Wednesday, 27 January 2016

The Power of a Woman

Source: The Prisma

African art in “The power of a woman”

January 24, 2016

An exhibition of paintings at the Gallery of African Art will be in London until Februeary 6^th.

The cultural images on show have been painted by the Nigerian artist Nike Davie-Okundale. She is the director of four art centres and owns the biggest gallery in West Africa. Besides that, for the last 20 years her work has been shown in Nigeria, the USA, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Italy and the UK.

As a young person she went to study at Oshogbo, one of the most important art centres in Nigeria. There she learned to paint in Adire, a kind of canvas stained with Indigo, and made by Yoruba women in the south-west of the country. In fact, Nike Davie-Okundale is recognised as the rescuer of Adire in contemporary times, and has received international awards for her importance in the art of painting on this type of canvas. In the show “The power of a woman”, the artist combines new and traditional techniques in the use of Adire, and through ancestral symbols tries to represent messages which range from creating balance to offering advice and cautions. The most striking works in the exhibition include those in the series “Feminine power“, which include monochromatic drawings using pen and ink and others in blue acrylic paint. And one of these creations is currently on loan to the British Library for its exhibition: “West Africa, word, symbol, song”.

Other images show her identity as a chief, mother, wife, daughter, teacher and social entrpreneur. These photographs are by Joanna Lipper, who made a portrait of the Nigerian artist for the first time six years ago in Oshogbo.

By means of these snapshots, the award-winning photographer and film-maker wanted to represent feminine power, psychological integrity and spiritual faith, as well as progressive thinking aimed at ensuring the rights of Nigerian women.

The exhibition is being held at the Gallery of African Art, a space created in 2013 and now recognised as the most important place for showing works by contemporary artists from the continent.

Place and times: From December 10^th 2015 to February 6^th 2016. Gallery of African Art, 45 Albemarle St., London W1S 4JL. Contact: info@gafraart.com ; 44(0) 207 287 7400. More information at www.gafraart.com

(Translated by Graham Douglas)

Picasso at the MoMA, NYC

Source: World Socialist Web Site

Picasso’s sculpture at the Museum of Modern Art in New York

By Clare Hurley
18 January 2016

Picasso Sculpture; an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City through February 7, 2016

Is yet another major and uncritical exhibition of Picasso’s work really called for? During his lifetime Picasso (1881-1973) was likely the most famous artist to have ever lived. Forty-two years after his death, he remains—as art critic John Berger observed in his Success and Failure of Picasso —one of the few artists whose name most people in the world recognize, even if far fewer could actually recognize his artwork.

According to a web site devoted to the artist, there are at any given time “perhaps dozens of exhibitions worldwide that feature Picasso, either on his own, or as part of a group show.” And of course his artwork is widely reproduced and imitated.

Unfortunately, the Museum of Modern Art’s current exhibit of Picasso’s sculpture—the first major US museum survey in the last 50 years—fails to communicate anything particularly significant about the legendary artist’s interpretation of the social reality and times through which he lived. Or not much that could not have been done in a much more modest show.

Chicago Picasso (1967)

Instead MoMA has given Picasso’s sculpture blockbuster treatment, including more than 140 pieces, many of them repetitive or of negligible quality. The handful of sculptures that are a discovery tend to get lost in the crowd. And of course, the exhibition, presented as an opportunity to see a more “intimate” side of the artist, is very crowded, the timed-admission tickets notwithstanding. In this, as in many instances in the Picasso exhibition, the scale seems to be off.

Chronologically, one begins at the end, with Picasso’s sheet metal sculptures from the 1950s–60s displayed in the balcony area that serves as an entrance to the main exhibition galleries. Here the relatively small size of these pieces belies the fact that many, like Maquette for Richard J. Daley Center Sculpture (1964), intended as a portrait of Picasso’s wife Jacqueline though it suggests equally a dog or horse’s head, are models for pieces that were ultimately realized over ten times larger as commissions for public spaces.

Indeed, the question of scale taken as a function of perspective, i.e., of relative as opposed to absolute size, is key to Picasso’s work, his paintings as well as his sculpture. For the artist, the scale of features and body parts, once freed from the dictates of realistic proportions, could be as large or small—or completely absent—as his emotional, and most often sexual desires dictated.

The justification for this, asserted through all Picasso’s restless multiplicity of styles, was supposed to be a thorough rejection of the aesthetic traditions that had evolved over centuries of Western art as a means of conveying the content of life.

Woman's Head, Fernande (1909)

The issues bound up with Picasso’s career are very complex. His genius, reflected in his early painting in particular, is not in dispute. Moreover, a great deal of liberating energy was released in the decade preceding the first World War as part of a broad cultural shift reflecting the gathering economic and political tensions that were soon to erupt in war and revolution. However, for reasons that were not the fault of the artists it is questionable whether a radical new understanding of the world and its artistic representation, as was promised and proclaimed, ever came fully to pass. A great many processes were still-born as the result of social developments originating outside the realm of art.

Among the earliest works (1902–09) are small wooden figurines that indicate Picasso’s interest, shared with other early modernists, in African art, which would play a transformative role in how they represented the human figure. The expressive and symbolic qualities of bodily features was emphasized over naturalistic proportions, in an effort to reject the conventions of Western art in favor of something considered more pure, primal and direct.

As developed by Picasso together with fellow painter Georges Braque (1882–1963), cubism’s breaking up of form into facets was supposed to analyze a form’s existence in two-dimensional space by simultaneously showing a multiplicity of views. Woman ’s Head, Fernande (1909)—of Picasso’s mistress—is perhaps the best known cubist sculpture.

Again, one has to be critical of, or at least raise questions about, the sweeping claims made for cubism, which often have a one-sided or even clichéd character. No doubt a variety of political, cultural and scientific developments [including Einstein’s breakthrough in 1905] fed into its emergence. Typically, critic Klaus Honnef writes that behind cubism and related trends were “dynamic” changes that had reached the cultural world and “sharpened the awareness of receptive minds to the fact that the one-point perspective arrangement of painting was merely feigning an illusory fictitious world of reality.”


Woman in the Garden (1929–30)

The last part of this comment, referring to “an illusory fictitious world of reality,” is telling. The scientific advances of the turn of the 20th century, for example, fell on an artistic-intellectual world that was to a great extent under the influence of Nietzscheanism and other irrationalist or subjectivist trends, including Machism, which called into question or denied the existence of a world existing independently of the artist/viewer’s perception.

Ultimately, hemmed in by the defeats of revolution and the rise of Stalinism, Picasso and the avant-garde circles who pioneered 20th century modern art were directed—and directed themselves—back primarily to the inner, subjective world of the artist, to his or her impressions, to a world that came to be ever more constricted in its content till it lost much of its resonance with a broader audience. This development can be traced through in the current show.

The chronology of the exhibition skips from 1915 to 1927, reflecting Picasso’s 14-year hiatus from sculpture, which coincides with the period of the First World War and its aftermath. His return to sculpture came in the form of a commission for a monument to the poet and art critic Guillaume Apollinaire, the close friend and intellectual mentor of the Parisian avant-garde who is credited with having coined the terms and elaborated the artistic conceptions of “cubism” and “surrealism.”

Head of a Woman (1932)

Wounded in battle, Apollinaire’s death from Spanish flu in 1918 shattered the insularity of the bohemian circle in Paris. A sense of dislocation and horror at the mass slaughter of modern warfare inescapably marked the generation, whether or not a given artist had served in the trenches. Braque, who became a French patriot, had. Picasso, a pacifist, as a Spanish national was exempted.
It took Picasso over four years to create his monument to Apollinaire, a structure “defined by voids as much as by solids,” an idea he drew from Apollinaire’s book Le Poète assassiné (1916). Picasso’s Woman in the Garden (1929–30) is a fanciful, somewhat startled-looking bird-creature made of bits of scrap metal coupled with household objects, oddly lacking the gravitas one would expect in a monument to a significant artistic figure and friend.

The next section of the exhibit, named after the Boisgeloup sculpture studio (40 miles outside Paris), where Picasso worked from 1930–37, is a radical departure in style from the previous one. In the post-World War I period, Picasso and other artists reintroduced classical Greek sculpture and other traditional motifs which they had vigorously rejected before the war to indicate a “return to order,” while maintaining the exaggerated, simplified proportions that had come to define modern art. Picasso’s startling Head of a Woman (1932) combines the voluptuous fullness of stone (here displayed in a plaster cast of the final piece) with a birdlike crest for a nose and etched eye that suggests an anomalously bulbous Cycladic head.

During World War II, Picasso’s international stature ensured that he was one of the few artists deemed “degenerate” by the Nazis who were allowed to stay in occupied Paris after he refused offers to emigrate. From the sculpture in the section “The War Years (1939–45),” one can discern little of the artist’s bitter hostility to the Nazi regime; one mostly gets a sense of the artist’s isolation and his making due with little, albeit brilliantly. Bull’s Head (1942) is simply the seat and handlebars of a bicycle, which he did not alter, cleverly arranged together. More evocatively, Death’s Head (1941) suggests a molten cannonball.

Guernica (1937)

It is ironic that no traces of Picasso’s painting Guernica (1937) find expression in three-dimensional form. His artistic response to news of the German and Italian fascist bombing of civilians in the Basque village in April 1937, which was at the center of resistance to Franco, became and continues to be one of the greatest anti-war paintings. Allegedly when Nazi officers came into his apartment in Paris and saw a photograph of Guernica, one of them remarked, “This painting, you did this?” “No,” replied Picasso. “You did this.”

Bull's Head (1942)

Painted as a commission by the Spanish Republican government for the Spanish Pavilion at the 1937 Paris International Exhibition, the painting toured the US after Franco’s victory in 1939, as part of Popular Front campaigns to raise money for Spanish refugees. It continued travelling in response to popular demand until concerns over its physical condition led to its installation at MoMA in 1956. Fiercely anti-fascist throughout his lifetime, Picasso refused to allow the painting to return to Spain as long as Franco remained in power; it was only returned to Spain in 1981. Repeatedly copied and reproduced, Guernica’s harrowing image of the “collateral” human suffering of war is still able to rankle imperialist war-mongers. A tapestry copy hanging in the United Nations had to be covered in 2003 when the Security Council was discussing war on Iraq. Not that it stopped them.

The postwar period of Picasso’s sculpture feels decidedly less original. By this time, the once iconoclastic artist had become a legendary “personality,” whose own fabulous wealth was such that he was able to purchase a house in the south of France with the sale of a single painting. The large-scale commissions of anthropomorphic creatures out of sheet metal produced for public spaces in the United States and Europe seem complacently “modern,” as modernism had become the officially sanctioned style of the postwar boom of the 1950s-early 1960s.

Little Horse (circa 1960)

In Apollinaire’s only book on art, The Cubist Painters, Aesthetic Meditations, a collection of notes and observations, he wrote, “a man like Picasso studies an object as a surgeon dissects a cadaver.” Though intended no doubt to describe the artist’s objectivity, the remark perhaps unintentionally says more about the chilly quality of Picasso’s “greatest” work which often fails to move one.
However, at its best, Picasso’s sculpture can still surprise and delight. His ability to see ordinary objects in radically transformed ways often manifested itself in his inventive use of corrugated cardboard, chicken wire, nails, screws and string in such pieces as Woman with Leaves (1934), The Orator (1933–34), and Woman with Orange/Apple (1934) to suggest a race of hybrid creatures, only part human, metamorphosed out of ordinary, everyday materials. Others, like the delightful Little Horse (circa 1960) made by Picasso as a toy for his son, are genuinely intimate, and not really “sculpture” at all.

Artist and Empire

Source: Wall Street Journal

‘Artist and Empire’ Review

An exhibition examine’s Britain’s colonial past.

‘The Remnants of an Army; Jellalabad, January 13th, 1842’ (1879).

by Elizabeth Butler

Photo: Tate Museum, London

By Richard Holledge

Jan. 5, 2016 4:56 p.m. ET

Artist and Empire - Tate Britain - Through April 10, London

A ferocious Britannia puts a Bengal tiger to the sword. A mother and baby lie slaughtered at her feet. For many, “Retribution” (1858) by Edward Armitage captures the essence of the British Empire. The animal represents India, which rose against its colonial masters in 1857, massacring, in one terrible incident, almost 200 women and children. The British took bloody revenge; order was restored.

Typical of the British sense of right—and might—the uprising was condemned at home as the Indian Mutiny; India hails it as the first nationalist uprising but in these more sensitive times, many historians refer to it as the Indian Rebellion. Whatever the bloody incident is called the painting is an unambiguous statement of don’t-mess-with-us superiority, but it is not typical of the works that captured the imagination of the nation at the height of Empire. No, what really stirred the populace was heroic failure— the untimely deaths of generals in battle or glorious defeats against overwhelming odds.

Take “The Death of General Gordon, Khartoum, 26th January, 1885” by George Joy. Gordon was hacked to death defending the British garrison in the Sudan city of Khartoum, yet Joy has him proud and resolute, almost disdainful, as spear-wielding dervishes swarm toward him. The portrait helped establish Gordon as a hero and a martyr to the cause of Empire.

“Artist and Empire,” at London’s Tate Britain gallery (through April 10, 2016), sets out to explain how colonial Britain was portrayed from the late 16th century to the swaggering power of the 18th and 19th centuries and on to the present day.

The exhibition reflects a past about which many in Britain are ambivalent— evoking pride in some; in others shame that power involved cruelty and slaughter. The Tate owes its own existence to the merchant Henry Tate, who gave £80,000 for its construction, having made a fortune in the sugar trade that flourished on the back of slavery.

The exhibition opens with maps, and here the predominant color is pink—the color that would delineate an empire that included Australia, South Africa, the Indian subcontinent and more. The first time the color appeared was in 1733 on Henry Popple’s “Map of the British Empire in North America with the French and Spanish and Dutch Settlements Adjacent Thereto,” which showed a territory stretching from the Grand Banks in Newfoundland to Spanish-owned Florida.

The maps served a practical purpose for the burgeoning maritime power as it sought new territories to colonize—but can also be interpreted as an expression of permanence; that this empire was here to stay.

How fleeting that proved to be in the case of Popple’s map. Yet how potent those pink splashes on the globe became as scenes and sagas of triumph and tragedy were played out—and how adroitly hopeless heroism was spun into triumph.

In Elizabeth Butler’s “The Remnants of an Army; Jellalabad, January 13th, 1842,” what seems to be the sole survivor of a rout in the First Anglo-Afghan War reaches the gates of the British garrison in today’s Jalalabad. He is emaciated, wounded, exhausted, his horse can scarcely stand, but when the image was shown at London’s Royal Academy in 1879 at the time of the Second Anglo-Afghan War it drew tears from the audience. Defeat was turned into a kind of triumph—not an interpretation that would garner much credence today.

The art of the portrait, too, emphasized a scarcely ruffled sense of power, the assumption that the Empire was run by men of panache who had right and might on their side. James Sant portrayed Capt. Colin Mackenzie (c.1842) as a dashing figure, arrogantly appropriating the robes of the Afghan tribesmen against whom he was fighting. Never mind that the captain was held hostage after the rout at Jalalabad and almost sold into slavery.

By the 20th century, when Britain was hastily shedding its empire, the result was more of a sharing and intermingling of cultures than of the recrimination that could have been expected from the post-colonial countries. Many artists from the colonies studied in Europe, and the result, says co-curator Carol Jacobi of the Tate, was a kind of “international modernism” perhaps best expressed by Nigerian Ben Enwonwu, whose “Head of a Nigerian Girl” (1957) celebrates African beauty with the kind of techniques he learned at London’s Slade School of Fine Art. He argued that artists like Picasso, Braque and Vlaminck were influenced by African art but, he wrote: “When they see African artists who are influenced by their European training and technique, they expect that African to stick to their traditional forms.”

The Tate obviously felt they had to redress the balance against empire’s pomp and circumstance with contemporary works but unfortunately they are often one-note and obvious in their hostility. In a work completed this year, Andrew Gilbert parodies the army fighting the Boer War in South Africa with “British Infantry Advance on Jerusalem, 4th of July, 1879” by dressing the soldiers in masks, feathers, fur and a leopard skin to make them appear as “primitive” as the enemy they fought. The work shows, rather bluntly, how assumptions change and the past is reinterpreted—though the process was well under way by the end of World War II, when war paintings fell out of favor. In the 1960s the picture of Gen. Gordon, once so stirring, was taken back by relatives and given to his old school, where, says co-curator David Blayney Brown (also of the Tate), it was used as a dart board.

Mr. Holledge is a freelance arts writer based in the U.K.

African Art at Piedmont Arts

Blockbuster Exhibition of African Art from Virginia Museum of Fine Arts on Display at Piedmont Arts

Source: Martinsville Daily
By Bill Wyatt / in Life, Top Story /
on Thursday, 07 Jan 2016 06:44 PM

Obj. No. 87.82
African, Kuba Culture (Zaire)
Mukenga Mask, 19th – 20th century
Raffia, cloth, leopard skin, wood, cowrie shells, glass beads, string
19½”H x 17”W x 22”D
49.53 cm x 43.18 cm x 55.88 cm
Image must be credited with the following collection and photo credit lines:
Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond. Arthur and Margaret Glasgow Fund.
Photo: Katherine Wetzel © Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

Martinsville, VA —Fortune, Courage, Love: Arts of Africa’s Akan and Kuba Kingdoms from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, a blockbuster exhibition of African artworks from the VMFA’s permanent collection, will open at Piedmont Arts on January 16.

A curatorial partnership between William King Museum of Art Curator, Leila Cartier, and VMFA’s Curator of African Art, Richard Woodward, has resulted in an exhibition that brings together art from the ancient empire of Mali, the Akan kingdoms of Ghana, and the Kuba kingdom in the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

“The arts of Ghana’s Akan and the Congo’s Kuba kingdoms are elaborate in design and visually stunning,” said Woodward. “As Curator of African Art, I am thrilled that such an important and beautiful part of the collection will be shared with the Piedmont Arts audience.”

Visitors from around the Commonwealth will have the opportunity to see African objects from the VMFA’s collection first-hand. Included in the exhibition are elements of royal regalia, dozens of gold weights – small figures and objects that often communicate proverbs and are used to weigh out gold dust – masks and other ceremonial objects, sculptures, and three spectacular Kente Cloths.

One of several in the works, this Statewide project has developed from a seed of an idea into an exhibition that has traveled to three VMFA Statewide Partner museums: William King Museum in Abingdon; Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke; and Piedmont Arts in Martinsville.

“We are excited to work once again with Piedmont Arts to bring the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to the Martinsville region,” said Jeffrey Allison, VMFA’s Paul Mellon Collection educator and manager of statewide programs and exhibitions. “As one of our oldest Statewide Partners, we have a long history of sharing VMFA organized exhibitions, programs and performances for all audiences.”

Gina Collins, VMFA’s exhibitions project coordinator added, “The VMFA is thrilled to once again partner with Piedmont Arts. Our Statewide Partnership program is an essential part of our mission and goals. It allows us to bring art from our global collection to all parts of the Commonwealth.”

Fortune, Courage, Love: Arts of Africa’s Akan and Kuba Kingdoms from the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts will be on display at Piedmont Arts January 16 – March 5, 2016.

Also on display at Piedmont Arts January 16 – March 5, 2016:

Kind Cuts

Dennis Winston’s woodcuts reflect both his urban and rural experiences. As an artist, he is driven by needs that are both aesthetic and social. His themes are universal and are concerned with the everyday reality of all human existence. The woodcut allows Winston to use a bold and direct black and white approach in his work. This is an ordinary medium through which he endeavors to capture moments in the lives of ordinary people. His work reveals his subject’s character, the history that has shaped them and the spirit that sustains them. These works express essential ideas, and he has merged his vision and the medium to celebrate both the process and his perception.

Winston is a graduate of Norfolk State University (magna cum laude) and the University of Richmond (Masters of Humanities) and has done post-graduate work at the University of Colorado and Virginia Commonwealth University. He has served on the faculties of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Virginia Commonwealth University and Virginia State University. In June 2005, he retired as the Coordinator/Supervisor of Arts Education (K-12) and the Humanities Center for Richmond Public Schools.
Current Brushstrokes

A love of motorcycles led Pepper Martin to become an artist. While admiring the airbrushed artwork at a bike show, she thought to herself, “I could do that!” She first dabbled in painting while keeping her day job, but the birth of her daughter made her realize she had to take a leap of faith and become a woman who fully pursues her dreams; a woman her daughter can look up to. Martin is well-known for her portraiture and for teaching monthly Young Artists and Painting and Pinot classes at Piedmont Arts. Martin’s work will be on display in the museum’s Lynwood Artists Gallery.

Piedmont Arts exhibits are open to the public and are always admission free. Museum hours are Tuesday – Friday: 10 am – 5 pm and Saturday: 10 am – 3 pm.

Members-Only Reception
Friday, January 15 • 5:30 – 7:30 pm • Piedmont Arts

Piedmont Arts will host a free Members-Only Reception in honor of these exhibits on Friday, January 15 from 5:30 – 7:30 pm at the museum. Piedmont Arts members, prospective members, artists and guests are invited to attend. Complimentary wine and light refreshments will be served.

VMFA Curator of African Art, Richard Woodward, will give a gallery talk at 6 pm.

Please RSVP attendance by calling 276.632.3221 or online at PiedmontArts.org.

This reception is generously sponsored by Imogene and Christina Draper, Dr. James E. Rountree, Kenneth and Joyce Staples, Martinsville Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc., Patterson Foundation, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts.

Piedmont Arts is a nonprofit art museum in Martinsville, Virginia that inspires and engages the diverse Martinsville-Henry County community and surrounding areas through visual arts, performing arts and arts education. Piedmont Arts is a statewide partner of the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and is accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. Piedmont Arts programming is partially supported by the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts. Learn more at www.PiedmontArts.org.

The Inspiration for Modernity

France-Africa : Senufo African art that inspired Picasso comes to France

Source: RFI

06 December 2015

A helmet is on display during the exhibition 'Senufo - The Art and Identity in West Africa' at the Musee Fabre in Montpellier, France on November 27, 2015.

AFP PHOTO / PASCAL GUYOT

It inspired visionary artists like Pablo Picasso and Fernand Léger, now Senufo art comes to France. The Fabre museum in Montpellier presents “Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa”, to the public from November 28th, 2015 to March 6th, 2016.

By RFI

It's the first large-scale exhibition of the art of the Senufo people of West Africa to go on display in France.

“Senufo: Art and Identity in West Africa”, explores the origins of the people who created it in new ways.

The people known to the Western world as Senufo, live in a triangular region that comprises Côte d’Ivoire, Mali and Burkina Faso. Although they share a common language and culture, they don't necessarily refer to themselves as Senufo, even if the Western world calls them that.
Senufo is like France’s francophonie term, which refers to a linguistic speaking community.
Yet the name Senufo was imposed on them by French colonial officials. When their art made it to Europe in the late 1880s, the name was imposed on it as well.

In the exhibition, complementary male and female statues abound. Masks can be seen in serene or terrifying postures, with horns and tusks curving around glaring eyes.

Much of the art is abstract with strong aesthetics. Its distinctive cubist shapes and masks influenced well-known artists like Pablo Picasso, who dabbled in African art for two years during his African period. Picasso and other key figures like Henri Matisse contributed to the spread of interest in African-influenced modernism among the avant-garde in the United States.
Senufo art is widely recognized as the distinctive work of a particular culture and as powerful abstract art in its own right. The exhibit is currently on display at the Fabre museum in Montpellier until March next year.

Tuesday, 26 January 2016

Birth of a Nation

‘Birth Of A Nation’ Electrifies Sundance Crowd In World Premiere

by Dominic Patten January 25, 2016 5:29pm

Source: Deadline Hollywood

Sundance Film Festival

“Without an honest confrontation, there is no healing.” That’s from Birth Of A Nation director-producer-star Nate Parker today onstage at the Sundance Film Festival. In what I have to say was one of the most emotional experiences I’ve had at a movie theater, Parker world premiered what he called his seven-year “passion project.” His telling of the early 19th century slave revolt led by Nat Turner had audience members crying in their seats and jumping to their feet in a prolonged standing ovation at the film’s conclusion.

Potential buyers for the film streamed out of the lobby mere minutes after the cast had left the stage post-screening. Some worked multiple cell phones (with assistants standing nearby fielding calls of their own) in what appeared to be fevered discussions about the awards-bait film.

Speaking to the packed Eccles Theater crowd with almost the entire cast beside him after the lights came up, Parker said, “I made this movie for one reason only, creating change agents,” adding, “there are still a lot of injustices in our world.”

Guggenheim Bilboa - The Future of Design is Africa

"KUBAISM"

by Joe Pollitt

Acrylic Tiles
Size: 20cm x 20cm

Date: 2015

Artist Statement: "The conceptional ideas here are to take the designs created in Central Africa from the Kuba Kingdom and stretch them inwardly, in order to create a sense of weightlessness and a feeling of suspension."

Guggenheim: The future of design is Africa

By Thomas Page, for CNN

Source: CNN Inside Africa

(CNN) Is African design having a moment?

Not according to the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao, a denizen of contemporary art. Rather, the curators believe the continent's artists and architects are shaping the future of design entirely. In their latest exhibit, Making Africa -- A Continent of Contemporary Design, the museum showcases some of the freshest names in the art world as a whole (they just happen to all be African).

Shaping a new world order

Style" (2013), from the series "Moments of Transition" by Mario Macilau Alito.

Co-curators Amelie Klein and Petra Joos note that despite common perceptions that shape Africa as a land of "famine, corruption, or imposing landscapes," one of the most defining features of the continent is innovation.

"The world as we know it is in transformation -- politically, economically, socially, culturally and technologically. Anyone wanting to know how design can facilitate or even accelerate this change would be well advised to look to the south, especially at Africa, where the changes are very evident," she says.

"African design covers a fascinating spectrum of concerns that goes beyond recycling, traditional craft, or humanitarian design."

Road to Bilbao

"Sunsum" (2015), by David Adjaye, Adjaye Associates.

Researching for the exhibition "was a long process" Joos says, telling CNN about the many trips she took to Lagos, Dakar, Cape Town, Nairobi and Cairo. However she adds that it was mainly local artistic communities calling the shots.

"We had think tanks with intellectuals, directors and artists," she explains. They asked questions such as "What is design?" "What is Africa?" "What is African design?" the results of which found their way into the show's prologue.

"It's interesting because there was a lot of difference of opinion," says Joos. "They agreed; sometimes they disagreed. The visitor will see that in the exhibition."

Split into four sections, Making Africa negotiates many areas: "Prologue" addresses Western preconceptions; "I and We" looks at African solutions and responses to communication -- both at an intimate and societal level; "Space and Object" discusses environmental influences on creativity; and "Origin and Future" explores the notion of time.

Overall, 120 artists helped participate in exhibition, which includes the work of design heavyweights like Nigerian photographer J.D. Ojeikere and British-Tanzanian David Adjaye. These titans of the scene make their presence felt alongside the likes of Afrofuturist Ikire Jones and sculptor Cheick Diallo. All have equal footing when telling the story of contemporary African design, and help showcase the diversity of its creative community.

Stretching out across the globe

The Kingdom of Taali M (2013), by Pierre-Christophe Gam.

Joos notes that the size of the African diaspora abroad has led to cross-pollination in the world of design, whereby Africans abroad influence and are influenced by the cultures that surround them.

"We did an exhibition a few years ago when we only invited African artists living on the continent, but now it's absolutely impossible, because we have so many Africans going back and forth. They're living in Africa, but also in Paris, in London, even the United States."

This manifests itself in their work, she argues. "They're absolutely connected to everything," she says. "They are not limited by European design, for example. They know what's going on everywhere, and filter that through their culture and traditions."

Unlike European design however -- which Joos argues is "more formal" and "industrially realized" -- Africans are reveling in the journey towards the final object. "Africa [is] a hub of experimentation, generating new approaches and solutions of worldwide relevance, and [is] a driving force for a new discussion about the potential of design in the twenty first century."

"The process is more important than the result," Joos says; "this informal creativity is so African. It's not European, it's not American, and it makes a big difference to us."

'Making Africa -- A Continent of Contemporary Design' runs until February 21.

LA ART SHOW 2016

LA Art Show: A West Coast Fair With A Wider Reach

Ed Ruscha's "Zoot-Soot," 2015, presented by Bert Green Fine Art at the upcoming LA Art Show from January 27 - 31

Source: Blouinartinfo

(Bert Green Fine Art/ LA Art Show)

How has the art scene in Los Angeles evolved in the past 21 years of the fair’s existence? How would you compare it with the art scene of New York?

The art scene in Los Angeles had some remarkable changes in the past 21 years since the founding of the LA Art Show. It was once a city with a very small serious collector base. Now it is home to a very sophisticated collector and artistic community. In the early years of the show – and this is reflective of the culture in Los Angeles 21 years ago – people were more interested in an ‘event’ and less interested in the art. Now it’s a city that is embracing art on a large level. In the past 21 years, new museums, and galleries have proliferated, and so have the number of dedicated art events. It’s clear that Los Angeles has become an art city. We see it in the number of people who come to the LA Art Show. Last year, we had more than 60,000 attendees. When we first launched, we had a few hundred.

NY is still considered the number one art market in the US, but if the trajectory for Los Angeles continues to move at the rate that it has been, then LA will surpass NY in the near future as the number one destination for art. The art scene here has been growing exponentially in the last five years. You see it in the number and configuration of galleries. Think about how Gagosian Gallery is now opening a second space in the same city. Ace Gallery has two locations. This illustrates how much LA is growing, and how the local community can and does support it. The LA Art Show has grown from 14 galleries to more than 100. Each year, the show has shifted focus a bit to reflect the existing and future art market.

That’s one of the reasons that the LA Art Show has continued to grow. New York used to be a place where art was made and had a strong creative community. Then, as rents changed, the artist community moved farther out, and New York became a place where art was sold. Los Angeles has always been a creative place. Now, however, it’s quite apparent that not only can art be made here, that there is a very robust creative community; it is also a place where art is sold. We can look at this projection as a transition in growth. Just as Art moved from Paris to NY, it is moving from NY to LA.

LA really is the center of the creative pulse in the United States. NY is still the financial pulse.

When you think about collectors in NY, they tend to come from the Wall St. community. This completely makes sense; that is the industry of NY. Los Angeles is centered around the entertainment industry, which also contributes to the collector community. But it’s more than that in Los Angeles, because as the city has grown, as industry changed and grew, the collector community did as well.

America’s Silicon Valley, with a big population from outside the US, is not very far from LA. Has the buying power of that population affected the art market of the region? And how big is the component of celebrities from the entertainment industry in the collector base?

The Silicon Valley really pushes us farther north to the San Francisco Bay Area, but with the advent of Silicon Beach in LA, it is pulling that international community for a different reason. There seems to be a mass migration to Los Angeles. Silicon Valley is actually moving to LA too, ergo the development of Silicon Beach. For the Western United States, the art community is likewise moving to LA. It’s not Seattle, Portland or San Francisco. It’s now LA.

The LA Art Show is committed to spotting the now and next trends of art and bringing them to the Los Angeles community. That’s why we are bringing in African contemporary art this year, and launching a four-year exploration into the African contemporary art scene. Last year, we brought in the United Arab Emirates because that community is reflective of the evolution of Los Angeles. There are a large number or UAE citizens migrating to LA either to live permanently or with a second home.

We’ve actively expanded our international art gallery roster. Being on the West Coast, we tend to look to Latin America and Asia. On the East Coast it makes sense to look to Europe. Celebrities are a very visual component of the LA Art Show, but this is really about the fact that entertainment is a large component of industry here and so they compose a recognizable part of the collector community. The LA Art Show has a fair number of high-profile celebrities who attend, including: James Franco, Amy Adams, Leonardo DiCaprio, Lily Collins, Barbara Streisand, David Arquette, Jennifer Lawrence, Halle Berry and more. What’s wonderful about it is that they are all truly engaged with the art. This year we are very excited that Anne Hathaway and Adam Shulman will be the hosts for our Opening Night Premiere Party benefiting St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

How have you managed to balance the increasingly global character of the fair with its regional moorings?

We actively engage with international galleries because Los Angeles is a global city. What works here is entirely reflective of the community we live in. LA is special because many trends and movements that began here have changed the face of art globally. With the LA Art Show, we’re mindful of this too. Our Littletopia section is setting a new trend too. We want to showcase what is coming out of LA.

Think of our resident artists: Ed Ruscha, Ed Moses, John Baldassari, Retna, Mike Kelley, Mear One, Shepard Fairy, etc., Each one of these artists has launched a movement, in very different ways but the one thing that they have in common is that they choose Los Angeles as their base. I think that the city is so full of creativity due to the entertainment industry; it attracts artistic people. The global culture and character of the LA Art Show is actually reflective of American art. We’re not talking about the US, we’re talking about something that is wholly LA. It is a melting pot. It is a place that is global, so it makes sense that the LA Art Show is reflective of this. The LA experience is an international experience… and so is the LA Art Show.

A lot is new about the fair this time. Could you elaborate?

For 20 years, the LA Art Show as been an encyclopedic show. This was a very strategic decision based upon the fact that collectors’ tastes change and grow over time. Very few people will gravitate towards plein air paintings for their entire life. They’ll have some plein air, some sculpture, some photography, some mixed media, some contemporary or modern. Their tastes will change and grow through time. We wanted the LA Art Show to be a place where collectors could come and find things they love and explore what their next love might be. The LA Art Show is constantly evolving to reflect the art scene of the city. Each year our focus shifts slightly to be in line with the existing and future market. That’s how the show has grown over the years while others have failed to do so. Now we are moving towards a more contemporary experience that also includes performance art.

Could you talk about the move to separate the historic and traditional contemporary art into The Los Angeles Fine Art Show?

Since the art scene in LA has grown so much, the collector community has as well. In 2016, we are separating the LA Art Show, and creating a new art fair — The Los Angeles Fine Art Show. Both shows will be co-located and take place in tandem, however, the LA Art Show will be curated to showcase Modern & Contemporary Galleries and the Los Angeles Fine Art Show will include historic and traditional works. This separation creates a more honed curatorial/ collector experience, but still maintains the encyclopedic experience because visitors can still see both shows at the same time, in the same location, on the same day.

The Los Angeles Fine Art Show is the only one dedicated to this particular type of art in the world. We’re a genre specific show, not a time-frame specific one. When you think about the things that remain constant in art in terms of theme, portraiture will always be popular, as will be landscape or traditional still life. These type of artworks continue to post strong sales in international auctions, and in fact the largest portion of sales tend to be allocated to ‘traditional’ type works.

There is a group of contemporary artists who work in this genre. We are providing a platform for them, in addition to the historic works/ galleries. The Los Angeles Fine Art Show provides a dedicated experience for collectors who appreciate this genre, but at the same time, they can visit the LA Art Show and see contemporary and modern works.

If someone had only a day to visit the fair, what would you suggest them to do at the upcoming LA Art Show?

The LA Art Show and the Los Angeles Fine Art Show are both great art experiences on their own, but provide a full perspective when combined. In going to both, you can see a progression in art: the works of earlier artists who inspired their contemporary counterparts, and how things evolved through time.

I’d recommend going to the website first and looking at the programming for each day. We have some of the best art coming from South America, Asia, Africa and Europe and on the historic side, top painters that work in that style plus California impressionists, plein air, Hudson school artists and more. In visiting both, you get an idea of what is happening in the art world today globally.

Our participating galleries are bringing some of the top artists in the world and our programming reflects this. We also have performance art happening every day.

We have a robust lecture schedule from Thursday January 28th - Sunday, January 31st. We have some really inspiring programming including lectures with the artist Lluis Barba, and Yoon Jin Sup, who is curating the “Dansaekhwa II” exhibition. Then I’d go to the show and I’d check out the special exhibitions. We have some amazing exhibitions that look at what is happening in African Contemporary Art, Latin American Art, Asian Contemporary and have some of the top artists in each category, including Lluis Barba, who will be unveiling a new work at the show; Mari Kim, Hiroshi Mori, Issai Tanaka, Mizuho Koyama, Ryuma Imai, Tamie Okuyama. Mostapha Romili, Ingrid Mwangi Robert Hutter and others.

We also have exhibitions of some of the top street artists including: Mear One, who will be speaking about his new piece, “Revolution.” And, we have some amazing installations by Jana Cruder and Catherine Coan… and a sculpture garden. We are really excited to have Jeff Gillette, an artist who collaborated with Banksy to create Dismaland, showcase a new piece based upon his Dismaland concept as the entry way to our Littletopia section.

If you come on Thursday, we’ll be presenting a lifetime achievement award to the artist Robert Williams – one of the founders of the pop surrealist art movement that sprang out of Los Angeles. After seeing what’s happening with the special exhibitions, I would then suggest checking out each gallery. There are more than 130 galleries in both shows, representing more than 20 countries. Each gallery is exceptional. Then take a break, grab a bite and go back after you’ve had time to think the piece you need to have.

The LA Art Show takes place Jan 27- 31 at the Los Angeles Convention Center, 1201 South Figueroa Street, West Hall A. For details, visit www.laartshow.com

Tyburn Gallery, Central London

New Art Gallery Provides Rare Insight Into Contemporary African Art

Grace Banks ,

Contributor

Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

Bridget Baker, The Assemblers #1, 2015, Photographer Sarah Nankin. Copyright the artist, Courtesy Tyburn Gallery.

Tyburn Gallery is a new London-based exhibition space dedicated to international contemporary art. Founded by the former editor of the South African Journal of Human Rights Emma Menell, an engagement with the culture and socio-politics of Africa is at the heart of this new venture. Growing up in South Africa, Menell maintained a passion for art, and this lifelong fascination is evidenced in the works she collects.

Both Menell and her family have been involved in entrepreneurial ventures across Africa which have brought them into contact with artists and collectors across the continent. Menell’s own collection features pieces by Robert Hodgins, Moffat Takadiwa, William Kentridge, Guy Tillim and other emerging South African artists. She founded Tyburn Gallery to represent, support and exhibit the work of some of Africa’s most exciting new artists.

The gallery’s inaugural show is Broken English, running from 18 September until 28 October 2015. Curated by Kim Stern, a curator based in Cape Town, the show presents the work of a group of international artists including Stephen Allwright, Joël Andrianomearisoa, Bridget Baker, Eduardo Berliner, Edson Chagas, Dan Halter, Mouna Karray, Yashua Klos, Ibrahim Mahama, Michele Mathison, Mohau Modisakeng, Lakin Ogunbanwo, Athi-Patra Ruga, Rowan Smith and Moffat Takadiwa.

Lakin Ogunbanwo, Untitled (hat on face), 2013, Copyright the Artist, Courtesy Tyburn Gallery.

Broken English analyses the categorisation of culture and identity in the millennial world in which continents are connected through social media rather than human contact. Many of the artists live between multiple cities, including Antananarivo, Cape Town, Harare, Johannesburg, Lisbon, London, New York, Paris, São Paulo and Tamale. Their work critiques the relevance of national identity in this globalised social climate. We spoke with the gallery founder Emma Menell to find out how her dynamic career trajectory, and a fascination with the arts, led her to this new venture.

How would you describe Tyburn Gallery?

Tyburn is a gallery dedicated to contemporary art, working with artists from a global range of evolving art scenes, with Africa as a point of departure. Many of our artists are relatively young in terms of age but have already achieved a lot in their artistic practice. The curatorial programme over the next year will reflect the current focus on international artists linked to Africa, through innovative solo exhibitions by Moffat Takadiwa, Michele Mathison, Mouna Karray and Bridget Baker.

Why did you decide to open the gallery in London and why now?

I am South African but have been living the UK for some time now. I’ve always been impressed with London’s highly developed art infrastructure and the rich cultural landscape here. A location in the city provides a strong international platform to present our artists, many of whom are already becoming increasingly visible in the institutional circuits of museums and biennales around the world (Edson Chagas won the Golden Lion for the Angolan pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2013; Ibrahim Mahama, Athi-Patra Ruga and Mohau Modisakeng all have works in the current Biennale; and Bridget Baker and Athi-Patra Ruga were part of Tate’s South African Artists On Screen series this summer). The gallery offers an ideal location for curators and collectors from around the world to view their works.

Athi-Patra Ruga, Proposed Model of the New Azanian, 2014, Wool, thread and artificial flowers on tapestry, Copyright Athi-Patra Ruga, Courtesy Tyburn Gallery

What’s the aim of the gallery?

Our core values are aligned to be artist-centric and we want to help give artists the support they need on all aspects of their activities across exhibitions, catalogues and archives. We are commissioning several new works for our opening exhibition and want to continue to commission work for solo shows to support exhibition production. We hope our artists will continue to be included in important international exhibitions, create work that is discussed critically and gain global recognition. We now increasingly see artists from Africa presented alongside the work of their international peers and this is something the gallery will support and promote.

Why is Africa your point of focus for this new space?

I grew up in South Africa and I have been passionate about art all of my life. My own experience of artists in Africa led to my wanting to help promote a deeper, critical understanding of these artists’ work internationally. Their quality of work is exceptionally high and it’s where our area of expertise lies. As the gallery organically grows and expands in the future, this focus may evolve. In my view the art scene across the continent is vibrant and dynamic. We are very excited about Angola and other parts of West Africa, such as Ghana. We are working with significant artists from countries across Africa such as Madagascar, Zimbabwe and Tunisia and also the wider diaspora which are all part of an evolving and very exciting art scene.

Rowan Smith, Untitled (Burn), 2012, Digital Print, Copyright Rowan Smith, Courtesy Tyburn Gallery.

How did you go about selecting, curating and putting together the artists for your inaugural show?

Broken English gives a good overview of many of the artists we will be working with in the future. Alongside our Curatorial Advisor Kim Stern, we have selected artists that all have a unique voice and a perceptible individualism within their work. The artists presented work across different mediums and styles, but they all create work that is conceptually rich and layered with multi-cultural narratives, often exploring social, political and economic concerns. I have always been very drawn to photography, and there are several artists in the show whose practice is based around photographically documented performance; often with the artist placed centre stage.

Which pieces are you excited about and why?

We are presenting a sculptural installation by Moffat Takadiwa made from found objects. Part of the post-independence generation of artists in Zimbabwe, his work speaks of the cultural dominance exercised by the consumption of foreign products across Africa. Mouna Karray’s black and white self-portrait series Noir is striking yet subtle. Inspired by a live chicken in a plastic bag being carried by man on a bus in Tunisia, she wrapped herself in a white sheet with only her hand visible to release the shutter. The work is a metaphor for imprisonment, but her act demonstrates the power we still have to act under duress.

Mouna Karray, Noir#4, 2013, inkjet print on baryta paper, Copyright the Artist, Courtesy Tyburn Gallery

How has your experience editing the South African Journal of Human Rights affected your approach to this new venture?

Artists necessarily reflect upon the environments from which they arise. I am particularly interested in the political and socio economic developments and challenges across Africa and how artists relate to and articulate these issues within their work.

Mouna Karray, Noir#7, 2013, inkjet print on baryta paper, Copyright the Artist, Courtesy Tyburn Gallery

Mouna Karray, Noir#8, 2013, inkjet print on baryta paper, Copyright the Artist, Courtesy Tyburn Gallery

How has the art world in Africa changed over the last ten years?

The curatorial rewiring of contemporary African art on a global scale has been happening since the 90s. Artists from the continent are increasingly seeing interest from museums as well as biennales and festivals like Documenta and the Venice Biennale which has brought them to greater public prominence. This has been a gradual process and one I believe will be sustained rather than a trend. The world seems extremely receptive to African artists and I can see why when you look at the calibre of some of the work being produced. There are some very intelligent international curators around have played key roles in this such as Okwui Enwezor, Elvira Dyangani Ose and Gabi Ngcobo to name a few.

Broken English at Tyburn Gallery runs from 18 September – 28 October 2015.

Tyburn Gallery, St Christopher’s Place, London WIU 1BG.