African Modern Art Exhibition Finishes World Tour in Africa

JOHANNESBURG (Agence France-Presse)—“Africa Remix,” an exhibition of African contemporary art that has attracted hordes of visitors to the world's biggest museums, ended its tour with a first time opening on the continent in Johannesburg on June 24.

Launched in 2004 in Dusseldorf, Germany, before making its way to London, Paris, Tokyo, and Stockholm, "Africa Remix" exhibits 200 pieces of art from 85 artists until the end of September at the Johannesburg Art Gallery (JAG).

"It's an African exhibition with African artists, so it makes sense to have it in Africa," explains the Paris-based curator of the exhibition and art critic Cameroonian Simon Njami.

Paintings, sculptures, photos, drawings, videos, and interactive installations: this anthology of African modern creation shows a mixture of traditional and contemporary art using raw and recycled materials, expressing the many identities of artists originating from 25 countries and the Diaspora.

The artworks, half of which have already been sold on the tour, are displayed in three categories—identity and history, body and soul, city and country—and often testify to the continent's tough legacy of colonization and war.

In Jane Alexander's African Adventure, smartly dressed half-human half-animal characters stand upright on cases of explosives surrounded by red soil—displaying the violence which devastated South Africa, where the sculptor was born.

Other works are intentionally provocative: the Great American Nude of Sudanese artist Hassan Musa shows a naked Osama Bin Laden—inspired by Francois Boucher's La fille allongee—painted on the American flag.

In front of it stands Mozambican Goncalo Mabunda's Eiffel Tower made out of civil war weapons and ammunition.

In the video The white lady, eight black men sit around a table laughing at each other's tales of romance with white women.

"My father is Ethiopian, my mother is Swedish. For me, this is not provocation: I grew up with these stories," said artist Loulou Cherinet. "The film is understood in different ways according to the people history, to their background. I am curious to see the reactions here."

Njami hopes that “Africa Remix,” the fruit of 20 years of artistic exploration, will arouse awareness of contemporary art in Africa.

"It would be a pity for our children and grand children to have to go to London, New York, or Paris to have contact with African art," he said.

"We hope that this exhibition will work as a catalyst," said Clive Kellner, director of the JAG, which was built at the beginning of the last century in Hillbrow, now considered Johannesburg's most dangerous area.

The installation of Africa Remix cost three million rand (about $500,000) and was financed by sponsors which allowed the exhibition to be open free to all.

Conferences and guided tours give local and foreign artists, experts, and museum curators the opportunity to interact between themselves and with the public.

"My work has toured the world. But it is the first time that I am in South Africa. It is very symbolic to me," Malian designer Cheick Diallo told the AFP.

His work—strands of colored fishing line around a table and bookshelves covered in tin sheeting—invites one to leaf through the books of the continent's great authors.

"It was important to have a library in the show because people are entering museums as they enter a temple. So this is really for them to sit, to be in here," said Njami.