DAKAR, Senegal—On May 9, the eighth edition of the Dakar Biennale was officially opened by Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, in a ceremony involving the usual pomp, pageantry, political mutterings, and half-hearted promises to support and develop visual art education and infrastructure. For 16 years Dak’Art has provided the only consistent large-scale platform for the presentation of contemporary artistic production south of the Sahara. While each edition bears witness to the event’s growing importance as a meeting point for art professionals from around the world, this year’s biennale falls short of leveraging its position as Africa’s most important visual art platform.

Dak’Art 08, which runs May 9 to June 9, presents some 50 works by 36 artists from 16 countries — including three from the diaspora — across two official venues, under the broad theme of “Africa: Mirror?” The framework calls for a critical reflection on the failures and successes of post-colonial Africa as many of its nations prepare to celebrate 50 years of independence in 2010, and the biennale, to its credit, includes a substantial number of projects relating to African and diaspora themes — from African history, colonialization, conflict, displacement, and migration to rural/urban and modern/traditional tensions. However, in spite of a few interesting projects, this year’s biennale represents a major step backward for the event.

Since its inception in 1992, Dak’Art ran for many years without a curatorial team, a situation quite unusual for a major biennale. Artists were invited to apply, and an international committee whose members were sometimes unfamiliar with the applicants determined the final selection. In 2006, the limitations of this selection process were finally addressed, and the biennale was organized by a curatorial team of six (disclosure: I was one), under the leadership of artistic director Yacouba Konate. The result was an ambitious affair spread over four venues, including the extensive grounds and ancillary spaces of the Theodore Monod Museum, and featuring over 85 artists and 120 artworks from 27 African countries and 4 in the diaspora.

This year, unfortunately, all of those positive developments have been reversed. A harsh budget cut, estimated unofficially in the region of 30 percent, was implemented by the Senegalese Ministry of Culture, one of the biennale’s principal funders along with the European Union. This, coupled with organizational laxness, has effectively halved the size — and scope — of this year’s event. The appointment of Magueye Kasse, a professor of German literature and language with no evidence of curatorial experience, as the “general curator” is only the most blatant example of the poor management.

Another problem is the recycling of artists. Almost a quarter of the 2008 artists have shown in the biennale two or even three times in the past, including both winners of this year’s $12,500 Leopold Sedar Senghor Prize, named after Senegal's first president and presented by the current one: Mansour Ciss and Ndary Lo, who are both from Senegal. Ciss, who has participated at least twice, won for his installation De-Berlinisation Laboratory, which advocates the adoption of a single currency — the Afro — as a way of uniting Africa through the economy, since efforts to do so through politics seem to have failed. Lo, who presented Green Wall, an installation of metal trees painted green with human figures sprouting out from the tip symbolizing the intertwining of man’s destiny with nature, is a fourth-time participant and now second-time winner of the prize.

Still, the exhibitions themselves did present many interesting works. Some of the strongest were video installations, which since 2004 have being gaining more prominence in the biennale in spite of some critics’ complaints that this shift is unrepresentative of artistic practice on the continent. However, the growing accessibility and affordability of technology means that younger artists are increasingly employing video, animation, and photography as integral parts of their artistic practice. One standout video work was by Cameroon’s Achille Komguem; his excellent Precariousness highlights the fragility of human existence through the depiction of a busy traffic circle in Douala. At short intervals the video speeds up, giving the impression that the cars are within a nanosecond of collision, but then reverts to its normal speed. No accident occurs, but the impression is that one is constantly on the edge of disaster.