Museum
USA - December
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December 2010
THE GLOBAL AFRICA PROJECT explores impact of African Visual Culture on Contemporary art, craft and design around the world
Museum of Arts and Design
17 November - 15 May 2011
Museum of Arts and Design
17 November - 15 May 2011
NEW YORK. An unprecedented exhibition exploring the broad spectrum of contemporary African art, design, and craft worldwide, The Global Africa Project at the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD) features the work of more than 100 artists working in Africa, Europe, Asia, the United States, and the Caribbea.
The Global Africa Project surveys the rich pool of new talent emerging from the African continent and around the world. Through furniture, architecture, textiles, fashion, jewelry, ceramics, and basketry, as well as selective examples of photography, painting, sculpture, and installation work, the exhibition actively challenges conventional notions of a singular African aesthetic and identity, and reflects the integration of
African art and design without making the usual distinctions between “professional” and “artisan.”
On view through May 15, 2011, The Global Africa Project has been organized by MAD and the Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
In conjunction with the exhibition, American designer Stephen Burks has been commissioned to create a special installation Are You a Hybrid?, which will examine the impact and influence of Africa on contemporary design. On view from February 22 through May 15, 2011, the installation is part of the MADProjects exhibition series, which explores emerging trends and innovations in the design world.
“The Global Africa Project charts important new territory in the field by actively looking beyond restrictions of traditional art historical groupings, including medium, geography, and artistic genre,” states Holly Hotchner, the Museum’s Nanette L. Laitman Director. “By many measures, this exhibition is entirely unprecedented and it is a landmark moment in our history. As a museum that has long challenged the hierarchies separating art, craft, and design, we are delighted to introduce these new explorations of contemporary African art and aesthetics.”
Co-curated by Lowery Stokes Sims, MAD’s Charles Bronfman International Curator, and Leslie
King-Hammond, Founding Director of the Center for Race and Culture at MICA, The Global Africa Project showcases a diverse group of creators, including artists who are experimenting with the fusion of contemporary practices and traditional materials, and design collectives that are using their creative output as engines of local economic change. Featured artists range from such well-known figures as Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Kehinde Wiley, and Fred Wilson; to Nigerian-born, London-based fashion designer Duro Olowu, and Paris-based Togolese/Brazilian designer Kossi Aguessy, who has collaborated with Yves Saint Laurent, Cartier, and Swarovski; to the Gahaya Links Weaving Association, a collaborative of Hutu and Tutsi women working in traditional basketry techniques in Rwanda.
“Given the nomadic, even migratory, nature of artistic careers today, the interesting challenges of presenting an exhibition like The Global Africa Project are indicated in its very title,” notes Lowery Stokes Sims. “The exhibition addresses important questions of how these designers, craftsmen, and artists grapple with issues of commodification in art production, and the meaning and value of art in contemporary society.”
Adds Leslie King-Hammond, “No longer are these artists viewed as part of the periphery of the main stream art world. This work redefines a new center of creativity and innovation for the twenty-first century.” In order to present various dimensions of the work of African artists and artisans worldwide, The Global Africa Project is organized around several thematic ideas. These include: the phenomenon of intersecting cultures and cultural fusion; the branding and co-opting of cultural references; how art and design is promoted in the international market and the creative global scene; the use of local materials; and the impact of art-making on the economic and social condition of local communities. In addition to providing a broad framework for the exhibition’s organization, these themes will encourage audiences to discern how global African artists grapple with the commodification of art production and the meaning and value of art in society— an increasingly significant issue for nations in a rapidly changing global context.
madmuseum.org
The Global Africa Project surveys the rich pool of new talent emerging from the African continent and around the world. Through furniture, architecture, textiles, fashion, jewelry, ceramics, and basketry, as well as selective examples of photography, painting, sculpture, and installation work, the exhibition actively challenges conventional notions of a singular African aesthetic and identity, and reflects the integration of
African art and design without making the usual distinctions between “professional” and “artisan.”
On view through May 15, 2011, The Global Africa Project has been organized by MAD and the Center for Race and Culture at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
In conjunction with the exhibition, American designer Stephen Burks has been commissioned to create a special installation Are You a Hybrid?, which will examine the impact and influence of Africa on contemporary design. On view from February 22 through May 15, 2011, the installation is part of the MADProjects exhibition series, which explores emerging trends and innovations in the design world.
“The Global Africa Project charts important new territory in the field by actively looking beyond restrictions of traditional art historical groupings, including medium, geography, and artistic genre,” states Holly Hotchner, the Museum’s Nanette L. Laitman Director. “By many measures, this exhibition is entirely unprecedented and it is a landmark moment in our history. As a museum that has long challenged the hierarchies separating art, craft, and design, we are delighted to introduce these new explorations of contemporary African art and aesthetics.”
Co-curated by Lowery Stokes Sims, MAD’s Charles Bronfman International Curator, and Leslie
King-Hammond, Founding Director of the Center for Race and Culture at MICA, The Global Africa Project showcases a diverse group of creators, including artists who are experimenting with the fusion of contemporary practices and traditional materials, and design collectives that are using their creative output as engines of local economic change. Featured artists range from such well-known figures as Yinka Shonibare, MBE, Kehinde Wiley, and Fred Wilson; to Nigerian-born, London-based fashion designer Duro Olowu, and Paris-based Togolese/Brazilian designer Kossi Aguessy, who has collaborated with Yves Saint Laurent, Cartier, and Swarovski; to the Gahaya Links Weaving Association, a collaborative of Hutu and Tutsi women working in traditional basketry techniques in Rwanda.
“Given the nomadic, even migratory, nature of artistic careers today, the interesting challenges of presenting an exhibition like The Global Africa Project are indicated in its very title,” notes Lowery Stokes Sims. “The exhibition addresses important questions of how these designers, craftsmen, and artists grapple with issues of commodification in art production, and the meaning and value of art in contemporary society.”
Adds Leslie King-Hammond, “No longer are these artists viewed as part of the periphery of the main stream art world. This work redefines a new center of creativity and innovation for the twenty-first century.” In order to present various dimensions of the work of African artists and artisans worldwide, The Global Africa Project is organized around several thematic ideas. These include: the phenomenon of intersecting cultures and cultural fusion; the branding and co-opting of cultural references; how art and design is promoted in the international market and the creative global scene; the use of local materials; and the impact of art-making on the economic and social condition of local communities. In addition to providing a broad framework for the exhibition’s organization, these themes will encourage audiences to discern how global African artists grapple with the commodification of art production and the meaning and value of art in society— an increasingly significant issue for nations in a rapidly changing global context.
madmuseum.org
Exhibition highlights include:
• Contemporary fashion by designers such as the Black Coffee design studio in South
Africa, whose 2008 collection Everyonecanbeadesigner allowed the consumer to
personalize their own style and presence; Sakina M’sa from the Comoro Islands whose
Parisian clientele represents the “active, dynamic, chic, feminine, liberated and droll”
woman, who is attracted to the experimentation with deconstructed apparel and
multicultural references in M’sa’s designs; and Haitian-American Victor Glemaud whose
menswear combines “classic masculine shapes” with “beefed-up pattern mixing” and
mixes “cashmere with casual gear.”
• Installations, sculptures, and objects that incorporate and appropriate materials that
have come to Africa as the “cargo” of international exchange—including packaging and manufactured items. Among these works will be furniture designed by Ousmane
M’Baye of Senegal and a new site-specific installation by Nigerian artist Olu Amoda,
who transforms scrap metal to construct security gates for buildings in his community.
The exhibition will also debut a new line of furniture created in Senegal from locally
collected and processed recycled plastic by Bibi Seck of Birsel + Seck, a design firm
based in New York City.
• The viability of traditional techniques of ceramics and basketry seen in the sweet-grass baskets of American Mary Jackson, whose work reflects a centuries-old tradition from West Africa; basketry by the renowned master weaver Reuben Ndwandwe of South
Africa who revitalized this medium with his unique over-coiling technique; and the work
of ceramist Clive Sithole, also of South Africa, who dared as a man to take up a medium traditionally associated with women.
• The transition of these techniques into the design and art arena seen in the ceramics of Magdalene Odundo, a Kenyan-British artist whose work is both highly contemporary
and yet evocative of traditional Africa pottery and the exquisite beaten metal work of
Ndidi Ekubia, who also lives and works in England.
• The architectural designs of Mervyn Awon of Barbados and American Jack Travis who
balance modernist design with cultural ethos; the conceptual architectural drawings of
Andrew Lyght of Guyana who has worked in Canada and the United States; and the
symbolic allusions to furniture and architecture by Cuban-born conceptualist Alexandre
Arrechea working in Spain.
• Influential collaborations between traditional African artists and international designers and corporations, including Esther Mahlangu’s BMW Art Car, in which she transformed the 1991 car model with the bold shapes and colors typical of Ndebele house painting in her native South Africa; and an exuberant wall piece created out of paper beads fashioned from Obama campaign literature that came out of a collaboration between American artist Algernon Miller and designer Sanaa Gateja working with the Ugandan women’s collaborative Kwetu Afrika Women’s Association Angels.
• Contemporary fashion by designers such as the Black Coffee design studio in South
Africa, whose 2008 collection Everyonecanbeadesigner allowed the consumer to
personalize their own style and presence; Sakina M’sa from the Comoro Islands whose
Parisian clientele represents the “active, dynamic, chic, feminine, liberated and droll”
woman, who is attracted to the experimentation with deconstructed apparel and
multicultural references in M’sa’s designs; and Haitian-American Victor Glemaud whose
menswear combines “classic masculine shapes” with “beefed-up pattern mixing” and
mixes “cashmere with casual gear.”
• Installations, sculptures, and objects that incorporate and appropriate materials that
have come to Africa as the “cargo” of international exchange—including packaging and manufactured items. Among these works will be furniture designed by Ousmane
M’Baye of Senegal and a new site-specific installation by Nigerian artist Olu Amoda,
who transforms scrap metal to construct security gates for buildings in his community.
The exhibition will also debut a new line of furniture created in Senegal from locally
collected and processed recycled plastic by Bibi Seck of Birsel + Seck, a design firm
based in New York City.
• The viability of traditional techniques of ceramics and basketry seen in the sweet-grass baskets of American Mary Jackson, whose work reflects a centuries-old tradition from West Africa; basketry by the renowned master weaver Reuben Ndwandwe of South
Africa who revitalized this medium with his unique over-coiling technique; and the work
of ceramist Clive Sithole, also of South Africa, who dared as a man to take up a medium traditionally associated with women.
• The transition of these techniques into the design and art arena seen in the ceramics of Magdalene Odundo, a Kenyan-British artist whose work is both highly contemporary
and yet evocative of traditional Africa pottery and the exquisite beaten metal work of
Ndidi Ekubia, who also lives and works in England.
• The architectural designs of Mervyn Awon of Barbados and American Jack Travis who
balance modernist design with cultural ethos; the conceptual architectural drawings of
Andrew Lyght of Guyana who has worked in Canada and the United States; and the
symbolic allusions to furniture and architecture by Cuban-born conceptualist Alexandre
Arrechea working in Spain.
• Influential collaborations between traditional African artists and international designers and corporations, including Esther Mahlangu’s BMW Art Car, in which she transformed the 1991 car model with the bold shapes and colors typical of Ndebele house painting in her native South Africa; and an exuberant wall piece created out of paper beads fashioned from Obama campaign literature that came out of a collaboration between American artist Algernon Miller and designer Sanaa Gateja working with the Ugandan women’s collaborative Kwetu Afrika Women’s Association Angels.
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EXHIBITION ORGANIZATION, AND CREDITS
The Global Africa Project is organized by the Museum of Arts and Design and the Center for Race and Culture, Maryland Institute College of Art. The exhibition is co-curated by Lowery Stokes Sims, MAD’s Charles Bronfman International Curator, and Leslie King-Hammond, MICA’s Founding Director of the Center for Race and Culture, and Dean Emerita of Graduate Studies, and it is designed by Gboyega Designworks and MAD’s curator of exhibitions, Dorothy Globus.
The Global Africa Project is made possible by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation as part of its International Cultural Engagement initiative, with additional support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, HSBC Bank USA, N.A., and a group of private donors. Major support for the exhibition catalogue has been provided by Basil Alkazzi, who gave additional funds in memory of Judi Hoffman.
Corporate support provided by Bloomberg
The Global Africa Project is organized by the Museum of Arts and Design and the Center for Race and Culture, Maryland Institute College of Art. The exhibition is co-curated by Lowery Stokes Sims, MAD’s Charles Bronfman International Curator, and Leslie King-Hammond, MICA’s Founding Director of the Center for Race and Culture, and Dean Emerita of Graduate Studies, and it is designed by Gboyega Designworks and MAD’s curator of exhibitions, Dorothy Globus.
The Global Africa Project is made possible by the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation as part of its International Cultural Engagement initiative, with additional support from the Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, The Rockefeller Foundation, HSBC Bank USA, N.A., and a group of private donors. Major support for the exhibition catalogue has been provided by Basil Alkazzi, who gave additional funds in memory of Judi Hoffman.
Corporate support provided by Bloomberg
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