Aspire Art Auctions and the French auction house Piasa collaborated for a second time to present a large scale auction of Modern and Contemporary African art – this time in Paris

A healthy and stable market

The auction took place last night, Wednesday 24 June, and although the fallout of COVID-19 has resulted in extraordinary social and economic changes and challenges the world over, the resounding strength of the auction demonstrates that despite present difficulties, the art market remains robust. Although the bullish prices that have peppered the market on occasion have declined, and which often obscure readings of the sector’s actual standing, the sale’s sturdy results indicate a healthy market holding steady. Moreover, it demonstrates that art trading has resumed successfully, and that borders reopening and restrictions being relaxed globally bodes well for the future of the market.

Aspire and Piasa have put together an impressive collection of 173 artworks by 85 artists from 19 African countries that went under the hammer last night.  

At a time when the world seems to be larger and more divided than before, this auction is a crowning example of what can be accomplished in these trying times, especially by virtue of innovation and collaboration. Not only did it grow Aspire’s reach and status as the first auction house on the African continent to champion modern and contemporary art from Africa in Europe, but also provides an unmistakable reminder that top-quality art remains resilient in the face of adversity.

Top lots

The auction was led by the cover lot; William Kentridge’ s important 1989 drawing from Johannesburg, 2nd Greatest City after Paris (Soho Eating) which sold for €234,000. Another mixed media work by Kentridge Electrical Industries (Rodchenko), Alphabet Coloré sold for €18,200, almost three times its high estimate.

Joseph Ntensibe’s large-scale dreamlike depiction of tropical greenery stole the show when it sold for more than double its high estimate at an impressive €67,600, the second highest price achieved at auction for this artist. The Ugandan artist’s concern with ecology and the changing environment, and in particular the disappearing forests in rural Uganda, resonated with many bidders.

Irma Stern’s exquisite 1943 portrait of Dora Sowden, the eccentric music and arts critic for the Johannesburg-based progressive newspaper The Rand Daily Mail during the 1940s and 1950s achieved €182,000. A rare and early bronze sculpture by Edoardo Villa, Figure with Drapery, attracted substantial interest realising a stellar €54,600 – a historic record for a work by this artist sold in his native Europe.

Records

A new world auction record (for a single work) by David Goldblatt was achieved for a rare platinum print – A miner waits on the bank to go underground, City Deep Gold Mine, 1996 – which sold for €32,500.

Zimbabwean artists fared well too. Kudzanai Chiurai’s mixed media work Untitled VIII (Auto and the Workers Movement) sold for €22,100 and Fountain by painter Misheck Masamvu, an artist relatively new to the secondary market, sold for €20,800, toppling his previous auction record also set by Aspire.

Highlitghs

Peter Clarke’s powerful triptych, The Crossing from 1987, impressed serious collectors and achieved a firm €37,700. This was the first time that a work by this prominent South African artist appeared on auction in mainland Europe.

Paintings by renowned Congolese painter Chéri Samba sold well – Lutte Contre Les Moustiques sparked competitive bidding and achieved €58,500 – almost double the high estimate.

Young starEddy Kamuanga Ilunga (from the DRC) proved that he remains one of the artists to watch when his impressive large scale painting sold for €50,700.

Contemporary African Art auction

On June 24th

Piasa Paris VIEW THE FULL RESULTS

118 Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré

Paris, France

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Contemporary art currently accounts for 15% of the global secondary art market and is now the third largest collecting segment by auction turnover ($1.89 billion). Dynamic in nature, the contemporary art market represents an arena of unbounded discoveries, constantly fueled by new works and artists entering the scene. Aspire Art Auctions continues to prevail in this sector, currently holding the world auction records for works by: Moshekwa Langa, Sam Nhlengethwa, Mohau Modisakeng, Zander Blom, Georgina Gratrix and Simphiwe Ndzube amongst others. In South Africa, the auction house hold the records for works by William Kentridge, Pieter Hugo and Mikhael Subotzky.

An outstanding auction

Introducing the contemporary collection is an impressive range of drawings and sculpture by William Kentridge. Topped in value at R3–5million, Kentridge’s large scale mixed media work Whilst Reaching Down (Slowly), 2013, is a series of drawings on dictionary paper. 

Filmed in sequence, they become an animation, forming a progression of images in which Kentridge explores his inter-related interests in drawing, text and film.  Another drawing from this series as well as an animation with music and singing by Neo Muyanga, is currently on view in the exhibition, William Kentridge: Why Should I Hesitate? Putting Drawings to Work at Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town.

Works by Kudzanai Chiurai (Zimbabwe), Zemba Luzamba (Congo) and Kay Hassan, as well as Wim Botha and Zander Blom alongside Mustafa Maluka’s large painting We forgot how life’s supposed to be, and Moshekwa Langa’s Untitled abstract in blue ink add to the strength of the overall contemporary offering.

Other highlights include a striking city-scape Full Moon, 2017 by the late, much celebrated David Koloane as well as delicate works on paper by Pascale Marthine Tayo (Cameroon) and Kemang Wa Lehulere.

Spotlight on a new generation

The collection also introduces a new generation of bright young stars with works by Simphiwe Ndzube, Ruby Swinney, Pierre Vermeulen and Jody Paulsen.

Photography Auction

Aspire has made meaningful advances in developing the market for photography at auction, and the carefully curated selection of photographic works will excite discerning collectors. Included are works by some of the best-known, established and emerging, names in film and photography from Africa, some of whom are making their South African auction debut.

Rarely exhibited in South Africa is an early 1980s photograph Every Mother’s Son / Children of Suffering by the late Nigerian/British photographer Rotimi Fani-Kayode. His work investigates the body politic and queer identity – one of the first photographers to do so. Fani-Kayode’s archive is enjoying a renaissance of international critical engagement and re-assessment following his inclusion in recent survey exhibitions and publications in the UK.

Three examples from influential Benin photographer Leonce Raphael Agbodjélou draw upon his hallmark portrait vernacular. In 2013, Agbodjélou won the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize from London’s National Portrait Gallery.

Kenyan artist Cyrus Kabiru was listed among the top artists represented at Paris Photo in 2019. Macho Nne 09 (Caribbean Peacock), 2014 is a striking image, typical of his meticulously crafted self-portraits from his C-STUNNER series.

Guy Tillim’s 2008 photograph Apartment building, Avenue Bagamoyo, Beira, Mozambique holds pride of place as the cover of his lauded book Avenue Patrice Lumumba. This image has, for over a decade, served as a catalyst for institutional discussion around the relationship between photography, architecture and society in Africa, whilst enjoying a lengthy roster of international exhibitions.

Legendary photographer David Goldblatt is represented with seminal images from his famous photo books Some Afrikaners Photographed and TJ/Johannesburg Photographs including the highly sought-after work – A railway shunter who dreamed of a garden without concrete or bricks, watered by this dam, Koksoord, Randfontein. 1962. Aspire currently holds the world auction record for Goldblatt’s work and continues to dominate this market globally.

Other highlights include photographic works by Athi-Patra Ruga, Mary Sibande, the brothers Hasan & Husain Essop, Nyaba Ouedraogo (Burkina Faso), Mario Macilau (Mozambique) and Mohau Modisakeng.

All works on auction will be exhibited from 12 – 14 February at OroAfrica House, 170 Buitengracht Street, Cape Town.

Download the e-Catalogue here.

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Born into a wealthy Jewish family, his father was a money-changer at the Imperial Court. After high school, he entered the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts in 1875. He trained at the Vienna Academy in 1872 but moved to France in 1878, and studied with the history painter Jean-Paul Laurens, to whom he owed his academic style. He specializes in orientalist painting. Deutsch was the leading Orientalist painter of the Austrian school, which also included Rudolf Ernst, Arthur von Ferraris, and Rudolf Weisse.

From 1883 onwards, Deutsch made four trips to Egypt, and the oriental subjects that dominated his work from then on brought him unprecedented praise. The polished surfaces and extremely precise hallucinatory realism of his paintings are based on a vast collection of photographs he assembled in Cairo.

In The Goza Smoker,1884, Deutsch turns his ethnographic eye to a familiar and enduring motif in Orientalist art, the Arab smoker in idle repose. Far from a transcript of reality, however, or merely another example of a popular theme, Deutsch’s picture includes details that complicate its meaning and allude to the sophisticated artistry behind its composition.

The man in Deutsch’s painting wears a traditional striped qumbaz beneath a heavier outer robe. To those familiar with Deutsch’s art, the appearance of these specific blue, red, and yellow-gold garments would not have been surprising, as they were repeated often in his oeuvre and may have been drawn from the artist’s own collection of textiles and exotic goods. In his right hand, the man grasps a goza, or pipe, featuring a large brass bowl carved with Islamic designs. Built for portability and meant to be held rather than set upon the ground, this somewhat archaic form of Egyptian hookah is distinguished by a stiff bamboo stem rather than a flexible hose. The direct flow of smoke from bowl to mouth that this construction allows made it a particular favourite among smokers of tombiek, ajamy, and other traditional and fragrant tobaccos such as jurak and zaghloul, as well as among 19th century enthusiasts of hashish and stronger drugs. The man’s posture here is relaxed and informal and his sideways stare is unfocused and blank. Lost in thought – or perhaps in the effects of the unspecified substance that he smokes – Deutsch has created an unlikely protagonist in this otherwise characteristic work, sprawled languidly upon his mashrabiyah, or turned wood, throne.

The formidable doorway behind the Arab figure – likely the entrance to a private palace rather than a mosque or madrasa, given the man’s apparently inebriated state – offers evidence of Deutsch’s extensive use of well-known pattern books and popular prints. Here the reference may be to the architectural designs of Owen Jones or the numerous portals recorded by the great French artist and scholar Achille Prisse d’Avennes, a favorite resource of Deutsch’s for his art (see The Qanun Player). Deutsch’s eclectic personal library, in fact, is visible throughout his painted scenes. It is testament to his skill as an artist that the results are invariably so seamless and so real.

In 1900, three years after painting The Offering, Deutsch received a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle in Paris, and later the Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur.

In The Qanun Player,1903, Ludwig Deutsch creates a work that is both instantly familiar and entirely new. A bearded man, seated cross-legged upon a carpet on the floor, plays the qanun, a traditional stringed instrument indigenous to the Middle East. He is observed by a second Arab figure, leaning against an intricately patterned wall. The room itself is rich in ornamental detail, with colourful inlaid stonework, elaborate wooden carvings, and an enormous mashrabiyyah window, through which the soft glow of sunlight streams. The mood of Deutsch’s picture is soothing and subdued; this is a different kind of Orientalism than what was offered by his peers, one in which drama and eroticism have no place.

The setting of Deutsch’s picture is significant, if not architecturally exact. Though European travellers had provided descriptions of domestic architecture in the Middle East by the early 18th century, serious study of the region’s private buildings did not begin until the work of Napoleon’s Scientific and Artistic Commission in Egypt in 1798, headed by Vivant Denon and Pascal Coste. The official findings of the Commission, called the Description de l’Égypte, were published in Paris between 1809 and 1828 in multiple, lavishly illustrated volumes (Paris: Imprimerie impériale).

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Contemporary art

William Kentridge (B.1955 South Africa)

William Kentridge was born in 1955 in South Africa, and still lives and works in Johannesburg, the city of his birth. Now world renowned for his diverse artistic practice featuring drawing, film work with animation and live action, sculpture, printmaking, painting, stage direction and design for theatre and opera, it was always drawing which lay at the heart of his artworks. It is drawing, principally in charcoal, which informs his works in other media, especially the animated films based on multiple mark making and erasures which brought him to the world’s attention. Since the 1990s, his work has been exhibited and held in major museums and their collections around the world, such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Albertina Museum in Vienna, the Musée du Louvre in Paris, The New Museum in New York, the Art Institute of Chicago, The Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Louisiana Museum Copenhagen, Sint-Janshospitaal in Bruges, Belgium, the Tate Modern, Tate Britain and Modern Oxford in the United Kingdom.

Producing a sweeping set of scenes, Summer Graffiti possesses a kinetic quality and a magnetic attraction which draws the viewer ever closer. Calling to mind Kentridge’s highly regarded films and processional works, the ‘frames’ exhibited within the set animate the print series. Add to this the dynamic shifts in gaze within the various prints, and the viewer becomes complicit in the interactions of the subjects as they, on the one hand, observe the subjects gazing at one another and, on the other, find themselves confronted by the gaze of the subjects themselves. At a time when Kentridge was contributing to a fundraiser for his old school he found the impetus for the series in a teacher’s manual. The iconic blackboard visible in the set acts as a representational tool for the expression of erotic desires. Known for his depictions of the internal desires of human beings as socially unacceptable, Kentridge alludes here to those hidden impulses.

Billie Zangewa (b.1973 South Africa)

“Billie Zangewa uses silk to create intricate tapestries that reflect light in different ways, based on the position of the viewer relative to the artwork. This results in artworks that appear to dance and perform as the gaze changes and the viewer moves around the image’s environment. Artworks that defy replication in print media or on a computer screen, these are sensory objects that must be viewed in person. Zangewa grew up in Gaborone, where there was limited availability of an artist’s usual infrastructure – no studios, no printing presses, none of the typical materials one would normally associate with the creation of fine art. From this came something remarkable. “To make art I had to use what was available” explains the artist, “[m]y creativity comes from lack – I had to work from scratch”. Born in Malawi, growing up in Gaborone, now living and practicing in Johannesburg, Zangewa explores her intersectional identity in the contemporary context, “constantly challenging the historical stereotyping, objectification and exploitation of the black female body”. Her work is concerned with her lived experience, domestic preoccupations and the underlying universal themes that connect us to each other. The present lot was produced while Zangewa was staying in Europe. The artist said she went to the Cotswolds on a trip for her birthday in the middle of winter during a phone conversation. For her the area is the most beautiful part of England. She was particularly drawn to the town’s architecture and the barren winter trees. The piece is a celebration of the beauty of the place.” Ruarc Peffers, Managing Director at Aspire Auction.

Nandipha Mntambo (b.1982 Swaziland)

Drawing upon a rich tradition of art historical and mythological references, Nandipha Mntambo’s striking self-portrait is a composite in which the artist performs both subjects. The resulting image is tensely ambiguous: both minotaur and woman are frozen in medias res, with a multiplicity of possible outcomes. Nandipha Mntambo was honoured with the Standard Bank Young Artist Award for Visual Art in 2011. Her work has been exhibited at the South African Pavilion at the 56th Venice Biennale, 2015; the Brooklyn Museum, New York; the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC and the Zeitz Museum for Contemporary Art Africa, among others. Kathryn Del Boccio.

Diane Victor (B.1964 South Africa)

Diane Victor (b. 1964 in Witbank, South Africa) has established herself as a major figure in the South African and International art communities and is renowned for her expert printmaking and draughtsmanship. Victor positions herself within the South African art scene through her bold confrontations with difficult and at times taboo subject matter. At times, her work seems to pose challenges to social and political life in contemporary South Africa, considering issues of corruption, violence and an unequal power distribution. Recently Artskop met her during her residency at Atelier le grand village in Charentes. Moreover, works by Diane Victor will be exhibited at the next London edition of the 1.54 Contemporary African Art Fair with Atelier le Grand Village. Find out more about Diane Victor here. 

This large-scale etching from Diane Victor’s Four Horses series was exhibited as part of her Transcend solo exhibition at the Goodman Gallery in Johannesburg in 2010. It is a striking work in which an image of a seemingly valorous, apocalyptic horseman on horseback appears as the harbinger of a different era. The rearing horse traverses history, casting a shadow of destruction which is rendered as a detailed aerial view of a historical European city. Victor’s command of mark-making to depict the subject in hauntingly fine detail is evident. She is a master draughtsman and an expert printmaker – here incorporating various traditional techniques with digital printing to heighten meaning. A renowned figure in South African and international art, Victor has exhibited widely at major centers including MoMA in New York.

Modern Art

A George Pemba’s painting (South African 1912–2001)

This George Pemba work from 1979 clearly demonstrates his mastery of the social realist painterly idiom. The interior domestic scene, given a clearer context by its title, is full of the kinds of characterisations and implicit narratives that were typical of Hogarth in the eighteenth century. As with that predecessor, Pemba’s keen eye for detail offers a glimpse into a way of life for urban black South Africans that is gently humorous but also pointed. The gusto with which the old man in the foreground is drinking from the tin, on his haunches, counterpoints the admonishing gesticulations of the dominant woman figure in the midground, as if cautioning against too much celebration of the just-finished initiation ceremony

Dumile Feni (South African 1942–1991)

Dumile Feni’s 1986 drawing, entitled Mother and child , not only explores an established and ubiquitous iconographic convention in art history but one that is also pervasive in his own oeuvre. In fact, his earlier portrayal of Mother and child circa 1966 was once found intolerable by a reviewer, pointing to its disturbingly ‘ugly’ appearance. This compulsion wasn’t about luxuriating over largely Western art historical mores as these relentless returns to the theme were very personal for the artist. Feni lost his mother at a very young age, and was brought up by his older sister, fondly known as Kulie.

Edoardo Villa (South African 1915–2011)

Villa’s genius lies in this extraordinary capacity to conjure images of our time and place from the contemporary industrial materials being generated by new technologies. Janus, produced in 1988, is no exception. Bright yellow emerges from the powerful black forms of Janus that can be viewed in the round. In Roman myth, Janus is the god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, duality, doorways, passages, and endings. He is usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to the future and to the past. As a god of transitions, he has functions pertaining to birth, journeys and exchange, and is associated with travelling, trading and shipping. Villa’s modernist vision was shared by his great friend, Carmel Back, one of the first woman architects to shape the evolving image of Johannesburg. They recognised each other as fellow visionaries and, according to Back’s daughter, enjoyed a lasting friendship during which they met regularly on most Saturdays to people gaze and gossip over coffee. Villa created Janus as a house-warming gift to the architect for her new home in Parktown, which featured prominently in design publications in the early 1990s.

Cecil Skotnes (South African 1926–2009)

Skotnes, throughout his long career, was noted for his work on carved, incised and painted wooden panels. His central position in and influence on South African art history derives not only from his pedagogical work at Polly Street or even in his membership in the influential 1960s Amadlozi Group. It is much more, as this work reflects, about his long-term search for an adequate visual vocabulary to express his position as an artist wrestling with a European cultural and artistic legacy, and at the same time shaping an African visual idiom. His figural depictions mark most clearly the ongoing inflections he gave to this quest, changing subtly throughout his career, but very definitely marking out his work as characteristically Skotnes.

For more information, inquires or to access to the complete catalogue, please contact Aspire Art Auction.

Modern & Contemporary Art, with a special focus on William Kentridge
Evening Sale | Spring 2019 Public auction hosted by Aspire Art Auctions
Cape Town Spring Sale | 1 September 2019 | 6 pm
Avenue | 40 Dock Road | V&A Waterfront | Cape Town

Auction Preview Times:
Friday 30 August | 10 am to 5 pm
Saturday 31 August | 10 am to 5 pm
Sunday 1 September | 10 am to 5 pm

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The sale returns for a Fourth Consecutive season on 2 April 2019

This April, Sotheby’s dedicated sale of Modern and Contemporary African Art will return to London for a fourth consecutive season, following a pre-sale exhibition which will run from March 29 – April 2.

Since the Inauguration of the Series, Sotheby’s has Achieved Fifty World Records in the Category Championing Artists from Across the African Diaspora and Underscoring a Rising Global Interest. The international market for Modern and Contemporary African Art is certainly heating up, with exciting conversations igniting across the field, fuelled by milestones including the opening of Zeitz Museum of Contemporary African Art and the Norval Foundation in Cape Town, growth of international art fairs such as 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair in London, New York and Marrakech, Art X Lagos, and of course the highly-anticipated Ghana Pavilion at this year’s Venice Biennale. Sotheby’s own entry into the field further attests the position of modern and contemporary African art firmly in the global market.

Strong results for last African art auction

Last season’s sale at Sotheby’s totalled £2.3 million ($3 million) and attracted collectors from 20 different countries. 2018s sales saw strong results for established artists including Ben Enwonwu (Obitun Dancer; £187,500/$265,744) and El Anatsui (Tagomizor; £670,000/$883,730) to rising stars like Eddy Kamuanga Ilunga, just 27 years old, whose Mangbetu soared to five times above the pre-sale high estimate (£65,000/$92,124).

This season’ insights for the African Art’s auction

This year’s public exhibition and sale will include a carefully curated collection of paintings, photographs, drawings and sculpture from across the African continent. Witnessing first-hand the growth in demand, audience and variety of works, Sotheby’s Head of Department Hannah O’Leary states:

“When it comes to Contemporary art, people are always looking for something new – a demand which absolutely lends itself to this genre. Spanning over 16 countries, a kaleidoscope of cultures and themes, and comprising the works of both established and emerging artists alike, our Modern and Contemporary African art auction remains one of the most exciting, innovative and relevant sales in the market today. African art has undergone something of a Renaissance in the past decade, signalled by rapidly developing interest from collectors across the globe. Indeed, over a quarter of buyers in last year’s sale were from the African continent but the categories collector base spans Asia, Europe, Australasia and North America, and it is fantastic to see African artists surging to the forefront of international collections, both private and public. This is therefore an incredibly exciting time to be dealing with modern and contemporary African art, and there remain some tempting opportunities for collectors to get involved. Our sale features work by some of the biggest names in the field at affordable prices, but, as these works become more and more in demand, it’s unlikely to stay this way for long. If you’re in London this April, make sure you visit the exhibition – there really is something for everyone to see”.

El Anatsui, Zebra Crossing 2, EST. £550,000 – 750,000

Sotheby’s April sale will be led by Zebra Crossing II, a bottle cap tapestry by contemporary art superstar, El Anatsui. El Anatsui has explored a wide range of media including ceramics, tropical hardwoods, milk-tin lids and aluminium bottle tops, which the artist uses to make the glittering metallic tapestries for which he is most known. The success of El Anatsui’s bottle cap works can be attributed to the artist’s ability to effortlessly manipulate the rigid metallic material in a way that creates a finished work that is robust yet malleable, luxurious and incredibly cloth-like.

El Anatsui has enjoyed several ground-breaking exhibitions such as the internationally touring show, When I Last Wrote to you About Africa in 2010. The artist’s largest survey exhibition to date, El Anatsui: Triumphant Scale, curated by Okwui Enwezor and Chika Okeke-Agulu, opens at Munich’s Haus der Kunst this week and will travel to Mathaf: Arab Museum of Modern Art in Doha in the autumn. El Anatsui will also represent Ghana at the Venice Biennale this year alongside Ibrahim Mahama, whose work is also included in the auction.

HASSAN EL GLAOUI, LA SORTIE DU ROI, EST. £80,000-120,000

La Sortie Du Roi features the military horses and riders for which El Glaoui is famed. Speaking of his work in 2009, El Glaoui said, “My love of my country has been the defining spirit of my painting. I have recorded our ancestral roots, the flowers in the Valley of the Kasbah and the red Cherifian palaces, the royal courteges with their long lines of white burnouses and the mounted cavalry and their horses.”

A powerful celebration of his homeland, La Sortie du Roi triggers a multiple of senses in the viewer: a dusty pink palette indicative of a dry and arid climate, the ice cool shade offered by the white and blue burnouses, and the ghostly, mirage-like wisps of paint surrounding each horse which endow the painting with an electrifying whirr of movement.

Painter El Glaoui has risen to international acclaim and is credited as one of the pioneers of contemporary art in Morocco. The artist expressed gratitude to Winston Churchill for his career; during his visit to Marrakech in the 1940s, the Prime Minister convinced El Glaoui’s father, the last Pasha of Marrakech, to allow the budding artist to pursue his artistic vocation. The works of Churchill and El Glaoui have subsequently appeared together in a joint exhibition in London.

KAMALA IBRAHIM ISHAQ, PREPARATION OF INCENSE – ZĀR CEREMONY, EST. £70,000-90,000

Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq is recognised as both a pioneering member of the Sudanese art scene as well as a feminist icon and one of the most important female artists operating on the African continent today. The artist was one of the first women to graduate from the College of Fine Arts in Khartoum in 1963. Between 1960 and 1975, the Khartoum art scene was dominated by the renowned Khartoum School, an artistic movement that began in Sudan in the 1960s with the aim of creating a new visual language that reflected a newly independent Sudan. Kamala Ishaq was part of the recent exhibition at Saatchi Gallery “Forest and Spirits Figurative Arts from Khartoum School”, curated by Roubi l’Roubi.

Notable members included artists Ibrahim El-Salahi and Sarah Elmur (and works by both of those artists are included in the auction). In 1971, despite being a prominent member of the group, Kamala left and founded the Crystalist Group, advocating for a new Sudanese artistic aesthetic that was modeled on diversity and transparency. The present lot demonstrates Kamala’s interest in Sudanesespiritual processes, especially a traditional practice called the Zār Ceremony, through which the individual is rid of evil spirits. Kamala Ibrahim Ishaq’s work has been widely exhibited at renowned institutions such as MoMA PS1 (USA), the Whitechapel Gallery (UK), the Sharjah Art Museum (UAE), Smithsonian National Museum of African Art (USA), Camden Art Center (UK), among many others. Read more.

CHÉRI SAMBA, J’AIME LA COULEUR, EST. £40,000-60,000

Chéri Samba is one of the most prestigious artistic figures to emerge out of the Democrat Republic of Congo in recent years. Born in a village 80km outside of Kinshasa, Samba was one of four self-taught Congolese artists who, in a newly democratic 1970s Kinshasa, founded the movement known today as Popular Painting. The genre plays with satire, irony and humour to address everyday life in the capital including social, political and economic issues such as popular customs, sexuality, AIDS, social inequity, materiality and corruption.

Influenced by advertising in the city, the artists combine bright, bold colours with text to create politically charged conversation pieces that address viewers directly and honestly. Drawing on his past training as a comic strip and billboard artist, the artist’s work often involves text, outlining a clear message or storyline. He has gone on to exhibit at some of the world’s most prestigious institutions including the Foundation Cartier and the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago. Sotheby’s presents a Samba’s J’aime la couleur, an unusual and dramatic example of Samba’s most iconic imagery.

EDDY KAMUANGA ILLUNGA, (B. 1991), PALM, EST. £25,000-35,000

Amalgamating both traditional and ‘popular culture’ styles, Illunga’s oeuvre reflects both the rapid modernisation of Kinshasa, Africa’s third largest city and the artist’s home town, and the resulting uncertain sustainability of the broader heritage and daily rituals of the Mangbetu people – whom form the subject of this stunning work. Understanding the present through the past is central to Illunga’s practice. The classical poses and rich drapery of the artist’s monumental figurative paintings are reminiscent of European Old Masters. Yet, the rubber flip-flops and vibrant swathes of fabrics capture Mangbetu’s craft and heritage. What’s more, electronic circuitry, the artists trademark patterning, tattoos the figures bare skin, signalling to the digital twenty-first century.

This style of painting originated early in the artist’s career, after learning that the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world’s biggest producers of coltan, an ore strenuously mined by hand that contains tantalum – a key metal for the electronics industry. Shocked by the growing number of South African villages destroyed to exploit these mineral’s, Illunga’s microchipped figures symbolise the exploitation of both his country and its people, and the harsh reality of globalisation. With its painterly finesse, complex symbolism and powerful appeal to both eye and conscience, Illunga’s work has shot to international prominence. The sale of Palm follows the sale of Illunga’s Mangbetu at Sotheby’s in March 2018, which achieved £65,000/$92,124, storming past the pre-sale estimate of £8,000-12,000.

IBRAHIM MAHAMA, RAFIA EB X, EST. £20,000 – 30,000

Rafia EB X by Ghanaian artist Ibrahim Mahama is an elegant wall hanging consisting of repurposed burlap jute sacks. The artist is most known for stitching together these jute sacks in order to create large textiles which are often dropped over architectural forms. Imported into Ghana from south-east Asia and then re-used for the exportation of cocoa, charcoal and other crops, Mahama’s jute sacks are synonymous with Ghana’s trade history and are used to comment on Ghana’s economic relationship with the rest of the world, starting from post-colonialization to present day.

Mahama’s work ranges from large site-specific installations to more intimate pieces such as Rafia EB X. Trained as a painter, Mahama often refers to works such as Rafia EB X as paintings, seeking to highlight the elegant form that hangs on the wall whilst also challenging the boundaries of what it means to paint. Mahama will represent Ghana at the Venice Biennale this year alongside El Anatsui, whose work is also included in the auction, in a national pavilion co-curated by the architect Sir David Adjaye.

The sale will feature also Harvest Scrolls, 1983, estimate £30 000 -50 000, a work  from Ethiopian artist Alexander Skunder Boghossian,considered as part of Creative currents of the Nile.

The Nigerian artist, Uzo Egonu, Women Reading, 1978 estimate £12 000 – 18 000 and the south African artist William Kentridge, Head (Orange), estimate £ 30 000 – 50 000, among others.

 

Modern & Contemporary African Art
Auction in London
02 April 2019
2:00 PM BST

Sotheby’s
34-35 New Bond Street
London W1A 2AA
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PARIS – Artcurial organized on December 30, 2018 its third edition of the sale Paris#Marrakech, in duplex with Marrakech. Composed of about a hundred lots, the session of three sessions of orientalist art and contemporary African art, directed by François Tajan, totals €1,890,040 / $2,154,645. 

An exceptional private Italian orientalist collection, entitled From Constantinople to Tangier, a collection by an Italian amateur, opened this edition by offering bidders a real trip around the Mediterranean. It sets 3 world records at auction, notably for Théodore Frère, whose Grande caravane de la Mecque (lot 3) is sold for €195 000 / $222 300  including taxes, or Jean-Paul Sinibaldi whose Salammbô (lot 21) changes hands for €182 000/ $207 480.

It was a French orientalist painter, Eugène Girardet, who won the highest price of the session with the oil on canvas La gazelle apprivoisée (lot 16), one of the most important works by this renowned artist, awarded €300 400 / $342 456 including taxes.

The second orientalist component, Majorelle et ses contemporains, rewards the artist Chaïbia with the oil on canvas Spectators of Tennis created in 1987 (lot 68) which reaches €78 000 / $88 920 including taxes.

The last chapter, African Spirit, dedicated to contemporary African art, includes 6 new world records at auction. Chéri Samba‘s acrylic and glitter on canvas, J’aime la couleur (lot 91) is flying at €91,000 / $103,740, well beyond its estimate (‘70,000 – €100,000), and artist Bodys Isek Kingelez exceeds the record set the previous year by Artcurial with his work Pacific Art (lot 86) awarded €71,500 / $81,510.

The work of the artist Abdoulaye Konate Tafo ou la force du verbe, 1995 reached a world record and was auctioned at €54,600 / $62,244, while Billie Zangewa‘s Exquisite Fantasy, 2014, flew off for €42,900 / $48,906, also a world record for the artist’s work sold at auction.

“For this third edition Paris#Marrakech, which has set 10 new records, including 6 for contemporary African art, Artcurial is demonstrating its leadership in Marrakech and its ability to develop this market. The launch of Marrakech Art Week was a success and will be back next year in an enhanced format. This new cultural event created by Artcurial will develop” says Olivier Berman, Associate Director Orientalism and Contemporary African Art at Artcurial.

Finally, let us mention the success of the first edition of Marrakech Art Week, organized at the initiative of Artcurial and Olivier Berman. Twelve actors from the red city (Yves Saint Laurent Museum, Galerie 127, Dar El Bacha, among others) came together for a week with a special programme. New participants have already expressed themselves for the 2019 edition. 

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About ArtCurial 

Founded in 2002, Artcurial, a multidisciplinary auction house based in Paris, will consolidate its leading position in the international art market in 2018. With 3 sales locations in Paris, Monte-Carlo, the company totalled 195.3 million euros in sales volume in 2018.

It covers the entire field of major specialities: from Fine Arts to Decorative Arts, Collectible Cars, Jewellery, Collectible Watches, Fine Wines and Spirits…Resolutely focused on international markets, Artcurial has established its network abroad with representative offices in Brussels, Milan, Monte-Carlo, Munich and Vienna as well as a presence in Beijing and Tel Aviv, and biannual exhibitions in New York. In October 2015, Artcurial organised its first sale in Hong Kong and Morocco.

ArtCurial
7 Rond-Point des Champs-Élysées
75008 Paris

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This is the itinerary of a life that will soon be auctioned off. That of Pierre Loos, tribal art dealer, collector and traveller. A total of three sales, which will take place on 17 and 18 September at Piasa. For Christophe Person, director of the auction house’s contemporary African art department, “there will be a before and an after. “The first session will be devoted to ethnographic and early arts, Pierre Loos’ core business.

A significant dispersion, nearly 500 lots, rather affordable in their estimates. Under the hammer of many headrests, the Kassaï kuba fabrics that Pierre Loos largely contributed to bring to light, votive statuettes… The second session, more original, consists in the transfer of a photographic collection. The one that Pierre Loos formed around the person of Casimir Zagourski, a Pole, a photographer in the air force of the imperial army before fleeing in 1924 to Leopoldville under pressure from the Reds. There, walking around the area in a Ford T, he photographed the people and life as they were, without finery. This stakhanovist of the photo took 1,600 shots among which he selected 440, which he edited in postcard format or in larger unique prints, about fifty.

The prints for sale are grouped into about a hundred lots: the period sets of small formats are estimated at between 400 and 600 €, the large prints at between 1,000 and 3,500 €, some exceeding these estimates due to their pedigree of exhibitions. The highlight of the sale is an “Elephant Album”, the “great work of Casimir Zagourski”, according to Pierre Loos. Albums designed like luxury objects, created to order in which the photographer collected a large number of photos – more than 400 in the one on sale. An estimate between 10 and 15,000 €.

And then there is the third sale, perhaps the most anticipated. Since the 1980s, Pierre Loos has built up a unique collection of Congolese modern art (from 1920 to 1960), facilitated by his proximity to Belgian colonial circles, which often saw in these paintings only the naïve expression of Indigenous people. It is a summary of this collection, the extent of which can be seen during the exhibition “Beauté Congo” organized by André Magnin at the Cartier Foundation in 2014.

In the basement of the foundation, 80% of the sequence devoted to Congolese modern art was made up of loans from the Loos collection. “This is the first time in modern African art that a coherent and extensive collection has been put on sale,” says Christophe Person. It’s an interesting test. The pieces are of a beautiful quality of conservation, of a very strong aesthetic. In the context of the craze for African art, we can hope that it works very well, especially since the estimates are rather affordable. “The paintings for sale, by Pilipili Mulongoy, Bela, Raphaël Kalela, Sylvestre Kaballa or Mwenze Kibwanga, come mainly from the Desfossés workshop.

For the record, Pierre Romain-Desfossés was a former French naval officer who founded a workshop, nicknamed the Hangar, where he provided the local people with the means to express themselves, free from Western influences. “A mixture of raw art and naive art,” smiles Pierre Loos. Estimates range from around €4,000 to €15,000. “In these paintings, we find a readily narrative aspect, linked to the history of men, to their customs,” explains Christophe Person. There is also an educational dimension: scenes of fishing, of fathers teaching their son how to hunt. It is an art rooted in its time, a testimony. “The highlight of the sale? A six-handed draft shield designed by Pilipili Mulongoy, Bela and Raphaël Kalela, estimated at between 150 and 200,000 €. “I don’t know any equivalent,” says an admiring Christophe Person.

The motifs are superb, and this painted piece, therefore flat, has a three-dimensional, sculptural aspect that is quite fascinating. I think it would look good in a classic art collection! “The motifs are something in these paintings. Those of Kibwanga, Bela or Kaballa seem to borrow from textiles, from knits, building bridges with other techniques. “These funds have influenced many artists, I think of JP Mika for example. It is a naive art that inspires many artists, notes Christophe Person. Moreover, I hope that this sale will have an impact, and will make it possible to get out of the rut of seeing only fetishes in African productions at the beginning and middle of the 20th century.

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