Sunday 28 August 2011

YOUNG, GIFTED AND BLACK

Thinking about Uganda and the artists of Kampala this month

This is something all artists interested in this site should sing to their children at bedtime:

Art Punch Studio Interviews from Kampala


Here is a video of four emerging artists from the Capital of Uganda, Kampala:

Click on this photograph of Wasswa Donald to see the video.

Thursday 18 August 2011

Technology Meet Africa! Wasswa Donald Curates

The Mini Online Exhibition

First of a series of videos over the next month set in Kampala, Uganda






Click here or on  the picture to take a look at the book.





Here is a book attached to the first Online Mini Expo on African Artists Inc.Online Mini Expo into the Art of Uganda.
This is the first of many: An Online Expo into that artists of Uganda from the perspective of a young artist living and working in Kampala. Wasswa Donald.

The Mini Exhibition will be shown through The African Well on Youtube and through various other websites that focus on Contemporary African Art. The show outlines the expectations of the young artists of Uganda and gives a slight insight into the Contemporary History of Art of the country. The date is 18th August 2011 and will run for a month. A book will accompany the Mini show or Expo, that has been developed through the Blurb website.

Hopefully this will develop an effective way to show up-and-coming artists from within the Continent and educate all of us to History of Art of a Continent by those within it. The intent is to expose of the artistic heroes of Africa by the Africans.

Join in and watch the works and words of the artists from Kampala, Uganda on Facebook.

Technology Meet Africa! Wasswa Donald Curates | Opening Statement by Joe Pollitt

Technology Meet Africa! Wasswa Donald Curates



WELCOME TO OUR ONLINE MINI EXPO A VISUAL UPRISING FROM KAMPALA, UGANDA.


The passion for this show stems from an overwhelming desire to create positive media for Artists from Africa via Social Media Networks. Working in collaboration with a young, dynamic Ugandan artist from Kampala, Wasswa Donald, together we have chartered out a different course in which to sail. Helped by our various friends around the world, we have tried to break the mould of those favoured few and open up the spectrum to a far greater audience; both from those participating and those observing. Presently, the artistic practitioners within the Continent have little, if any say in their own contemporary cultural development; with the slight exception of Nigeria, North and South Africa. Galleries, Private Collectors, Museums and Art Institutions throughout the western world are defining Africa without asking the Africans. Europe and America are developing highbrow exhibitions that have no reflection on Africa Now – A Continent of Artists working without sufficient patronage or adequate fiscal support. Wasswa and I are ambitiously creating platforms for the rejected, unaccepted African artistic elite. Together, we are all creating new ways of seeing and brand new waves of being an Artist in Africa. In this era of New Media things are about to change for the better and open up various avenues for those that dare to be an Artist!

Art is a powerful force; an energy that can inspire a generation. The spirit of art takes shape organically, creating common threads - a Riot in the making with direction but no director or dictator; setting fire to the hearts and minds of all those participating. It is the collective, voicing feelings long since silenced. Sending clear messages out to those discontented masses to soothe their aching lives. No group on earth would know this better than those living in black Africa. For those that live on the periphery, the marginalised and rejected majority: For those that work so thanklessly, pushing aside mediocrity and striving forward to fight for the right to have their say. Those courageous enough to continue despite years of neglect. All in the same vein of being seen, in some affirmative way, as progressive.

The purpose of this exercise and its ultimate goal, is to create an authentic virtual mini artistic revolution by creating an active yet invisible Museum. A Museum without windows or doors; without ceilings or floors. Randomly posting: Online Mini-Shows; Mini-Group Exhibitions; Mini Expos and Solo Shows from all the overlooked and underseen artists of Africa. All the artists that are interested in participating are encouraged to self-publish a book on the Blurb website to be housed in the African Library
www.africanlibrary.blogspot.com. This will allow Institutions around the Globe a rare glimpse and a mesmerizing insight into Africa on a far more personal level; inevitably enlightening an alternative perspective on what Contemporary Africa Art truly is: a panoramic view, as seen from the artists living and working from within. Wasswa Donald and I, would like to thank all those who have supported us in both Kampala and the UK and to Wasswa Donald - thank you so very much for agreeing to be a little crazy with me – It takes great courage to expose yourself as we have done...so we ask you all to join us in our expose and enjoy the weeks ahead. Wish us luck and get involved in our Mini Artistic Revolution.


Ugandan Video Uprising | As Seen On Youtube.


Thank you all for watching! X


*N.B. Special thanks go out to Ceris Dien, Shiela Black, Kate von Achen, Paul Hardcastle, Kathy Goodell, Prince Babs Epega, Najet Belkhodja, Mona Douf, Joel Nankin, Miss Kitty, Octavio Zaya, Tracey Rose, Simon Wajcenberg, Bud Rose, Melonie Kastman and Emma Youngs for your constant love and support. Cheers Big Ears. X







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Tuesday 16 August 2011

Technology Meet Africa! - Wasswa Donald Curates




Check to see the show: www.youtube.com/africanwell


Thur.18th August 2011 


Online Mini Expo on African Artists Inc.ONline Mini Expo into the Art of Uganda.

This is the first of many: An ONline Expo into that artists of Uganda from the perspective of a young artist living and working in Kampala. 
Wasswa Donald.

The Mini Exhibition will be shown through The African Well on Youtube. The show outlines the expectations of the young artists of Uganda and gives an insight into the Contemporary History of Art of the country. The date is 18th August and will run for a month. A book will accompany the Mini show or Expo, either through Amazon or Blurb.

Hopefully this will develop an effective way to show up-and-coming artists from within the Continent and educate all of us to History of Art of a Continent by those within it. The intent is to expose of the artistic heroes of Africa by the Africans.

Wednesday 3 August 2011

Frank Bowling OBE, RA

Book Description: This is the first comprehensive monograph on the art of Frank Bowling OBE RA. Born in British Guyana in 1936, Bowling arrived in England in his late teens, going on to study at the Royal College of Art alongside David Hockney RA and Derek Boshier. By the early 1960s he had established himself as an original force in the vibrant London art scene, with a style that brilliantly combined figurative, symbolic and abstract elements. Dividing his time between New York and London since the late 1960s, he has developed a unique and virtuosic abstract style in which certain formal aspects of American painterly abstraction are assimilated to a treatment of light and space that consciously recollects the great English landscape painters, Gainsborough, Turner and Constable. In a compelling text Mel Gooding establishes Bowling as one of the finest British artists of his generation.


About the Author:
Mel Gooding is a professor at the Wimbledon School of Art in England, and an art writer, critic, and curator.

Tate Channel: BP Artists Talk
http://channel.tate.org.uk/media/24906110001





Product Details:
  • Hardcover: 160 pages
  • Publisher: Royal Academy of Arts, London (13 Jun 2011)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 1905711964
  • ISBN-13: 978-1905711963
  • Product Dimensions: 29.6 x 24.8 x 2 cm

Peter Minshall | MasMan


Peter Minshall | Mas Man


Book Description
Peter Minshall was born in Guyana and raised in Trinidad, where the traditional carnival, pre-Lent festivals of street dancing and masquerade, or mas', captured his imagination. He left to study theater in England, only to become, in the early 1970s, one of the first designers to create mas' for London's now-legendary Notting Hill Carnival. A run of well-received theater design work in England and the United States brought him back around to the value and potency of Carnival's creative expression, and, gradually, he made it his principal medium. Minshall is now the head of the Callaloo company, which creates mas' productions in Trinidad, from human-sized costumes to 10-foot-tall creatures. Elements of that Trinidadian work have also made appearances at carnivals in Miami, San Francisco, Paris, Tokyo and Kingston, Jamaica, and his designs for the opening ceremonies of more than one Olympics have been seen by millions. Minshall has been a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation and has won an Emmy for costume design; Masman-Minshall: Trinidad Carnival Artist brings readers inside his costumes and masks.




Product Details:Hardcover: 224 pages
Publisher: Hatje Cantz Publishers (May 1, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 3775717854
ISBN-13: 978-3775717854