NIGERIANS VALUE THEIR CULTURE

BEN ENWONWU | CHRISTINE

Estimate: 100,000 - 150,000 GBP

Lot Sold: 1,095,000GBP

Lot Details

Description

BEN ENWONWU
Nigerian
1921-1994
CHRISTINE

signed and dated 1971 (lower left)
oil on canvas
76.3 by 61cm., 30 by 24in.

Condition Report

Cataloguing

Provenance

Acquired directly from the artist in 1971
Thence by descent

Exhibited

Lagos, Exhibition Centre, Management Consultant Services Ltd. presents Professor Ben Enwonwu's Paintings and Sculptures, 23 May-6 June 1974, illustrated in the catalogue, cat no. 56A, titled 'Mrs. Christine Davis' 

 

Catalogue Note

Spanning close to 60 years, Ben Enwonwu’s artistic career followed one of the most important periods of Modern Nigerian history; the journey from a British colony to a newly independent African nation. Nigeria gained independence from the United Kingdom on 1 October 1960, and with it the country was in search of a new post-colonial identity. Ben Enwonwu MBE became an advocate for a new Nigerian national culture and a pioneer of African modernism. By his passing in 1994, the artist was, and would continue to be, considered one of the most revered African artists of the 20^th century.

Ben Enwonwu was born in 1917 in Onitsha, eastern Nigeria, to a mother who ran a successful textile business and a father who was a retired technical assistant and a reputable sculptor, from whom the artist learned his early carving skills. In addition to being an acclaimed painter and sculptor, the artist was also a distinguished writer and art critic.

Enwonwu studied fine arts at the Umuahia Government College in 1934, before receiving a scholarship to study in the UK in 1944, where he attended Goldsmiths College and the Slade School of Fine Arts. During this time, he studied European art movements such as Symbolism and Fauvism. Ben Enwonwu’s mastery in combining European techniques and traditional Igbo aesthetics is central to his artistic oeuvre. Enwonwu returned to Nigeria in 1948 to begin his federally appointed position of Art Adviser of the Colonial Office. The artist continued his practice in Nigeria and in 1949 was declared by Time magazine as ‘Africa’s Greatest Artist’.

The present lot was painted in 1971, the same year that Enwonwu was appointed the first professor of Fine Art at the University of Ife. Assuming this position in the wake of the Biafran War (1967-1970), Enwonwu sought to expose his students to ideas of national reconstruction and reconciliation and the effect of this tense civil war on Nigeria’s post-colonial cultural identity.

Enwonwu produced some of his most accomplished works in the years directly following the end of the war, including the four known portraits of Adetutu Ademiluyi (known as Tutu), a Yoruba princess from the ancient Kingdom of Ife and this portrait of Christine. Painted just prior to Enwonwu’s famed portraits of the Yoruba princess, Christine is a clear precursor to these works. The present lot bears an especially close resemblance to Enwonwu’s most famed portrait of Tutu, the whereabouts of which are currently unknown. While Enwonwu is well-known as a portraitist, portraits of this high calibre are exceedingly rare.

Christine herself was born in New York, the step-daughter of a renowned Ghanaian lawyer. In her early twenties, she moved back to Ghana to reside with her stepfather before relocating to Lagos, Nigeria in 1969. In Lagos, Christine and her husband Elvis developed a close friendship with the artist. Commissioned as a gift to the sitter, the present lot is a product of the friendship between Ben Enwonwu, Christine and her husband. Known for her elegance and dignified beauty, Christine had the innate ability to stay composed and immobile for as long as the artist required. Enwonwu’s loose brush strokes and vibrant oil captures Christine transient beauty. The portrayal of her long-neck, glowing skin, curved lips and delicate smile are testament of the warmth and grace of the sitter. Her devotion and composure are conveyed in the portrait and is a testament of the trust and complicity between the artist and Christine.

The similarities between Christine and Tutu are striking. Stylistically, the artist employs similar techniques in both works, a mixture of clearly defined and loose brushstrokes. Christine, in the present lot, sits up tall and elegant, there is a subtle emotion conveyed through her gentle Mona Lisa-like smile and a sense of ease in her eyes which emanates to the viewer. Christine and Tutu are bonded, especially in the dignified presentation of both figures, translated through their embodiment of a regal posture and authority of a statesman. This regal and dignified pose is highlighted in both Christine and Tutu, as both sitters share a mesmeric frontal gaze, along with their torsos both positioned in an outward and angular manner, as present in historical Western paintings. There is also backlight present in both Christine and Tutu. In both portraits, the light takes on a luminescent character, emphasizing the unique features of both subjects, chiefly the elongated necks, a feature recognisable in Enwonwu’s work. The light in both works forms a halo, and giving both Christine and Tutu a delicate, yet iridescent and angelic glow.

Christine is said to have had a great appreciation for different cultures which she encountered. Being a stylist, she sought to express herself through the traditional attires of the locals. This is further reinforced in the present lot, where she is depicted wearing a beautifully tied headscarf called ‘gele’, which signifies her married status. Although Christine was not born in Lagos/Nigeria, her attire shows her affinity with the region and a and a deep respect to West African tradition.

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AFRICA | CULTURE IS BOUGHT AND PAID FOR | MAKE NO MISTAKE, ART IS POWER!! AFRICAN ART IS NOT ABOUT PORTRAITS OR STILL LIFE BUT STILL, HERE WE ARE? 

THIS NON CONFRONTATIONAL ARTIST, THIS CREATIVE COCONUT IS THE BEST OF NIGERIA? WHAT FOOLISHNESS, WHAT DISHONESTY, WHAT LIES WE SHARE AS WE SLIP UNDER THE UGLY SHEETS OF (S)HELL. 

HOW IS IT THAT NATIONAL TRAITORS CAN BECOME NATIONAL TREASURES? TO LEARN FROM THE OPPRESSORS TO BECOME THE OPPRESSOR. THE FORCES BEHIND THIS UNJUSTIFIED SUCCESSFUL RISE ARE PURE EVIL; SO EXTREMELY WHITE. MONEY TALKS AND BULLSHIT WALKS, EVERYBODY LOVES THE COLOUR OF MONEY ~ GREEN CAN MAKE A HISTORY OF YOUR CHOOSING, SO BUY YOUR WAY IN AND START WRITING....(Mona Lisa; Money Lease-Her more like. Who-bought you? No refunds Mista. No funs here. 'Pay or Go-way' Policy of Sotheby's).

NIGERIANS ARE NO FOOLS, THEY WILL SEE RIGHT THROUGH YOU ALL. THE ELITE CAN HIDE BEHIND FOREIGN AID BUT TIME WILL TELL. LIARS WILL BE EXPOSED AND THE TRUTH WILL OUT IN AN ORAL CULTURE. THE DRUMS ARE BEATING AND THE MASKS ARE TALKING FROM BENIN BRONZES TO COLONIAL CONFORMIST ARTISTS, MAMA WATA???

To be continued...

VALERIE KABOV | COMMITTMENT TO THE MEDIUM

Source: ART AFRICA

In ‘Committed to the Medium,’ Valerie Kabov considers the rise of new painting from Zimbabwe. This article is available in full in the most recent ‘Painting’s Not Dead!’ (13.4) issue of ARTsouthAFRICA, which is the final edition of the magazine you have known and loved for over thirteen years. Look out for Kabov’s article, titled ‘Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Global Art Market’ in the upcoming, inaugural edition of ART AFRICA!

CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT: Mavis Tauzeni, Eve’s Diaries Pt 4, 2015. Acrylic on canvas, 180 x 160 cm; Wycliffe Mundopa, Paradise of Vice, 2015. Oil on canvas; Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude, Love Pirates part 1, 2015. Oil on canvas; Wycliffe Mundopa, Myths of Harare (Drowning in air), 2014. Mixed media on canvas, 178 x 235. 5 cm; Gresham Tapiwa, Nyaude Dog’s Life Part 2 & 1, 2015. Oil on canvas, 180 x 210 cm. All images are details. All images courtesy of First Floor Gallery Harare.

At the recent art fairs in Cape Town and Johannesburg this year, there was something almost peculiar in the cornucopia of art offerings from around the continent; the significant presence of Zimbabwean artists on the South African art scene. This presence has extended so much so that Zimbabwean artists Gerald Machona and Kudzanai Chiurai represented South Africa internationally at the recent 56^th Venice Biennale. Zimbabwe’s close proximity to South Africa cannot fully explain the prodigious flowering of talent in a country with a population of only fourteen million, whose economic woes have decimated its arts education, resulting in the absence of even a single internationally recognised Fine Art degree programme.

Of particular importance is the emergence of painters from Zimbabwe. Misheck Masamvu has become an established name in South Africa, represented by Blank Projects and presented at art fairs by Goodman Gallery. Artists like Portia Zvavahera, winner of the FNB Joburg Art Fair Prize (2015), and Richard Mudariki have found themselves a permanent home. Given Zimbabwe’s historical art reputation being cemented in stone sculpture practice, the rise of painting is somewhat unusual. While sculpture still delivers some heavy hitters, it is the ‘non–traditional’ and, as some have argued, ‘non-indigenous’ medium of painting that’s creating excitement in local and increasingly international art circles.

The conventional historical view is that the missionaries introduced painting and sculpture in Zimbabwe in the 1930s. Key to this introduction was Canon Paterson, who founded Cyrene Mission School in 1939 in Bulawayo, and Father Groeger, founder of Serima Mission. At both schools, young men were taught painting skills with a view to decorating churches and religious paraphernalia. Canon held the progressive view that given the opportunity African artists could reach the same heights as Europeans. The generation of artists that emerged from the Missions includes painters like Kingsley Sambo, whose works are in the MoMA in New York. In 1957 Frank McEwan, the first Director of the National Gallery of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) established the studio workshop, sponsored by British American Tobacco, which fostered the stone sculpture practice alongside painting. Still, the medium was not viewed as entirely indigenous.

Zimbabwe’s introduction to contemporary art came after its independence, with Gallery Delta’s Helen Leiros and artists like Berry Bickle and Tapfuma Gutsa seeking and promoting alternative ways of expression. Leiros in particular taught and fostered modern art techniques and mentored artists of the born-free generation, such as Lovemore Kambudzi, Misheck Masamvu, Richard Mudariki, Virginia Chihota and Portia Zvavahera.

While this history is important, it cannot explain the level of talent and quality of art production in Zimbabwe; these are contiguous with and true property of the culture, values and passions of the people and the times they live in. The medium – painting, poetry, sculpture or music – is in many ways a matter of convenience and availability. When conditions change so can the modes of expression. At its core, Zimbabwean culture is characterised by an ability to appraise life philosophically, with a measure of detachment and a big picture view. This culture manifests in many aspects of Zimbabwean tradition, from the immense importance of avoiding conflict and preserving social relationships, to the sophistication and conceptual structuring of Zimbabwean proverbs, monotheistic spirituality and belief in the sacredness of human life. This culture underpins the incredible perseverance and optimism of Zimbabwean people and continues to inform the new generation of painters, arguably even more so than all other artists. It can be said that presently in Harare, the medium of painting reflects the tensions, the complexity and the arduous path of the country better than any other available medium. Painting requires idealism – technical, artistic and personal. While the new generation of sculptors in Zimbabwe has, in many cases, opted for found and discarded objects as a resource, inventing their own medium and the method, the painters in Zimbabwe are required to forge ahead with technical, artistic and personal idealism and sacrifice.

Given the cost and availability issues, it is surprising that anyone takes up painting in Zimbabwe today. When making one painting can cost the same as the artist’s monthly rent, the choice between painting and eating becomes a real one. Capitulating to these economics, art schools such as the National Gallery Visual Art Studio or Harare Polytechnic have resorted to teaching painting with acrylics and in some cases, even poster paints. While some artists opt for print based techniques as an alternative, there is a younger generation of doggedly committed to the medium. Among those leading the charge are three young artists; Wycliffe Mundopa, Mavis Tauzeni and Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude.

Through the works Misheck Masamvu and Portia Zvavahera, audiences have come to associate new Zimbabwean painting with powerful metaphoric figuration and bold gestural statements in preference to finer detail. Although it is hard to speak about a ‘Harare School’ or a movement emerging, this ethos of place also informs the works of their younger colleagues, although each is making their own very distinct thematic imprint.

For Wycliffe Mundopa, the Hegelian dictum that art must be of its time and of its place is a most fitting description. Few artists are more passionately committed to being in Zimbabwe and sharing the pains and the struggles of its people than Mundopa. “This suffering is what makes us,” is his motto and the sentiment pulsates in each of his paintings, which spin like a whirlwind through the underbelly of Harare’s high-density areas and pain-points. His circus-like colours and twisted lines underscore the razor-sharp social commentary on a world where entertainment and poverty are close companions and where everything can be for sale. In his complex compositions, Mundopa displays his depth of historical research and admiration for the Dutch Masters, Rembrandt and Rubens in particular, by making us feel that if they had lived in Harare today, this is exactly what their paintings would look like. Mundopa’s recent show ‘Myths of Harare’ at Commune 1 Gallery (in Cape Town) and the selection of complementary works on paper at Ebony Gallery, (also in Cape Town) was a runaway success, displaying for the first time Mundopa’s prowess in tackling museum-size canvasses. We can only look forward to what happens next for this prodigious talent. 

Mavis Tauzeni produces, in many ways, a counter-balance to Mundopa’s frenetic subversive carnivals. Her canvasses are immersed in the unsettling stillness of introspection and waters that run deep. Deeply personal, Tauzeni’s imagery oscillates between the surreal, futuristic and dreamy. It bears some kinship to the world of Wengechi Mutu, who Tauzeni cites as a role model. Yet despite its surface otherworldliness, Tauzeni’s world is no less of a social commentary, speaking implicitly and explicitly to the difficulties of being a woman – and a woman artist – with an independent and individual journey. While she speaks to the realities of her life in Zimbabwe, the tones and sentiments engendered in her work are immediately empathetic, not only to women but to all of us yearning to break out of convention and social expectation. Tauzeni has already attracted attention for her works on paper, having been acquired by the Fondation Blanchere Collection in 2014, but the artist’s true passion is painting. Tauzeni is ready to emerge as a painter of note, with a new exhibition at First Floor Gallery titled ‘Eve’s Diaries’ and comprising major canvasses.

In stark contrast to Tauzeni and Mundopa is Gresham Tapiwa Nyaude. While no less informed by the drama and trauma of daily life in Harare than Mundopa, Nyaude’s practice is the epitome of the tongue-in-cheek street smarts that characterise the ‘ghetto ethos’of his native Mbare. Visually translating slang and vernacular, Nyaude works in waves to create series of obsessive, thematic paintings, exorcising each subject to exhaustion before subjecting a new victim to his keen wit. His past series include ‘The Midnight Shoppers’ based on the invisible and undocumented night-life of the Mbare ghetto; ‘Native Advertising’,’ which confronts us with how the news and media manipulate perceptions of Africans and particularly Zimbabweans, and how the media themselves are manipulated; as well as ‘Dog’s Life,’ in which dozens of gleaming canines stare down from canvasses, their grimaces simultaneously  accusatory, vindictive, victorious and prevocational, the spectral allegory of the ‘ghetto hustle.’ Nyaude has already garnered international interest, with works from ‘Dog’s Life’ having been shown at SMAC Gallery early in 2015 and ‘Native Advertising’ currently on show at F2 Galeria in Madrid, as part of a3bandas gallery festival in the Spanish capital.

Intellectually on point, emotionally powerful and technically adept, this trio of emerging painters is not to be underestimated. Together and individually, they are also role models for their peers to emulate and given what we know about Zimbabwean art and artists, there’s more to come.

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JUST SAY NO TO ART EDUCATION!!

On reading this article by Valerie reminds me of 

Low Art | Art Brut | Jean Dubuffet

Letters from the Wilderness to Prince Babatunde Jellah Epega by Joe Pollitt

25/10/2019

My Dearest Prince Babatunde Jellah Epega,

Greetings from Royal Tunbridge Wells to Your Highness on this cold and frosty October morning.

I trust that you and "Venus Bushfires" are perfectly fine. So too are your glorious Princesses whom I assume are happy and content on this extremely rarely seen early morning.

I couldn't sleep well so I've just woken up. A small miracle for me to catch the dew in the hedgerows for lack of a garden. Flat living can be so tiresome. Gardenless and fruitless; sunshine so rare in these parts. It is far too early for me. I am more of a night person, sleeping at dawn and waking at noon if you're lucky. I guess these are the advantages of being a childless man. Regardless of my daily habits, who in Africa cares? I have been thinking about your Opera and what is African Art? It, for me, has become a cozy home, for those that don't quite fit the mold, the misfits and the rejects. Those that want to confront rather than conform. There has never been a more important time for the emergence of the importance of African Art and I regard myself as an 'African Artist'. The Continent has inspired me to think and be different, as I'm sure it has you too. Things just seen in a completely different perspective and that needs to be celebrated and understood. You and Helen are doing cultural marathons to show others this and the vast opportunities it brings.

I really love Helen's song "We Come in Peace", but to get full audience participation Venus Bushfires needs to slightly simplify....be more like the football terraces and break it down. Like 'OH AH CANTANA, OH AH CANTANA'... so what about "FREEDOM GIVEN!.....FREEDOM TAKEN-AWAY!" - Do a Classic Trump on the Crowd, so all can feel included and nobody has to have a good voice...it is more of a revolutionary chant....This is truly a magical song, a mind opener for many, I being ONE!

I do hope we can meet soon to discuss more. This subject never gets boring for me. I woke this morning thinking how you switched from English to Pidgin as Fred (Kingston Gallery Owner | Simon Fredricks) did with Jamaican Patwah at King's and realize it is a 'life-collide'. A journey for identity when the parameters in England are so very rigid. I have seen this in my own cousins who I grew up with; now with New Zealand, Australian accents, but I really thought it more a put-on but I realize it is more wanting to be immigrated fully....In your case my dear friend, it is slightly different but rather more exciting because you are living between worlds divided. I wonder what your young girls, your wonderful Princesses, think of it all? They are going to be or already are, so incredible.

You have inspired me to write again and I want to find a rather different kind of voice and wrote this, which should become a series of "Letters in the Wilderness" ~ the wilderness meaning those not wanting to be brainwashed by creative ideas of the West more inspired by those without artistic formulaic degrees, Masters of Fine Art or even Doctors with PhDs....I prefer to encourage the untrained, those Artistic Doctors Without Borders. Whether this is successful, only time will tell but it is worth building upon regardless.

The Pidgin Opera has inspired me..Tonight I have been teaching myself "Pidgin"....I really LoveitO....but you can use the keyboard characters  too...- | ~ } "" { .... and so the symbols mean something too...this is awesome...so inventive and linguistically malleable.

How on earth did Helen write her Opera, Mami wata GENIUS.

So this is my first go. Please do bare in mind I can only get better:

"How-u-dey? Me-dey-fineO.

Wetin-be-u-dayO. Me no-sabi and me no~NO! Dash-me, Gi-me CoffeeO. Me no-money, me no~friendsO…..

Wetin-dey-happen? Wahala no-dey stopO.  Me comot for safety, me comot for security. Who dem send you?

Me want chop, talkshop dayda k-leg customa. Come chop, abeg...make me no vex you...if you no gree, that-be fineO, Charlie~~~~"

Good luck with tomorrow/today perhaps with the Opera performance to 360 plus kids. They are going to adore you all.

KEEP being FANTASTIC.

May the Gods bless you richly.

Lots of love,


African Joe XXXX

Ps. If you didn't get a chance to see this because of Opera Commitments: Here are the highlights from the England vs All Blacks | Semi Finals

Letters from the Wilderness to King's Scholar Luke Dunn by Joe Pollitt

24/10/2019

Dear King's Scholar Luke,

You have run beside me and at times held my hand metaphorically but you have been a great support. What is African Art to me? When I was a child I went to my primary school…First Day, I was given a small bottle of milk with a blue straw…New to me for sure…but I saw the straw and I saw the girl's ear and thought is this straw for that ear? Come on yes of course...it kinda fits…yes it does...makes sense...I don't need the straw, maybe she does?  Maybe she has somehow misplaced hers and I really don't need mine. Yes, maybe she does need my straw afterall...let us see. I had been strategically placed in the high-chair and overlooked the other toddlers. I felt so powerful, an overwhelming sense of unearned privilege. I was seen as important by the group. I had to do something all their eyes where on me. So I reached across and pushed the blue straw into the little girl's ear canal thinking it was meant to be….'The Lady Oldie'…Wwwell she wrenched me out my high-chair with such familiar force and rushed me out the room…I WAS EXPELLED….I was 4 years old. It was the First day of my academic career. Clearly, I was a non-starter....

When I was five I pissed my bed like a drunkard that I am now, in fact, aged 49, I piss my bed more now than ever before. I am known by some as the "Bedwetter of Royal Tunbridge Wells".  I piss the bed twice, if not three times a night just to make sure and in winter more to keep warm. Put I used to go on this hateful “school run”…I would punch the driver in the back of the head for driving too slow and again when he or she (dependent of school days) was driving too fast…I used to weep in the car every morning….and my school uniform stank of piss because I was so sad..I never noticed myself but others said I stank…They tried to help but I would simply piss on them....SO MISERABLE….TO HAVE TO LEARN FROM SUCH SELF RIGHTEOUS DO-GOODERS! I remember one day I went to the school and wanted to say goodbye to my Mummy….and Mrs Gledhill held me back with both arms…So I punched her in the face and ran to  kiss my dear Mummy goodbye…Again EXPELLED ..aged 6 and three quatres. MYBAD….

It gets worse…

I joined the Cubs and I was 7 and then my very famous AdMAN Dad, Stanley Pollitt, from Boase Massimi Pollitt went and died on me at the tender age of 49 in 1979, I was 8 years of age and I remember walking to the Sweetshop in Sussex after our weekly boring Sacred Heart Sunday Catholic Mass and saying to him, “D-Ad you are 49, you will be an antique at 50…if you make it?” The next day he was DEAD. Still to this day I feel my comments killed him…Bullet words from a terrible bed-wetting ‘EXPELLED’ son. He tried to teach me to Box but never let me punch him….he wanted to punch me to a pulp to teach me a lesson…A lesson in what? Well, I did learn something…how to run from adults. I don't miss our so-called, "BOXING LESSONS" one bit.

Naturally as a young fatherless boy of 8, I started swearing. Well what else is there to do...FCUK.

"FUCK…FUCKERS..BUM-LICKERS, ARSE SCRATCHERS, NOSE PICKERS, SHIT, SCREW YOU….BUM, TITS, BIG TITS AND ASS. SPIT, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK..COCK..COCK A DOODLE DOO...COCK...cock..cock..COCK..COCK...FUCK..FUCK..JESUS...CHRIST ALMIGHTY (pause for breath) CHRIST ALMIGHTY YOU FUCKING JESUS (that was my ulitmate 'crowd-shocker'!)"

Well, what a reaction from the Scout Hut. Everybody was watching me now...I was virtually famous. Celebrity no less..the rudest boy in the room. The fact was that nobody had heard such a potty-mouth, the parents heard right away and I was excluded…No more jelly and ice-cream birthdays for little old me...No Sir ree... I was sent home immediately…EXPELLED YET AGAIN…but all I wanted was for others to feel as angry and upset as I felt about losing my favourite dear AD/DAD…BMP | “SMASHED GET SMASHED” and he did….The silly potato-head.

It gets worse

To be continued.....

Anyway Luke, just thought I’d touch base. 

Hope that your childhood was worse than mine…I have plenty more to offer.

Big Kiss,

YOU ROCK…..STAR.

Yours sincerely,

Master Joseph Pollitt | 3^rd Grade Student, Bottom Set and Sinking Fast

Letters from the Wilderness to Simon Wajcenberg by Joe Pollitt

24/10/2019

Dear Puppanickle,

It's been a hard days night but um feeling quite all write. Had another tough two weeks, facing kite-surfing Wendy at the office..."Windy-Wendy"..Thatz what we 'Kool Kids' call-her. Let me share with you an'ickle Jackanory 'bout my hard-working weak......

And back to the writing, back to the rhythm. The sounds of the Underground, the blasts from the past, slowly waking up to join me in my-writing.  Adjust can't sleep, too excitedO. Me be me, wear me is free, look, finally let-it-be, as-eye-is clearly accepted. I can dance O, Lieca camel whithers humps, lumps and teddy-bear paws. This feels good. This feels right, like I've been herO....Wwater bumbum.  Just slide on in to the other-side, cultural butterfly spreading her beautiful wings. Neither this nor that can touch me now. I have found my tapping feet, my neck-nodding up and down and side to side hitting every beat.....as I slide on in to the other-side. Where rigid conformity and gentile formality are calmly swept under the rug. Lucy goosey is on her way going. It's been awhile since I have opened up like this two-YOOOOHOOOO! Busy pushing into third, then fourth, fifth and looking for my sixth gear. Riding in my mind, smoked filled razor-blades scratching at the sides of my eyes, opening the lids to see what others see when they read me...WRITE....

Nothing but confusion as I givea shout-out with some catchy little soundbites and slogans from the past; a grey haired porcupine with sharp-spike-spikes, waving all her weapons proudly in the air, letting off the bullets that shower without sponge, without soap, without Wwater bumbum. So you too can feel me thumping, banging out her beats, roaring out for loners, for losers, for rejects, for misfits, wherebe the ne're-do-wells...coz we wanna NO! There rizza seat with your name in-it, park your rump down and Abba rest in peace.. A creep-ona-seat, sitting sniffing at my feet.....YOU ARE WELL-COME!

Wotz the sense of making sense when incense is taking up the room. Nothing said, nothing spoken, all is quiet....ALL IS BRIGHT.... All clear on the Western front, back-off, theres nothing to see here people, absolutely no message meant. Make your way to the doors, find your closet exit and make like-a dove with three wings and leave. These golden years are priceless, the aches and pains of age are quickly fading as I type. Wot write have you to be here? No right at all, that's why it feels so dangerously WRITE .


Meet four a-pint or five depending on the outcome of the second part of the third Act. Put your best frock-on and let's boogy-baby, want-some? Till then stay as you are. What, no Wedding--ring? Don't change a thing. Stay just as you are, I'm off-too guitar-car.

All my warm fuzzy winky-wanky-wooes,

Uncool Joey XX

P.s. Howz Foam-at-the-mouth-Bob and Sightseeing-Simple-Dimple-Seaman-Simon, be sure, be absolutely certain this time, to send them my LOVE! Tata

I-D MAGAZINE ~ AFRICAN ART

Comments from Joe Pollitt as an intro.......


"THIS IS NOT GOOD FOR AFRICA....NO GOOD...THE ARTISTS ARE ALL FALLING INTO COLONIAL TRAPS...BLEACHED FOR A WHITE ART MARKET...HOW IS THIS AFRICAN ART? NO....NO..NO THIS IS JUST NOT RIGHT...IN FACT, IT IS DISHONEST!

It must be understood that South Africa is an entity unto itself. The people of South Africa do NOT look up to Africa, they look up to Europe and the US. They are totally obsessed with qualifications; most have MFAs, PhDs even.....they have all been played for years. They are the children of the "Abused"...these Artists can hardly reflect a complex Continent as Africa. In their minds they are NOT African....they are struggling to find what they are....but the answers do NOT lie in the corridors of formal Colonial Institutions and between the pages of exam sheets. The artists are just paying lip service to the old regime. Has anybody seen the TOWNSHIP ARTISTS? This is where the life blood of South Africa runs......devoid and uncontaminated from Institutional Education. This is a huge subject which is just being skimmed upon and represented so poorly in these pathetic toxic Art Fairs....

On reflection, I guess these Artists do represent the Continent but in ways I hadn't considered before. Is Africa going to be constantly ruled by others? Is it going to be valued by what some outside exam board thinks of them or what such established sites as Somerset House or the British Museum say? The question is rock solid and hits at the heart of the matter....Who is to define the Continent? Are African Nations created by the Collectors behind closed doors in Auction Houses? Let us be clear here, it is the money that shapes the Cultural Independence of Nations. That being the case, then "Independence" really does mean absolutely nothing. Art is Power, it shows others what the individuals of all the different 'made-up' countries of Africa, are worth. It expresses the values held by Nations, so Art, in essence, is far more than just objects strategically placed or blobs of paint on prepared canvases, neatly framed.

Are we to support those that have bought their tickets via Western approved degrees and further educational qualifications, which can be marked down by those that have the audacity to declare others, "Uncivilized"? The beauty of African Art is it's openness, it's glorious primitive unpredictable nature. Sadly, the Continent is still being controlled by vulgar outside forces. So we have a parallel in place and it is rich vs poor, groomed vs independent.  If the Continent is to be truly free then it must be defined by the authenticity of untrained artists? The financial investments paid out by the Artists, has so far paid off, but that is to the detriment of an entire Continent. Those with their tickets are only holding up the rest, creating barriers for the determined honest artists. The only country to grasp this concept is Nigeria...the rest of Africa are decades behind and some may never change. The rigid white frameworks that has been put into place and will never allow it to be altered; there is simply too much at stake. What we are witnessing today are just white masks on black faces.

I guess what I am trying to point out and fearful of is that perhaps, just maybe we are listening to the Rong Radio Station...

Personally, I would like to pay tribute to the greatest contributor to Africa. May the Gods Bless BISI SILVA. They broke the mold when they made you....you are one in a billion. XX"

Source: I-D MAGAZINE.

Oct 9 2019, 3:03pm

these four women are changing the face of modern african art

"We’re moving towards a time where we want a contemporary art world to be more inclusive. I don’t think there’s a way back from this, it’s now and it’s a reality.” 

 

Whether in fashion, music, or contemporary art, interest in work by creatives based on, or hailing from, the African continent has never been greater. But while the interest may be there, there are still relatively few formal platforms dedicated to showcasing Africa’s artistic output. Where contemporary art is concerned in particular, major fairs disproportionately spotlight galleries and artists based in, or with easy access to, more traditional art centres. There are of course exceptions, but it was this general sense of infrastructural disadvantage that encouraged Touria El Glaoui to found 1-54 London: a contemporary African art fair held yearly at Somerset House over the October Frieze weekend. “From the start, I had a mission to create the platform for artists from the continent and the African diaspora,” she reflects. “It was a response to the lack of infrastructure and voice for these artists. We wanted to gather as many artists from the continent as we could, and ensure that they are part of the narratives and discourses around contemporary art that weren’t including them.”

Now a key stop on the circuit for collectors, curators and fans of contemporary African art, 1-54 has undergone exponential growth in seven short years. It now hosts fairs in New York and Marrakech. But, as discussions about the treatment of diversity and inclusion as trends increase, is there a reason to worry that the current fever for African art could be all but a passing fad? “I don’t really like the use of the word ‘trend’ with regard to what we do. It would be unfair, in today’s world, to deal with a contemporary art scene that doesn’t include African or African American artists,” Touria tells i-D. “I think the outlook is a good one: we’re moving towards a time where we want a contemporary art world to be more inclusive. I don’t think there’s a way back from this, it’s now and it’s a reality.”
As this year’s edition wraps up, we take a look at some of the most exciting artists whose work was shown at the fair, offering Western audiences an insight into the wealth and calibre of African art.

 Alice Mann

Known for her portraiture essays that put the collaborative nature of both image-making and identity-making in focus, Alice Mann is quickly rising the ranks of fine art photography. Her series Drummies (2018), documenting young South African drum majorettes, many of whom hail from some of the country’s most disadvantaged communities, earned her the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize in 2018. It was the first time the prize has been awarded to a series rather than a single image. This year, she picked up the Photography Grand Prix du Jury at the Hyères International Festival. Capturing her subjects with a warm frankness, her work gives voice to the importance of community in building an individual identity. “I’ve always been interested in exploring how being part of a community offers people a sense of belonging, and I think being able to find that space is incredibly important… the need to belong is a feeling we can all relate to,” Alice tells i-D. “‘Being part’ of a community really embodies what collaboration is about… you are linked to other people in some way, working together, having a common cause in mind. From my experiences working with various groups of people, it’s been amazing to witness how belonging to something, and being part of a community can actively reinforce both group identity, but also positively affirm an individual’s sense of self within that.”

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum

Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum is another artist working with photography, though not in the way you may have in mind. Instead, the Botswana artist turns to early 19th-century studio portraits of black and brown bodies shot against kitsch hand-painted landscapes as the inspiration for her recent work. Working in pencil and acrylic, she reinvigorates the images with a surreal balance of vivid and shadowy tones to create images in which familiar markers of time or place are removed. Elsewhere, her subjects fade into the imagined landscapes they pose against, highlighting their insignificance compared to the power and vastness of nature implied by the sets. “I often think of the work of the very brilliant Kodwo Eshun, especially his writing on the 'futures industry' that has been and continues to be at work casting Africa’s future as already apocalyptic, politically, economically and ecologically fraught,” Pamela explains. “It is my intention that my work operates as a sort of navigational device, a signal that it is still possible for us to imagine and occupy radical new futures.”

Mary Sibande 

Mary Sibande’s I Came Apart At The Seams, a solo exhibition now open in Somerset House’s Terrace Rooms, brings together three of the esteemed South African artist’s bodies of work: Long Live the Dead Queen (2008-13), The Purple Shall Govern (2013-17) and In the Midst of Chaos There is Also Opportunity (2017-) as well as new photographic pieces that the artist has begun to refer to as the ‘red’ series: “It’s a colour that for me strongly symbolises rage, resentment and frustration, and an atmosphere of which has remained far too prevalent in contemporary South African society,” she explains.

 Aïda Muluneh

To create Water Life, a photographic series produced in collaboration with WaterAid and the H&M Foundation, Addis Ababa-based photographer Aida Muluneh travelled to one of the hottest, driest places on earth. A landscape of endless salt-flats and azure blue skies, far-stretching sands and rocky outcrops, Dallol in Ethiopia’s Danakil Depression serves as the otherworldly backdrop for the artist’s uniquely Afrofuturist vision. In her images, she combines references to a pan-African cultural heritage—masks and head-wraps, for example—with contemporary props like the canary yellow jerry cans used by women across Africa to carry water. Though the images are arresting in their presentation of a surreal environmental harshness, underscoring the extent to which access to clean water is an issue that disproportionately affects women, they also speak of their resilience and power in the face of extreme conditions. “I’m not looking for the exoticism of the woman. I’m looking for their strength,” writes Muluneh in the exhibition’s wall text. “Women across the African continent play a major role in society, but often their voices are the ones that are missing.”

This article originally appeared on i-D UK.



*N.B.  Please support the real Real Artists of Africa like Sheila...She is incredible. 
http://uganda.spla.pro/en/file.person.nakitende-sheila-black.39035.html
 

ART EAST AFRICA

Edward Saidi Tingatinga, Untitled (Elephant Eating from the Marula Tree), 1971. Sold Ksh 5,635,200

7.30PM on TUESDAY 5 MARCH 2019 at The RADISSON BLU HOTEL, NAIROBI

This year, we were invited to hold the Modern and Contemporary Art Auction East Africa 2019 in the lovely ballroom at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Upper Hill, Nairobi.

With 59 Lots from seven countries, we auctioned some rare and exceptional sculptures this year; Lot 31 & 32 by the late master sculptor Samuel Wanjau; and stunning, well priced paintings dating from the 1960s to present. With an emphasis on modern and the secondary market, we were able to find some very unusual works, such as Lot 29, the Piano Player by Fabian Mpagi, and Lot 25 by the late Robin Anderson.

We welcomed KCB, Kenya’s largest bank, as our new partner, and new drinks sponsors, Glenfiddich whisky and Hendricks gin.
Auctioneer, Chilson Wamoja, who has assisted us at all our auctions took the sale this year.

Record sales of USD 300,000 for 2019

The Sixth Art Auction East Africa 2019 was the record auction sale since the auction began in 2013.  Total sales exceeded KSH 30 million (USD 300,000).  90% of the 59 Lots sold on the night, another auction record.

Enquiries

Danda Jaroljmek +254 722 672938 info@artauctioneastafrica.com

Auction Catalogue

VIEW 2019 AUCTION CATALOGUE

SCROLL TO 2019 AUCTION LOTS

 

 

Source: ART AUCTION EAST AFRICA | https://artauctioneastafrica.com

Jean Pigozzi on Africa

I really like this interview with Jean Pigozzi. His Collection is really authentic and his earlier works pre-Internet are fantastic, it so rare to find African homegrown Art today. The support really goes to those trained in the West so this is so refreshing..


Take a look at the Jean Pigozzi Collection | http://www.caacart.com/

Kuba Dance Skirts | Democratic Republic of Congo

African Kuba Raffia & Cowrie Shell Dance Skirt - 1950s

 

Estimate | $4,000 - $5,000

Central Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Kuba, ca. mid 20th century CE. Framed Kuba cloth comprised of three panels sewn together - each one presenting bold geometric patterns - a plethora of diamond and chevron motifs - in warm earth tones: chocolate brown, tawny red, and warm tan on a creamy beige ground. Traditionally, kuba cloth is woven from raffia-tree leaves; this example is comprised of naturally colored fabric created via a laborious process of hand-dyeing using mud, indigo, or the powdered bark of the camwood tree. Such cloths are usually created by Kuba men on a single heddle loom. Next they are embroidered by women and children to create an uncut or cut-pile appearance (the latter resembling a velvet or velour texture). Kuba cloths are worn during ceremonial events, especially funerals; however, they are also found in tapestries and home furnishings. The abstract geometric patterns are symbolic of an individual's social and marital status, age, and/or personal attributes or character. Size: 20" W x 19.75" H (50.8 cm x 50.2 cm); 25.25" W x 25.875" H (64.1 cm x 65.7 cm) framed

and here is another:

African Kuba Raffia & Cowrie Shell Dance Skirt - 1950s

 

Estimate | $4,000 - $5,000

 

 

 

 

 

Artemis Gallery

686 S Taylor Ave, Ste 106
Louisville, CO 80027
United States

+17208907700 | info@artemisgallery.com

 

Kube Dance Skirt | Democratic Republic of Congo

African Kuba Raffia & Cowrie Shell Dance Skirt - 1950s

 

Estimate | $4,000 - $5,000

 

Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, ca. 1950. A traditional Kuba dance skirt (Tcaka) - handmade from raffia and hand-stitched with immense artistry, presenting bold geometric patterns in warm earth tones - rich browns and toasty almond beiges - as well as pops of more vibrant color - magenta, blue, green, and pink. Such cloths are usually created by Kuba men on a single heddle loom. Next they are embroidered by women and children to create an uncut or cut-pile appearance. Highly decorative and created with painstaking technique, this skirt presents panels of checkerboard patterns and an applied overlapping zigzag/diamond motif comprised of pink, black, and houndstooth fabrics. The trim is made of alternating passages of cut raffia pom poms and cowrie shells. A particularly exceptional example given that it is made of raffia, demonstrates immense artistry with intricate patterns, skillfully executed weaving, beautiful hues, and also boasts a generous size and excellent condition. Size: 260" L x 33" H (660.4 cm x 83.8 cm)

Kuba cloths are worn during ceremonial events, especially funerals; however, they are also found in tapestries and home furnishings. The abstract geometric patterns are symbolic of an individual's social and marital status, age, and/or personal attributes or character.

There are several theories concerning the inspiration for Kuba style. One theory suggests that the designs in Kuba textiles are rooted in tribal scarification patterns. Another suggests that the motifs of Kuba textiles were modeled upon those found in crop patterns. Still another suggests that the source for their visual patterns was divine intervention. The creation of these ceremonial wraps is a collaborative effort. Men are involved in all stages of preparing the fiber and executing the weaving, whereas women soften the textiles and apply the decoration. These coveted ceremonial textiles are worn during ritual dances and special occasions such as festivals, weddings, funerals, and initiation rites.

Artemis Gallery

686 S Taylor Ave, Ste 106
Louisville, CO 80027
United States

+17208907700 | info@artemisgallery.com

 

Frank Bowling | Tiger Falls, 1980

Frank Bowling RA, OBE

Tiger Falls

signed, titled and dated '“TIGER FALLS” Frank Bowling 1980' on the reverse
acrylic on canvas
117.5 x 64.5 cm (46 1/4 x 25 3/8 in.)
Painted in 1980.
20th Century Work of Art
 
Estimate
£40,000 - 60,000

Phillips Sale on 28th June 2019

“TIGER FALLS” Frank Bowling 1980

“TIGER FALLS” Frank Bowling 1980

  

“TIGER FALLS” Frank Bowling 1980

“TIGER FALLS” Frank Bowling 1980'

Provenance

Spanierman Modern Gallery, New York
Private Collection, California

Catalogue Essay

‘In my youth I tended to look at the tragic side of human behaviour and try and reflect that in my work, but gradually as I became more involved in the making of paintings, I realised that one of the main ingredients in making paintings was colour and geometry.’ - Frank Bowling

Undoubtedly one of Britain’s finest formalist painters, Frank Bowling’s painterly practice is currently being celebrated at the artist’s retrospective at the Tate Britain this summer. Since the 1960s, Bowling has been testing and stretching the possibilities of painting, continuing to experiment with form and materials. Born in Guyana, Bowling moved to Britain as a teenager and studied at the Royal College of Art in the early 1960s alongside David Hockney and R.B. Kitaj. Although Bowling achieved early recognition in London, he decided to move to New York in 1966 where his paintings became less constrained by the representational. Pursuing formalism on his own terms, Bowling built a tilting platform in his New York and London studios that enabled him to pour paint from heights of up to two metres, creating daring work that was the product of controlled accidents.

The present work, Tiger Falls, was executed in 1980, by which time Bowling had been refining his abstract painting for a decade. Bowling’s deep understanding of the motion and colour of paint is evident in this dynamic composition of violet and ochre. Warm and cool hues are blended together, calmly spilling from the top-left corner over the finely-dappled layers underneath. Unlike the hard and rigid lines of American abstraction, visible in the work of Morris Louis or Kenneth Noland, Tiger Falls is an exploration into both the formal materiality as well as atmospheric suggestiveness of paint. In unison with the title, Bowling’s application of the medium is an organic mixture of impasto and thinner painterly washes, both invoking the natural world. Retaining a captivating ambiguity, Tiger Falls transports us into the depths of nature, inviting the viewer’s eye to follow the cascades of paint in motion.



Contact Specialist

Phillips
Tamila Kerimova
Specialist, Head of Day Sale
+ 44 20 7318 4065
tkerimova@phillips.com

Season by Wole Soyinka

Image by Joe Pollitt from his series, 'African Graffiti | The Walls Have Ears" 2004

Poets from Biafra and Nigeria

Wole Soyinka

Season

Rust is ripeness, rust

And the wilted corn-plume;

Pollen is mating-time when swallows

Weave a dance

Of feathered arrows

Thread corn-stalks in winged

Streaks of light. And, we loved to hear

Rasps in the field, where corn leaves

Pierce like bamboo slivers.

Now, garnerers we,

Awaiting rust on tassels, draw

Long shadows from the dust, wreathe

Dry thatch in woodsmoke. Laden stalks

Ride the germ’s decay – we wait

The promise of the rust.

The Changing Face of Civilization by Joe Pollitt

The Changing Face of Civilization

Today, thankfully we are coming to the end of an abysmal cycle of Civilization. The Greeks had their time, so too the Romans and later the British, French, Portuguese and the Americans. The rise and fall of Empire is solely dependent on whether or not those that are Governed by the so-called, ‘civilized’ are prepared to tolerate the notion of unjust, outdated feudal systems, whereby power, (both economic and intellectual) is distributed to the few. These cycles of Civilization are constant, ever changing and optimistic; sadly, the civilization of now has its roots based strictly on race. Its success has been largely dictated by the blatant exploitation of the Continent of Africa. This comes in many guises, the resources found in the ground and the forced migration of the vast unpaid workforce in the form of slavery. This perverse human ownership, similar to that of cattle-thieves and homogeneously as noble, was a foreign affair whereas Colonization, less obviously shocking but nonetheless equally damaging, was more a domestic affair; both evenly derogatory for those held captive.

In the early days of European trading with Africa; mainly in the West and Central regions, the partnerships where amicable, trustworthy and even respectful | In Chinua Achebe’s essay, ‘Africa’s Tarnished Name’, he notes that the Portuguese captain, Diogo Cao first visited the Congo in 1482 and by his third visit in 1487 he was introduce to the King Mweni-Congo.  

“Seated on an ivory throne surrounded by his courtiers. Cao’s monks were returned to him, and all was well. An extraordinary period ensued in which the king of Congo became a Christian with the title Dom Afonso I. Before very long, the royal brothers of Portugal and Congo were writing letters to each other that were couched in terms of complete equality of status. Emissaries went back and forth between them. Relations were established between Mbanza and the Vatican. A son of the Mweni-Congo was appointed in Rome itself as bishop of his country. This bishop, Dom Henrique, had studied in Lisbon, and when he led a delegation of Congo noblemen to Rome for his consecration, he addressed the Pope in Latin.”

These harmonious relations fizzled out, as the aggressive Europeans started fighting over territory, carving up the Continent for themselves. Soon enough the white man’s greed dominated, as they became increasingly aware of the abundance of wealth to be gained from the coast to the interior of Sub-Saharan Africa.

The Modern European Civilization goes back to 15^th Century but it wasn’t until the 18^th and 19^th Century that the clandestine style of literature, speeches, paintings, cartoons, eugenics, botany, evolution, natural philosophy and expeditions, funded by the Church started to evolve.  Thus, begins a campaign by the wealthy elite, on a lasting racism that has become forever ingrained in the feeble minds of the Enlightened Europeans of that time, right up until the present day. This systematic formation of the very definition of our Modern Civilization has been founded on the notion of racial division. Ideas that have been cunningly established in the public libraries, constructed by academic slave-owners, all of which requires the reader to be complicit and obediently silence in order to become an acceptable “civilized” individual. The recurring theme over time has been based on superiority of race and the value of location; Geo-political racism, where those that have been omitted from the pages of history are considered redundant when it comes to the collective global village. At the time of these writings and centuries before, the tribal make-up of West Africa were highly sophisticated and complex systems of governance and power sharing. These practical and intelligent forms of African democracy prior to the Colonial invasions have been absent from the shaping of our Modern Civilization. Conveniently ignored over years of formal published abuse, which was superciliously crafted in the ironically named, ‘Age of Enlightenment’. 

If you want more pay for it...I AM NO SLAVE! I am not your private Nigger; your House Nigger..I am a FREE MAN, so PAY ME!!

Bisi Silva | International Curator

Bisi Silva, 56, Bold Curator of Contemporary African Art, Dies

Source | NY TIMES

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/25/obituaries/bisi-silva-dead.html

Bisi Silva in Central Park during a trip to New York in 2016. “Twenty, 25 years ago, curators of contemporary art might have been completely and totally scared of going to ‘the Dark Continent,’ ” she said. “Now it’s like, ‘Oh, Bisi, I want to go to Lagos, I want to go to Ghana.’  

 Photo by Gabriela Herman for The New York Times

Article By Richard Sandomir

• Feb. 25, 2019

Bisi Silva, an adventurous curator who, with her own money, founded a nonprofit art gallery and education center in Lagos, Nigeria’s largest city, that has nurtured the growth and recognition of contemporary African artists, died on Feb. 12 in a hospital there. She was 56. Her sister Joke Silva, an actress, said the cause was breast cancer.

Ms. Silva started the Center for Contemporary Art, Lagos in 2007 and made it a hub for bold and experimental sculpture, painting, photography and video and performance art that could ignite local and global interest.

She also curated exhibitions of African art around the world. One, in Helsinki, Finland, in 2011, featured the Nigerian photographer J. D. Okhai Ojeikere’s images of African women’s exotic hairstyles. (She turned that show into a book.) Others showed the work of the Ghanaian-born sculptor El Anatsui in Amsterdam and Johannesburg.

“I wouldn’t call her an African curator, but an international curator,” Hannah O’Leary, the head of modern and contemporary African art at Sotheby’s in London, said in a telephone interview. “She promoted African artists to the world and brought the international art world to Africa, and did it tirelessly. She never did the obvious: Her knowledge and vision were unrivaled.”

Ms. Silva felt that her mission was to change the way contemporary African art was being viewed from a Western perspective and to develop African artists in ways that their schools were not.

“The gaps in the art education system are jarring,” she told Frieze, an art and culture magazine, in 2017. While some West African nations like Nigeria had arts education programs, she called them “a colonial relic out of tune with present-day contextual, stylistic and intellectual realities.”

To fill the gaps, she created the Asiko Art School — actually a series of pop-up schools holding annual, monthlong educational gatherings in various African countries including Senegal, Ghana and Ethiopia, where artists, writers, historians, curators and teachers immersed themselves in seminars, workshops and exhibitions. The events gave Ms. Silva opportunities to evaluate artists’ work.

“Everyone had 15 minutes to present,” Antawan Byrd, who learned art curating under Ms. Silva at C.C.A. and is now assistant curator of photography at the Art Institute of Chicago, said by phone. “She’d be very critical. You had to defend your work and your research.”

Ms. Silva believed that her exhibitions, lectures, workshops, mentoring and educational programs made a positive impact in a short time.

 “Twenty, 25 years ago, curators of contemporary art might have been completely and totally scared of going to ‘the Dark Continent,’ ” she told The New York Times in 2016. “Now it’s like, ‘Oh, Bisi, I want to go to Lagos, I want to go to Ghana.’ ”

Olabisi Obafunke Silva was born in Lagos on May 29, 1962. Her father, Chief Emmanuel Afolabi Silva, was a lawyer, and her mother, Charlotte Olamide Williams, was a civil servant with the Nigerian Railway.

After graduating from the University of Dijon in France, where she studied languages, she earned a master’s in curating contemporary art from the Royal College of Art in London. Her thesis examined the marginalization of black artists at exhibitions in England.

Ms. Silva returned to Lagos in 2002, inspired by her research but disappointed that she could not find an outlet for her vision of curating contemporary African art.

“Most of the galleries were commercial, and as far as I knew, there were no nonprofits,” she told Frieze. “Government institutions were moribund, and there was no place for young artists interested in experimenting with media other than painting and sculpture.”

She decided to start C.C.A, becoming its artistic director.

“There is no government funding for such initiatives,” she said in a lecture at the Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University in 2017. “If you want to do something, you have to do it yourself.”

Her cutting-edge shows at C.C.A. included “The Progress of Love,” which explored love through performance work by Jelili Atiku of Nigeria and Wura-Natasha Ogunji of the United States, and installations by Temitayo Ogunbiyi of Nigeria and the United States and Valerie Oka of Ivory Coast; “Identity: An Imagined State,” which looked at African identity in videos by artists from Africa and South America; and “Like a Virgin ... ,” an exploration of women’s bodies, sexuality and identities by Lucy Azubuike, a Nigerian sculptor, and Zanele Muholi, a South African photographer.

 “Virgin” was “a divisive show,” Ms. Silva said in an interview in 2017 with Pulse.com, a Ghanaian news website. “There were a lot of objections to Muholi’s photographs of her menstrual blood.”

In addition to Joke Silva, she is survived by two other sisters, Olajumoke Dawodu and Ojuolape Silva; and two brothers, Olabiyi Silva and Bolaji Oladunjoye. She considered her 13 nieces and nephews her children.

Ms. Silva had a particular expertise in organizing photography exhibitions and in creating a library of visual arts at C.C.A.

Oluremi C. Onabanjo, a scholar of African arts, wrote in Aperture magazine after Ms. Silva’s death that her influence on photography “will be writ large, emphasized in bold.”

Citing the vast range of work that radiated from C.C.A., Ms. Onabanjo wrote that “her remarkable vision and indefatigable spirit instigated tectonic shifts in editorial, curatorial and institutional frameworks in Nigeria and across the African continent.”