The exhibition of contemporary African art "Upside-down Safari. Contemporary Art of Africa" was the first attempt to show the Russian audience the actual art of the black continent in all its diversity. The curator of the project Alessandro Romanini, one of the greatest specialists in the field of African art in the world, has chosen more than three hundred works made by 49 African and 14 Russian artists for the exhibition in "Manege".
"White Hunter Syndrome."
The title of the exhibition is intended to turn the modern people's view of African art upside down and help the audience to see its real face. To get rid of the stereotypes of perception associated with the so-called "white hunter syndrome".
"The term originated many years ago, back in the days when Western travelers came to the African continent exclusively for profit, taking with them trophies of all kinds that later adorned the walls of their living rooms," explains Alessandro Romanini. In this context, until the mid-20th century, African art was perceived as an ethnographic or anthropological element that lacked any aesthetic value.
According to Anna Yalova, Director of the Manege Central Exhibition Hall, African art - traditional, ethnographic - has always been perceived as a study of the continent's culture.
"Many works have been created on African themes, these motives have inspired a variety of artists, from Picasso to Brancusi and Polenov," she says. - But now, under the influence of the processes of globalization and decolonization of African art, we see a completely new, open, fresh, non-trivial view on human values. Artists reflect on ecology, consumer problems, love and tenderness, the value of human life - and they do it with modern methods, using actual and sometimes the most unexpected materials. For instance, balls, gloves, disposable cutlery - garbage that can literally be found beneath your feet - serve as the basis for the compositions, which emphasizes the social significance of the project.
St. Petersburg pastry chefs as co-participants of the art process
Contemporary African art is typically based on eco-friendly subjects and the use of recycled materials. For example, Aristide Kouamé from Côte d'Ivoire creates his works out of flip-flops found on local beaches. He combines them by color and creates mosaic portraits of his compatriots, and any African can become his protagonist - from a teenager that he met by chance on the street to a politician of the same level as Nelson Mandela.
His fellow countryman Desiree Munou Koffi works in the mosaic technique, using keyboards, cell phone screens and other components of broken cell phones, as well as plastic and metal. Africa is often referred to as the "garbage dump of the West," and the author draws attention to this metaphor by creating urban sketches and scenes of life in big cities out of industrial garbage.
Many artists seek to reinterpret in their works the colonial past of their country and the continent in general, as well as the history of bloody wars. African-born Antonio Sidibe, who has been living and working in Italy for a number of years, has dedicated his work "Endless River" to the legacy of the slave trade. The work is entirely created from eatable ingredients: coffee is used to outline the hull of the ship on which the slaves were transported, and cocoa cookies shaped like people are arranged to show exactly how the slaves were stacked on the ship by the traffickers. This work was assembled directly in St. Petersburg according to the scheme provided by the author, and the cookies for it were baked by St. Petersburg pastry chefs.
The exhibition " Upside-down Safari" will be the main event of the cultural program of the second summit of African states "Russia - Africa", which will be held in St. Petersburg from 27 to 28 July 2023. The aim of the art project is to dispel stereotypes of the perception of African culture, including the artists themselves. And in this sense, Alessandro Romanini admitted that he was more than satisfied with the result.
"I have been studying and loving African art for a long time, and I was pleased to see how Russian artists fearlessly, open-mindedly and with obvious pleasure immerse themselves in this subject," says Alessandro Romanini. - I am glad that they did not play ethnographers or entomologists and dispassionately dissect the material through the prism of European culture, but chose a creative and associative way of approaching the subject and a personal attitude to it. That is why the result is very sincere and vivid.
"An explosion of vitality and emotions."
"For me personally, this exhibition was just an explosion of emotions, vitality, bright colors - everything that we associate with the African continent, its nature, cultural dominants, national dress," says Anna Yalova. - It is very interesting to see how the cultural code and ethnography become the basis for the creation of modern, relevant, trendy works. The exhibition turned out to be surprisingly positive, cheerful and uplifting".
Contemporary African art relies heavily on traditional culture, ethnographic and folkloric motives. Young African artists like fusion genres. A huge inflatable installation by an anonymous author spectacularly combines traditional African masks and comic book characters. And the canvases by Mederic Turey from Côte d'Ivoire, which are created with acrylic paints, oil pastels and coffee, intricately mix traditional elements of African folklore - turtles, snakes, teeth - and attributes of pop culture. The artist tells about Africa through multiple symbols and allusions that give each viewer his or her own associative line of thought.
For the Ivorian artist and activist Letitia Kai, the most convenient tool for the creative realization of her ideas is her own hair, which she began experimenting with at the age of five. Today the artist confesses the principles of feminism, expressing herself in the language of expressive sculptures made of hair and fixed with wire. Snakes and elephants, feminine pronouns, boxing gloves and broomsticks - with such images Letitia defends the right of the modern African woman to be an individual.
The fact that Letitia uses hair to create her works has a special subtext: in African schools, girls are often forced to cut their hair short in order to not provoke sexual interest and related violence from boys," explains Alessandro Romanini. - This approach creates a guilt complex and victimizing behavior among girls from an early age, and the artist is against it.
Spirit student ceramics and chicken feather painting
The Manege presents not only "young art" and experimental forms, but also traditional genres in which representatives of the older generation are working.
Ceramist Seni Awa Kamare from Senegal is over eighty years old. She comes from the Diopa ethnic group, whose representatives believe in the existence of the beyond and numerous spirits that influence human life. Moreover, the artist believes that she was taught the art of ceramics by forest spirits, to whom she dedicates many of her terracotta works. The oldest participant of the exhibition, Esther Malangu from South Africa, is in her nineties. Using a brush made of chicken feathers, she paints wall panels with original patterns based on traditional colors and ornaments. Her signature pattern consists of white lines arranged diagonally or in the shape of a chevron.
Alessandro Romanini searched for project members across Africa through personal recommendations from local experts in the field of contemporary art. "In Africa to these days, the primary mode of communication is verbal. Africans are guided by the oral tradition of transmitting information, so the most reliable way to get a quality recommendation is not to look for it online or through written sources, but to seek advice directly from experts whose opinion you trust," says Alessandro Romanini. - That's exactly what I did.
The curators did not set strict limits for the participants of the project, neither in terms of the subject matter of the works, nor in terms of genres, techniques or size of the works. And in this sense, the exhibition is an improvised cross-section of how Africans themselves define the main trends, directions, meanings and subjects of the continent's contemporary art.
The exhibition will be open until September 3.
Galina Stolyarova, specially for
Fontanka.ru
