.

“Here, give me a cash ticket! – What do you want, 100, 200, 300? Some florins? What do you want?”

L.T: For the opening of the exhibition at the Cité internationale, you did a performance: a distribution of paper money that was quite successful, apparently. The scene reminds me both of mafiosi films and dystopian photographs of German hyperinflation.

I signed the money with a stamp. To dry the ink, we had to fan them. It was a banana republic atmosphere. They were so popular that I even had bundles of them stolen during the exhibition! [laughs] Thomas Sankara greenbacks are now collectors’ items.

L.T: After the success of the MUA in 2019, you took a break from creating. Now you are back and there is a clear technical break in your work.

A.A: Yes, I went back to painting after years of silk-screening. I now concentrate on portraits in dark tones. I never spoke directly about my intimate self in my previous works. This is my cousin. Here, my little brother. Here is my sister – and behind her my little brother again. I often draw him, he’s a good model.

L.T: All your characters have closed eyes. In these paintings, they emanate a certain serenity, relaxation, breathing… They are young contemporary Afros who are resting from their daily life, giving themselves a moment of peace.

A.A: I’ve been using the closed-eye pattern for quite a long time. It just came about. For me, it’s an almost deathlike iconography. The porous ones of eternal sleep and daily rest. The figures I drew for the MUA already had closed eyes – and in fact, are dead.

A.A: I see these family portraits as an album – an album of images that would allow the faces of the first family generation on French ground to be passed on to the next… These representations of people from the African diaspora resonate more generally with current societal issues, at a time of debates concerning “separatism”. What place do the children of the African diaspora have in French society today? What does it mean to be French in 2020 ?

From 2022 to 2023, you were an artist-in-residence at Le Consulat, a period marked by your participation in 100% L’Expo 2022, which revealed a new evolution in your style. Now based at Atelier Œ in Montreuil, how would you describe this transition and the impact this period had on your artistic practice?

That stage was crucial: following an artist residency at Place de Clichy, I joined Le Consulat Voltaire in 2022 after taking part in 100% L’Expo. Le Consulat was my first “open” shared studio — a space where I worked alongside other artists. It felt like a return to art school, and the experience proved to be particularly enriching.

During that time, I drew inspiration from reading, especially The Grammar of Fantasy (1973) by Gianni Rodari, a book that deeply influenced my work. It led me to explore a metaphysical approach to painting on wooden panels, questioning the essence of comics and the narrative codes they rely on.

As we speak, you were recently announced as the winner of the Traversées Africaines Prize, granting you the opportunity to present a solo exhibition at Galerie Mariton in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine. Congratulations! Could you tell us about what went on behind the scenes in preparing for this exhibition?

This solo show is a chance to bring together my painting practice and my wooden sculptures. I developed these sculptural pieces to go beyond the traditional format of the canvas, creating a dialogue between interior and exterior elements.

The first steps of this approach emerged at the end of 2023 in Lille, in collaboration with the Centre Wallonie-Bruxelles, where I presented Superbanc (2023) — my first sculpture directly inspired by my painting practice.

Discover Alex Ayivi’s work in the exhibition Hi-Dee-Hi at Galerie Mariton in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, from May 13 to June 1, 2025, as part of the Traversées Africaines program.

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Richard Armstrong, Director of the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and Foundation, announced the appointment of Naomi Beckwith to the position of Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator. In this role, Beckwith will oversee collections, exhibitions, publications, and curatorial programs and archives at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, and provide strategic direction within the international network of affiliate museums for the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation. A member of the Executive Leadership team, Beckwith will work closely with the Director, Trustees, and staff on planning and implementing strategy across the museum and on its global initiatives. She will play an instrumental role in shaping the museum’s vision. Beckwith joins the Guggenheim from Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where she has held curatorial posts since 2011. Her position at the Guggenheim begins in early June 2021.

“With her highly regarded accomplishments, scholarship that contributes to building a revised canon of art history, and creative projects that connect artists of today with growing audiences, Naomi Beckwith will be a catalytic leader for our outstanding curatorial team,” Armstrong observed. “We warmly welcome Naomi. Her expertise will be invaluable in advancing and amplifying an inclusive range of perspectives within the Guggenheim collection and culture. We look forward to working with her to develop avenues for new research and programming, and to create powerful and meaningful ways to deepen engagement with modern and contemporary art.”

Beckwith said, “One cannot overstate the iconicity and consequence of the Guggenheim Museum—yet, refusing to rest on its laurels, it readily presents projects that disrupt art history’s mythologies. I’m excited to join the Guggenheim and its passionate team at a pivotal moment. I look forward to merging our shared goals of expanding the story of art, and also working to shape a new reality for arts and culture.”

An integral part of the Guggenheim’s senior leadership, Beckwith will provide an overarching intellectual vision for museum programming to be shared with diverse audiences, including local, international, and digital constituents, and in alignment with the museum’s objectives of increased accessibility and inclusion. She will oversee the creation and implementation of the exhibition program in New York and will articulate long-range collection strategies for the growth of all Guggenheim museums. She will advise on all global arts initiatives, will actively partner with the curatorial teams at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao and the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, and will collaborate on the development of collection and programmatic strategies for the future museum in Abu Dhabi.

Beckwith comes to the Guggenheim from the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, where she has served as Manilow Senior Curator since 2018. During her tenure at the MCA, since 2011, her exhibitions and publications have centered on the impact of identity and multidisciplinary practices within contemporary art. She organized and co-organized acclaimed exhibitions such as Howardena Pindell: What Remains to Be Seen, the first survey of the artist, and whose catalogue received the George Wittenborn Memorial Book Award. Beckwith also developed The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now and Homebodies, as well as solo shows on The Propeller Group, Keren Cytter, Leslie Hewitt, William J. O’Brien, and Jimmy Robert; and a project with Yinka Shonibare CBE. Before joining the MCA, Beckwith was Associate Curator at the Studio Museum in Harlem, where she organized exhibitions such as Lynette Yiadom-Boakye: Any Number of Preoccupations (2011) and 30 Seconds off an Inch (2009–10).

Beckwith served on the jury for the 2020 Hugo Boss Prize, administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, and is a member of the curatorial team realizing Grief and Grievance: Art and Mourning in America, an exhibition conceived by the late curator Okwui Enwezor for the New Museum. Beckwith’s other recent shows include The Long Dream, a presentation of 70 Chicago artists organized in response to the pandemic and social unrest; Prisoner of Love, centered around Arthur Jafa’s video phenomenon Love Is the Message, the Message Is Death; and Laurie Simmons: Big Camera/Little Camera, a retrospective that traveled from the Museum of Modern Art Fort Worth. The exhibition catalogue for Duro Olowu: Seeing Chicago, edited by Beckwith, was recognized in the New York Times Best Art Books of 2020. Beckwith serves on the boards of The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts and the Laundromat Project, and she chaired the inaugural Curatorial Leadership Summit at the Armory Show in 2018. She has received fellowships at the Whitney Museum of American Art’s Independent Study Program, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Philadelphia, the Center for Curatorial Leadership, and other institutions. Beckwith holds an MA, with Distinction, from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and a BA in history from Northwestern University in Chicago.

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As young South African artists are challenged with finding pathways to pull through during the Covid-19 pandemic, DuduBloom is one of the few who had the opportunity to exhibit her work, a couple of weeks before the announcement of the South African lockdown. A totally new world overcame a humongous number of artists with hopes of carving a space in the Art world have been affected. Of course, with this reality, comes moments of self – introspection and my last encounter with an exhibition space was at DuduBloom’s much anticipated exhibition, titled, ‘Delicate,Tendency, Response.’

The Cassirer Welz Art Prize gave light to DuduBloom’s work, without the worry of paying for studio time as well art supplies. For a change, artists with great potential, through the important initiative are supported to break into the industry, forging relationships, which would otherwise be difficult to afford, in spaces of historical significance such as the Bag Factory Artist Studios. And in addition, existing in a highly competitive environment, coupled with an economic need to survive.

Now, more than ever, artists, need these kinds of platforms to realize the full spectrum of their creativity. DuduBloom alluded her application to art – making to her own healing process, and candidly created in this movement, weaving together a physicality of her own response to trauma and recovery.

The harsh orange woolen threads spun into shapes, lightly intertwined with light hues of blue, rendering imagery of sacrifice, sensitivity, innocence and courage, precisely distilling restful moments of pause and reflection. As a precursor to what was to follow, stepping into the exhibition, my attention was drawn to a set of isolated miniature works, arranged with the viewers’ eye level,in mind, focusing on the soft cycles on each handful, intricate piece. Each one, deliberately created with string, wool, acrylic and found material. The balance in dealing with trauma galvanized a preparation in triggering a response to healing.

The purposeful offering of small works shows a maturity in a young artists’ practise, underpinned by her studies in printmaking at the arts college, Artist Proof Studios, also situated in downtown Johannesburg. She references the medium as a symbolic link to her elementary entry in re-discovering the many nuances in art-making. With any traumatic experience, it’s an artists’ choice to either reflect the times they’re living in or recalibrate. I understood DuduBloom’ s work in the former, remembering the many parts of her exhibition that remained with me. 

With many arts institutions affected in the fight against Covid-19, the Bag Factory Artist Studios running their own crowdfunding campaign in support of the African art scene, and stands with artists such DuduBloom, working from home, plotting and etching ways to navigate the changing landscape of the Arts, once again.

It is a difficult time but none that will stop Duduzile More. Her 2 week exhibition at Kalashnikovv Gallery, managed by an artist and curator team, illustrated great promise, tenacity and innovation for an era in which visual literacy can be used to unpack intense moments in our lifetime. 

The post A reflection : Dudu More blooms bearing enormous talent appeared first on Artskop.

Dear museums,

Educate me about racism. What purpose do you serve if you’re not speaking with me? Why these empty black facades and extended silences?

One can’t help but notice there has been a certain institutional timidness to speak out in these times of social crisis. Dear museum, young people, your embattled intermediaries and supporters are fighting every day to prove your social utility within their own circles. We bring our friends, our families, our loved ones within your walls. Dear museum, you’re not saying anything. Without you, the fights of the past will die and those of the present will stumble. In this fight against ignorance, where are the pillars of science and history?

It is improper — for whatever reason given — to hold back on widely sharing well-sourced, historical and scientific content, capable of both demonstrating and reaffirming our common humanity. We should not let aberrations seep into our minds. We should not leave any space for foul content on social media. Everyday, we should reassert, with ever greater force, that humanity is one and indivisible. Dear museums, endow the youth with torches of knowledge — we are burning for justice, for truth and for peace.

Museums are far from neutral. In France, they are bastions of the République — conquests of the people. So why this inability to express a pluralistic France to your prime funders, the whole of French citizens? To citizens worldwide who often come through the gates of our country and our museums? Are we now running amusement parks? By saying nothing or publishing a black square — occasionally accompanied by platitudes — what distinguishes you from brands like l’Oréal in your handling of public debates and potential social impact?

Tourism is one of France’s major industries. The Louvre Museum is an open window onto the world, the symbol of the universal museum. Public actions from the museum will necessarily have a worldwide exposure. You, symbol of France who calls itself the Country of Human Rights, why don’t you reassert your positions today?

Together let’s build the foundations for the whole of French society, mainly for the people to whom you fail to speak. For the attentive youth listening — and the youth that will hear your message — give them access to cultural content that is historically and scientifically reliable. Let’s not build this future on illusions. We collectively need resources for intellectual self-defense, to fight against racism, misinformation, hate, conspiracy and fake news.

Dear museums, sharing your content with the masses will make us collectively resilient! We cultivate the desire for truth by spreading it.

Our trust in science, history and arts lays in your walls. You have the responsibility to speak out the truth: the theory of Evolution invalidates all “human races.” Let’s pause your artificial social media plans and massively share your educational material. It is necessary to make space for new practices, for a new paradigm. “We shouldn’t post anything too intelligent, too complex, too heavy. We will scare people away.” When on the contrary we know that intellectual challenge, contemporary open-mindedness and personal reinvention are what open the doors to museums. We demand some sustainable, deep-rooted and layered change, especially with regards to institutional communication on social media. Physically entering the museum is the last step of a process.

Dear museums, what kind of audience (individuals and groups) do you target for your children’s collages activities, which have been a major part of your content creation during these past few months?

To which very particular audience do you address this content? You are well-known and massively followed, you are influential. Online platforms grant you the tools to redirect your respective subscribers to each of your websites, allowing them access to even more resources. Why use this to promote your creative workshops, rather than redirect us toward more artistic, scientific, educational, informative, reliable and current content? Social media certainly is not just an accessory to speak to the younger generation. Social media is at the heart of our societies, it is our global and globalized agora.

Without Covid-19, we would be in the middle of ​Saison Africa 2020. ​What are the participating institutions currently doing? The event might be postponed to December, but why is the pedagogic content sleeping in drawers? Sharing content with useful information for the public isn’t going to ​spoil ​an upcoming exhibition. On the contrary, the more content is informative and dense, the more it opens a window into the museum. Let’s dig deeper together. Let’s nuance together. Let’s think together about which words, images and concepts will deracinate hatred. Let’s bring archives and history into the public space, once again through social media. Dear museums, we are one click away ​from being able to open the public’s eyes to the truth.​ Today, it’s first and foremost​ w​hat you project ​outside y​our walls that matters.

Black Lives Matter doesn’t want merely solidarity, but active engagement, with content — content made widely available inside a single social media platform to widen its volatility, its social impact. On Instagram, historical content is a living, circulating and resurrecting archive. Position yourself as interlocutors of choice, teachers that we go consult again and again after our lessons. Dear museum, your target audience will finally push open your doors, first online, and tomorrow they will walk on your marble floors — we firmly believe it.

How do you interest the youth, capture their attention?

By teaching them to live in this particular month of June 2020, armed with scientific, historical and artistic knowledge gathered by humanity throughout its existence. By instilling your audience that no one person or group owns the future, that the future and the past belong to each one of us, individually and together. If you want to interest all parties, be the voice of all. We will write: “ Incredible! It’s me! This is my life. My human path. Merchants, princes, warriors, slaves, rowers, bandits, heroes… They are me. I am all of them.” Nurture curious hunger — show them that they can no longer just observe but must embark in search for your riches — even if those are just fragments of a mosaic.

Dear museums, your first reflex on social media — especially if you are a small structure with limited time or don’t have a full-time or half-time community manager — should be to ask for help and to engage in the dialogue around your collections with your audience. Your post could go something like this: “Dear followers. We stand together against racism. Is there any antiracist content concerning our collections and our exhibits that you would like to share? Tag us. We would be thrilled to relay them on our account and continue the dialogue.” Very often, “ready-to-be-posted” content already exists, created by dozens of serious and well-sourced “historical accounts with an informative goal.” Amplify their passion and content.

The entirety of your exhibitions’ scientific and pedagogic content must be available to everyone, always and forever — thus ensuring the lasting quality of an exhibition’s message even after it closes. This includes image archives, artworks analyses, interviews, historical documents, pedagogical tools, detailed records of intra-institutional actions, condensed talks and round-tables…

There is no “museum neutrality,” especially when it comes to racism.

In order to deconstruct our shared beliefs for the benefit of historical facts, observations and realties, we — and museums first — must:

– Spread and rethink afro-diasporic representations throughout time and the historical manifestations of their presence well before the 16th century. Reevaluate the history of all African territories by emphasizing their plurality, diversity and evolution throughout time.

– Cast a stronger light on contemporary social sciences produced by the researchers in our universities and develop the instinct to constantly adapt to ever evolving conversations — especially those having to do with pedagogical content. We don’t want a piecemeal museum that excludes the realities of its area of expertise.

– Rethink the representation of African arts’ aesthetics by emphasizing their plurality and evolution through time. Dear architecture museums, highlight their architectural diversity, in ancient and modern times.

– Refute the recurrent themes of primitivism, savagery and exotism. If needed, retitle artworks, renew and densify museum labels.

– Place colonialism as being at the center of the formation of the world we live in today. One cannot pretend to know the history of Europe if one doesn’t acknowledge its colonial history.

It is imperative to understand what happened in the last four centuries to understand who we are and how we interact as a whole, as communities and as individuals. Promote initiatives, notably in the context of cultural cooperation, of documentaries, docu-fictions of African peoples, kingdoms, empires and diasporic historical figures.

-Systematize the conceptualization of cultural eras as being porous and of travelers being numerous — especially in the Antiquity and the Middle Ages — thus counter striking discourses of “national narrative” polluted by antediluvian ethnic homogeneity. Let’s rethink the history of cultural exchanges: it isn’t a conspiracy theory — men and ideas have always crossed borders.

Archeological museums, publicly deconstruct the co-opting of your resources by historians of the past and storytellers of the present, who use you to validate their discriminatory behaviors and racist “national narrative.” Roman archeology museums, tell us about Roman expeditions in Subsaharan Africa; explain why antique slavery or the eventual annexion to the Roman Empire is in no way comparable to modern slavery and its religious and pseudo-scientific content. Anti-black racism is a datable construct.

To finish, theories about “human races” among ​Homo Sapiens​ are an aberration. Anthropologic museums: spam us with your content, especially by shining a light on the Evolution theory, whose reaffirmation is very much needed.

We’ve compiled, at this time, the reactions of eight French cultural institutions towards the Black Lives Matter movement in the US (while its French “equivalents” — notably JUSTICE POUR ADAMA demonstrations — are never quoted explicitly). Five of them were short declarations of empathy. One was also tagged with #alllivesmatter. None resemble a massive sharing of content directly on social media.

Black lives matter is a call to action, not solidarity.

“The senseless murder of George Floyd, the last of a harrowing list, reminds us that there is a long way to achieve racial equality — and the time to act is now. Museums are not neutral. They are not separate from their social context, the structures of power and the struggles of their communities. And when it does seem like they are separate, that is a choice — the wrong choice.

As highly trusted institutions in our societies, museums have the responsibility and duty to fight racial injustice and anti-black racism at all levels, from the stories they tell to the diversity of their personnel. Behind every museum there are people. Each and every one of us must choose to hold ourselves accountable for our own prejudices and check our own privileges. We must choose to address racism in our own circles, and be open to learn how to better ourselves. We must choose to amplify the voices and achievements of Black communities around the world.

Behind every museum there are people. Each and every one of us must choose to hold ourselves accountable for our own prejudices and check our own privileges. We must choose to address racism in our own circles, and be open to learn how to better ourselves.”

Statement from Lonnie G. Bunch, secretary of the Smithsonian and co-chair of ICOM US (3 June 2020).

“Demand antiracist education — The reaction of French museums to Black Lives Matter”​ is the translation of the Open letter​ “Cher musée… — La réaction des institutions muséales au mouvement Black Lives Matter” ​by​ Louise Thurin​, student at Ecole du Louvre — with the help of ​Zélie Caillol​, student at ICART Paris.

This translation was made possible with the much needed help of ​Mona Varichon​, ​Sandie Ngoyi ​and ​Wilson Tarbox​.

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Artskop3437 talked with the artistic director of the MACAAL: Meriem Berrada. It was an opportunity to discuss the challenges of the profession and her vision of the museum. In her opinion, “Each museum should have the role offered by its territory, which its audiences need and respond to the realities of its ecosystem”.

Meriem Berrada, for those who don’t know you yet, what is your mission as Artistic Director of the Museum of African Contemporary Art Al-Maaden (MACAAL)?

As Managing Director of the cultural projects of the Alliances Foundation, I was first of all in charge of the development of the MACAAL through the elaboration of its scientific and cultural project. Since its opening in 2016, I have been in charge of the programming of exhibitions – sometimes their curating -, the content creation and the design of the mediation programme. I am also in charge of all the museum’s editions and publications since we do everything in-house. I also oversee the implementation of all these actions by managing the teams.

Also, my mission involves strategy and development in terms of communication but also the setting up of structuring programmes for MACAAL.

Can you tell us more about some of the projects you have put in place since the creation of MACAAL?

In 2017, I conceived the MACAAL Lab as a space for experimentation aimed at enhancing and raising awareness of contemporary practices: one room of the museum is specifically dedicated to the work of an artist whose practice includes the use of new media (sound, video, installation). This is accompanied by a programme of free workshops, in the presence of the artist, on the process of creation of the work, its realization and the use of new technologies in art.

More recently, we were able to implement a transmission project that I had at heart, the MACAAL Bootcamp. It is designed to strengthen the skills of cultural agents working specifically in the contemporary art sector on the continent. This intensive training programme was held for the first time last January. Combining workshops and masterclasses on the sector’s fundamental knowledge, led by mentors with inspiring backgrounds, this groundbreaking training in cultural management applied to the reality of our ecosystems will hopefully contribute to equipping our institutions with leaders and not mere operators.

How do you curate an exhibition? How do you decide what will or can be presented in the museum (themes, artistic practices, artists, geographies)?

With a biannual exhibition rhythm, our programming is inseparable from the age of the museum. While the first exhibitions aimed to anchor the MACAAL in its pan-African dimension, by showing the works in the patrons’ collection, the selection has gradually been narrowed down to “projects” in their own right, giving a special place to the commissioning of works. The opening of the MACAAL Residence has also made it possible to produce more works because, in addition to the four annual winners of the residency programme, we welcome the artists presented in the museum’s exhibitions.

“I am convinced that a project, equipment or any action must be relevant to the context in which it takes place. (…) The environment can offer unique opportunities for dialogue and knowledge, of which artistic creation is in my opinion one of the most relevant vehicles.

Meriem Berrada, Artistic Director of the MACAAL

We never self-impose a specific theme but remain in connection with our environment and current news, without distancing ourselves from the museum’s DNA. It is above all the project of a collector, of a family who wanted to make their collection available to the general public and it has always seemed important to me to keep this spirit in the accomplishment of my mission. For many audiences, the reality of contemporary African art was a discovery. Often reduced to a primitive and colourful figuration, it was necessary to show the diversity and quality of artistic expression and its various mediums, coming from the four corners of the continent (Essentiel Paysage, E-mois autobiography of a collection, Second Life), but also to make connections, particularly through the exhibition Esoteric Writings where the alphabet of Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (Ivory Coast) was able to dialogue with that of Houssein Miloudi (Morocco).

As well, generally the reopening exhibitions are more focused on the collection and our most recent acquisitions. For the February exhibitions, which we inaugurate at the 1:54 fair, we invite an independent curator who does not systematically rely on the existing collection.

Our exhibitions are multi-media, except for Africa is no island which was dedicated to photography and which was in itself a manifest exhibition because it invited to see Africa in its complexity and diversity and not as a homogeneous block.

Even before your position at the museum, you were in charge of various artistic projects within the Alliances Foundation, the foundation that initiated the creation of MACAAL. Among your many projects, we can mention the chambre claire, a programme to support emerging photographers from Africa, or the passerelle programme, which is a sort of cross-grant programme combining a cultural approach and a social centre through workshops to raise awareness of contemporary creation in peripheral urban areas. It seems that you have brought with you a certain vision of what a cultural engagement in a territory can be. What is your vision for MACAAL? How do you see the role of a Museum in the 21st century?

Indeed, I am convinced that a project, equipment or any action must be relevant to the context in which it takes place. As hostile as it may be, the environment can offer unique opportunities for dialogue and knowledge, of which artistic creation is in my opinion one of the most relevant vehicles.

Personally, I believe that our professions only make sense if we can show, appropriate and share this common heritage with the greatest number of people. Obviously the question of a contemporary art reserved for an elite is not the only issue of the continent but the cleavages are unfortunately more marked there than elsewhere, the conditions of accessibility largely improvable and go beyond the question of the cost or the geography of the cultural equipment. That is why it is essential, here more than elsewhere, to seek out the public and not simply wait for them to come to us.

The demand is there and I can tell you that in six years I have never faced the slightest refusal from the public to participate in a mediation program, a visit or a workshop, either at the museum or in the peri-urban areas where we have activated the Gateways program. In my opinion, the museum must be as inclusive as possible, obviously connected (especially for young people) and offer a diversified programme in order to optimise its attractiveness. But once again, each museum should have the role that its territory offers it, which its audiences need and respond to the realities of its ecosystem.

With numerous programs such as the bootcamp, the MACAAL Lab, workshops, artist residencies, film club, tea party, yoga festival, we witness that the Museum seems to position itself as a real place to live, more inclusive than other museums. It invites appropriation by all. Do you think this is the key to the future for museums?

I think that, despite everything, contemporary art continues to impress and that the main barrier to access to the Museum remains psychological. I would say that we have been working on the habit of consuming museum equipment in the lives of our visitors, inviting them to join us for any kind of occasion. For example, Couscous Friday’s is a monthly action that invites different communities-which we identify or who ask us for free visits-to share a dish synonymous with conviviality in the museum gardens. By bringing couscous into the museum, one desacralizes a place by living a weekly ritual while at the same time discovering the artistic creation of its time.

The importance that I give to territorial, local, national or continental anchoring, the specificities of the audiences are all parameters that do not allow us to apply existing models because they are simply not adapted to our realities (…).

Merriem Berrada, Artistic Director of the MACAAL

We remain primarily dedicated to the promotion of the continent’s contemporary art, but it seemed more relevant to us to make it a real living space, with the possibility of finding other centres of interest, perhaps more popular and therefore more accessible. We have taken the gamble that the so-called remote public or even those with little interest in contemporary art, by discovering the MACAAL through a free and festive occasion (concert, open-air cinema), a tea break, a yoga session, can integrate the museum into their consumption habits, firstly event-driven and finally cultural. This approach may not be applicable to all museum facilities but it seems certain to me that inclusion is an essential key.

Do you think that museums on the African continent should build their own models according to local realities and not on Western models? In other words, is a museum in Africa different from one elsewhere in the world?

I am convinced that here, more than elsewhere, we must create our own approaches, and I deliberately do not use the word “model”. This is what we have been doing from the outset at the Foundation and at MACAAL, whether through our programmes or our exhibitions. The importance that I give to territorial, local, national or continental anchoring, the specificities of the audiences are all parameters that do not allow us to apply existing models because they are simply not adapted to our realities and would only be counter-productive in the work of demystifying contemporary art, appropriation by the audiences, enhancement of the artistic scene etc.

For example, we have recently reviewed the LCC program offerings due to the paradigm shift in emerging photography in Africa. Indeed, when we created the program in 2013 there was no such approach and offering the production of a solo exhibition made sense. Today, applicants to the programme have often already exhibited, but they have more needs for strengthening, for feedback on their work, for networking and the solo show is no longer an end in itself. This is why we have chosen to support structuring initiatives.

I think it’s a real strength to be able to question models, to question everything, and thinking out of the box is part of the way we work. Today I realise that this room for manoeuvre is a luxury, because when I work with Western structures, I feel frustrated by the lack of flexibility of spirit that some professionals allow themselves. Sometimes it even seems counterproductive in our profession, as it can neutralise creativity.

This is no longer a scoop, since the arrival of Covid-19, the artistic sector has been strongly impacted. Also forcing cultural institutions to imagine new ways of staying in touch with their audiences. How is MACAAL dealing with this situation? What lessons could be learned from this experience?

For the moment, we are experiencing it a little like everyone else: virtually above all. So we are maximizing content development, accessibility and trying to understand its impact through digital.

There are big questions today, but I am afraid that we cannot draw any conclusions at the moment because we do not know when we will be able to reopen our doors or under what conditions. The digital alternative makes it possible to continue to exist but it does not feed into the value chain in a sustainable way. It is certain that the fact that we have reduced our horizons to the walls of our homes can only make us question the relevance of what we thought was essential. Today, deprived of these possibilities, we need to rethink our way of doing things. To sum up, I would go towards a less frenetic pace and more reinforcement.

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Palesa. S. Motsumi : You studied at the Pasadena Art Centre, having had that experience, how do you navigate your own journey as a relatively young artist in the U. S.?

February James : I don’t believe that going to school makes you an artist.  School can’t teach you how to be an artist, we’re all born creators of something.  For me school is a personal goal – that’s why for the most part I’ve held it close to my chest.  My younger brother is a mathematician.  He’s  currently pursuing a PHD and is the only other person in my family who has graduated from a four year program and beyond.  I say this to point out to the fact that I don’t come from a family of scholars.  Getting a job after receiving your high-school diploma was the bar.  So, school and furthering my education has always been a personal goal whether I was painter or a plumber.  I live in perpetual state of curiosity and I’m always looking for ways to challenge myself.  

The figures in your works are quiet complex in the way you have articulated them and have a real sense of familiarity of people we may encounter in our daily lives, anywhere. What comes to mind when creating work of such significance in your studio?

I’m not the type of artist who has a notion and then seeks materials to carry it out.  There is a motif and then I lose it.  It’s almost as if I’m constantly in pursuit of the portrait.  I don’t sketch out ideas first, I’m horrible at that. The essentiality of my paintings is the evasiveness and that there are questions unanswered.  I find out what’s happening through the work.  To some extent trying to write about the work is quite arduous at times,  as what I make can happen before the meaning springs up and out.  It’s like hearing a joke and getting the punchline later.  It’s a process that I respect and I’ve come to love and honor about my practice.  This is why experimentation is very important to me.  I’m challenged to learn through failing, to move through it, too discover and to be play.     

What has been your biggest challenge as an artist in the times we are experiencing, right now?  

I would have to say the grief that knowledge carries with it.  Hearing about all the front-line workers; families that are facing the threat of losing their home ; families who’ve lost loved ones.  The devastating weight that this pandemic carries. 

You work within the company of mixed media. Was this a choice that you initially felt drawn to while studying in Pasadena? Or was it a decision taken later?  

My studies at the Art Center are as recent as 2018.  I’ve always worked simultaneously with water color and oil pastels and traversed through other mediums.  With the oil pastels, I’m really drawn to these swells of color and gesture.  With watercolor and ink, I feel nurtured and seen as the faces emerge from the page.  Working with clay is my most recent endeavor and that did pick up at the Art Center.  The manipulation of clay involves a lot of manners of tactile and gestural experiences that can be considered primal, relational ways to make contact with others and the world.  What I’m unable to say with paint I can say with clay.  

The subject of family and connections is quite personal and political in many ways – what can the regular or new online visitor to 1 : 54 Art Fair expect from you, this year?   

I think we’ll all be surprised; me included.  I am more focused however on breathing more life into the characters.  Who are they?  Where are they?  What do they have to say?

Now, when I learn about artists in other parts of the world, I always wonder what kind of artist they are. What kind of artist are you?

I’m still figuring out what type of artist I am everyday.  I am grounded in who I am and my craft, yet with each new body of work I find out new things about myself, as an artist – what I want to say and why I want to say it.  Then, there are times when I’m left searching through movement.

This article is part of the Interview Series 1-54 in partnership with Artskop3437.

The works of February James will be presented by  Luce Gallery  as part of of the 1-54 online edition on Artsy, available to all on 6 May 2020. February James can be followed on Instagram @februaryjames

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In light of the current pandemic, Ellen Agnew for Artskop3437 spoke to Mlengeya to find out more about her work and practice – especially during these trying times.

Ellen Agnew: Your works focus primarily on the lives of black women, specifically on the “ties between women and the roles unity, support and friendship have in re-constructing their position in society”. Could you perhaps expand on this – how do these ‘notions’ inform women’s societal standing?

Sungi Mlengeya: I know how important it is to be close to people who share the same views as I do, or – more importantly – people who inspire me. 

If people believe in a certain way of life religiously because that is what was passed on to them, without having any instinctive insights nor influence of a person who thinks differently and questions these practices, they will continue to practice that way of life without question and also pass it on to others – it is difficult to change. 

So, when a person in a community is brave enough to question norms, and is backed up by likeminded people and they inspire others to think differently, it becomes easier to achieve movement towards a better standing, through their unified voice.

E.A: Working in acrylic paint on canvas, you explore ‘space’ in a minimalistic manner. What is your thinking behind this, and how does it relate to your focus on black women’s lives?

I stumbled into the minimalist space in one of the earliest paintings I made, and I remember how free I felt knowing that I could choose to paint or leave out anything I wanted, and that I could still be bold by being simple. Using negative space makes me focus more on my subjects, and the high contrast it creates makes it difficult not to pay attention to them.

For the longest time, black women have been associated with hardship and suffering. In my paintings, they rise above all this and become just themselves, giving them the focus that they deserve to be glorified for who they are. The white space becomes a place where these women can be their true and free selves without distraction.

Your body of work, titled Optimism and which was recently exhibited at the Investec Cape Town Art Fair in Cape Town, South Africa, focused on the notion of hope and remaining optimistic. Now, as the entire world finds ourselves in a space of immense uncertainty due to the spread of COVID-19 – would you say that this body of work – or perhaps your work overall – has taken on a whole new meaning?

In these uncertain times, my paintings carry the same meaning, stronger now more than ever; which is to remain strong and optimistic and continue to work towards achieving our desired state – being able to get back to the everyday lives we chose. 

In exploring ‘space’ in your work, you’ve mentioned that this space represents “a place of calm, free and detached from social norms and restrictions, real and imagined, that have altered complete liberty”. With the current limit of both movement and space – a complete alteration of our physical understanding of liberty – how are you navigating this concept within your work?

The space in my work refers to a place that we are longing for. It refers to a freedom of movement and space that we are currently missing – and so can be included in this state that is desired. 

Although this freedom can only be achieved in the future, we are doing what we need to do today to achieve it tomorrow. One of the things I’ve come to learn is that there are certain freedoms that have to be sacrificed in the short term so that they can be enjoyed more sustainably in the long term. 

The space referred to in my work could therefore also be a place of action to include things that are being done now for the future, that is sacrificing our freedom of movement and space so that we can continue to enjoy them later, for longer.

Lastly – how has Tanzania responded to the pandemic, and in turn, how has this response affected your practice? Could you give us an idea of what it’s currently like to be a practicing artist, living and working under some form of ‘lockdown’?

The Tanzanian government has closed schools and other educational institutions, and restricted unnecessary public gatherings, but I have been in Uganda during this time and there is more strict lockdown here. I still paint everyday so despite the absence of social life, my routine has not been heavily affected. I’m grateful that I can still create.

This article is part of the Interview Series 1-54 in partnership with Artskop3437.

The works of Sungi Mlengeya will be presented by Afriart Gallery as part of of the 1-54 online edition on Artsy, available to all on 6 May 2020.

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After raising almost 1.4 million rand for the South African Solidarity Fund last week, with the digital exhibition “Staring Straight to the Future”. Everard Read galleries present “Us” – their second digital exhibition in support of the South African Solidarity Fund, created by President Cyril Ramaphosa in response to the Covid-19 pandemic. Once again, 50% of the proceeds, after payment to the artists, will go directly to the Fund.

“Us” brings together 27 artists from across South Africa. In addition to directing half the proceeds to the Solidarity Fund, the exhibition also aims to continue to sustain the livelihoods of many self-employed artists as well as studio and foundry staff. 

At a time when South Africa is facing a health and economic crisis without precedent in the history of its democracy, the artists and the Everard Read team wish to contribute with these exhibitions to the collective effort to help prevent the spread of the virus, care for those who are ill, and support those whose lives have been disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“As the lockdown continues in South Africa and around the world, we hope that these digital exhibitions will continue to harness the generosity of our communities and make a small contribution towards protecting health workers at the front line and assisting those whose lives have been disrupted by the pandemic.”

Everard Read teams

Click HERE to request the portfolio

Participating artists: Sanell Aggenbach, Beezy Bailey, Deborah Bell, Nic Bladen, Norman Catherine, Ricky Dyaloyi, Vusi Khumalo, Jop Kunneke, Dylan Lewis, Paula Louw, Michael MacGarry, Speelman Mahlangu, Nelson Makamo, IO Makandal, Colbert Mashile, Setlamorago Mashilo, Ignatius Mokone, Brett Murray, Nigel Mullins, Richard Penn, Tanya Poole, Caryn Scrimgeour, Lionel Smit, Andrzej Urbanski, Elize Vossgatter, Barbara Wildenboer & Neill Wright.

For more information please contact:

LONDON Georgie Shields georgie@everardlondon.com / +44 7785 227581

CAPE TOWN Charles Shields charles@everard.co.za / +27 83 450 0915

JOHANNESBURG Mark Read mark@everard.co.za / +27 83 441 8064

To make a donation to the Fund directly visit: www.solidarityfund.co.za

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Goodman Gallery is holding a charity fundraising sale to support the Witkoppen Clinic in Johannesburg

In South Africa, with an already overwhelmed public health care system, vast numbers of lives are at risk from COVID-19. At this unprecedented time, Goodman Gallery is asking for your help in raising funds for their charity partner Witkoppen Health and Welfare Clinic, a non-profit organisation which services 1.3 million people across the most deprived communities in Johannesburg. To support the clinic, Goodman Gallery is selling a series of limited edition covers, designed by artists from the gallery, which 100% of profits will go directly to Witkoppen Clinic to enable them to engineer new programmes to cope in this moment of great need.

Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin

For the past twenty years, Broomberg & Chanarin have engaged in a forensic and paranoid interrogation of the medium of photography in search of its source code; the cultural, emotional, political and financial currency of photographs. This work is a reference to their 2018 solo exhibition Bandage the knife not the wound, in which the artists reflected on their precarious sense of place and belonging to their homeland (South Africa), to photography and to each other by turning to the handful of images that remain meaningful to them.

Nolan Oswald Dennis

Nolan Oswald Dennis is an interdisciplinary artist from Johannesburg, South Africa. His practice explores what he calls ‘a black consciousness of space’ : the material and metaphysical conditions of decolonisation.

His work questions the politics of space and time through a system-specific, rather than site-specific approach. He is concerned with the hidden structures that pre-determine the limits of our social and political imagination. Through a language of diagrams, drawings and models he explores a hidden landscape of systematic and structural conditions that organise our political sub-terrain. This sub-space is framed by systems which transverse multiple realms (technical, spiritual economic, psychological, etc) and therefore Dennis’ work can be seen as an attempt to stitch these, sometimes opposed, sometimes complimentary, systems together. To read technological systems alongside spiritual systems, to combine political fictions with science fiction.

Ghada Amer and Reza Farkhondeh

Ghada Amer has received widespread attention for her thickly embroidered canvases that feature fragmented erotic imagery sourced from pornographic magazines. Originally produced to inspire lust, in Amer’s hands the pornographic images are transformed into meditations on the private nature of ecstasy. “I liked the idea of representing women through the medium of thread because it is so identified with femininity,” she once said. “I wanted to ‘paint’ a woman with embroidery, too.” Otherwise known as a painter and sculptor, Amer has dedicated her career to a highly personal exploration of femininity in various contexts. Her 2008 mid-career survey at the Brooklyn Museum included paintings, sculpture, illustration, performances, and installation pieces that explored the mysteries of love, war, and violence.

Samson Kambalu

Samson Kambalu is an artist and writer working in a variety of media, including site-specific installation, video, performance and literature. His work is autobiographical and approaches art as an arena for critical thought and sovereign activities. Born in Malawi, Kambalu’s work fuses aspects of the Nyau gift-giving culture of the Chewa, the anti-reification theories of the Situationist movement and the Protestant tradition of inquiry, criticism and dissent. He has been featured in major exhibitions and projects worldwide, including the Dakar Biennale (2014, 2016), Tokyo International Art Festival (2009) and the Liverpool Biennial (2004, 2016). He was included in All the World’s Futures, Venice Biennale 2015, curated by Okwui Enwezor.

The blankets are made each in an edition of 50 and sold for £500 GBP. We are so grateful for your support, every sale will go directly to saving lives in South Africa. Thank You.

Please note: Due to the current state of quarantine, delivery will be delayed until South African shipping channels are reopened. Witkoppen Clinic, however, has urgent needs right now and your support would be invaluable at this time. 

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