J'accuse, Nigerian Government and political class!

As of this morning, Saturday, December 21, 2024, at least 100 people, mostly women and children were crushed to death in three different parts of Nigeria: Anambra and Oyo States, and the federal capital, Abuja. How? They all trooped out in search of free rice distributed by state or private organizations ahead of the Christmas celebration. Clearly without plans for adequate crowd control and without care about the level of desperation among the population, the organizers failed to manage the process, leading to stampedes. So, scores of hungry mothers, wives, and children went in search of food. They were served death. We mourn the dead. 

Words fail me. 

I feel nothing but utter disgust for the criminal enterprise called governance in Nigeria today. We have watched with increasing alarm as a network of individuals from all parts of Nigeria systematically take the country hostage not just by corrupting the political process as never before, but also simultaneously binding the economy into dirty bunches and hauling them, with stupendous brazenness, into their godforsaken private bank accounts. Or in a good number of instances--according to news reports--into vast septic tanks, when they find no means of moving their loot into the vaults of financial institutions scattered around the planet.

I feel nothing but deep indignation for the folks in Nigeria who have bled that country for so long to the point that not even water sips out of its veins. And yet, there is no accountability. No one here or out there to force them to stop their murderous rampage on a most resilient and resourceful folk who make up arguably the world's most complicated nation (500+ languages; almost 400 ethnicities; nearly 50/50 ratio of Muslims and Christians; 220 Million people in a contiguous landmass just a third more than the US State of Texas). 

The lack of accountability and the brazenness of Nigeria's political process would, in 2023, see a ruling party that did its best to immiserate the entire population and watch as frightening levels of insecurity spread over the land apparently returned to power for another four years. Or do you think that Nigerians are tragic masochists edging ever closer to auto-asphyxiation? 

The economy has cratered since that election. The government feeds the people slogans. The politicians allot themselves mindboggling salaries and, alongside their accomplices outside of government, do their best to live their versions of the high life. Even so, the recent photo of a family in Southeastern Nigeria with children showing telltale signs of kwashiorkor--that dreadful malnutrition disease perhaps seen first in postcolonial Africa during the Biafran War and since in some of the world's worst sites of humanitarian catastrophe--announced the frightening reality of today's Nigeria. That photo tells you everything you want to know about the people who turn up at these Christmas rice distribution events and end up dead.

I do not know how we get out of this.

Damn the vampires! 

 

"Gavin Jantjes, To Be Free" Exhibition at Whitechapel Gallery, London

Congratulations to my dear brother @salahsmh for organizing the long overdue retrospective of the South African artist Gavin Jantjes @whitechapelgallery, London. The show, titled "To Be Free," after Nina Simone, ended about two weeks ago.

It was the latest of Salah's 3-decades long incomparable work of redrawing the map of modern and contemporary art through groundshifting solo and group exhibitions and publications, and through his work as a professor. Salah, for instance, opened up Venice to African artists when he initiated the "Africa in Venice" program that produced two highly acclaimed exhibitions by African artists in the early 2000s, leading eventually to the now-normal presence of Africans in the International Exhibition and, even more important, approximately 10 national pavilions in recent editions of the biennial. He has been singularly responsible for keeping our journal Nka afloat in the years when publishers and funding agencies had no interest in our vision. And, in his time at Cornell, he has trained quite a few of the scholars working actively in the academy and the museum, quite apart from establishing the Institute of Comparative Modernities at that Ivy League university.

So, why is the Jantjes exhibition important? Gavin is one of the most consequential artists of the early (1970s) anti-Apartheid movement who, in forced exile in Europe, participated in the making of black international art and cultural networks there in the 1980s. Later in Norway as a curator and scholar, Gavin, perhaps more than anyone else, transformed Oslo into a thriving global contemporary art destination. Since 1994, Gavin has played a major role in building a new, multiracial art industry in South Africa. His work as a painter, printmaker, and multimedia artist is in itself terrific, profound, technically sophisticated and, earlier on, politically intelligent.

And yet, it had to take Salah's curatorial intervention, once more, to give Gavin his due by organizing this exhibition with the institutional backing of @sharjahart, where the show opened earlier in the year before traveling to Whitechapel.

We have seen this before. Ibrahim El-Salahi (b. 1930), arguably the most significant and influential 20th-century modernist from Africa had no major museum exhibition in Britain where he has lived for decades, until Salah, after years of trying unsuccessfully with US and European museums, found an ally in and support from the intrepid @hooralq and @sharjahart where Salahi's magnificent retrospective opened, before traveling to the Tate Modern in 2013.

Great to see you in the gallery yesterday, dear Gavin. Wowed by the chromatic poetry of the new paintings. Congratulations! #gavinjantjes #whitechapelgallery #salahmhassan #tobefree

Small Victories in the Restitution "Wars"

Of the few small victories during this past decade of renewedscholarly activism, public pressure, and tactical diplomacy about the Ancient Benin royal objects in western museums and collections, the most significant, strategically, perhaps, is getting major keepers of these treasures to formally acknowledge them as LOOTED by including this historical fact in the object labels. It used to be that their provenance began with names of the first white men to inherit or purchase the stolen objects from whom they made their way into the museum. 

Standing in the British Museum's Sainsbury Africa Galleries, and eavesdropping on many a visitors' judgments on the ethics of imperial looting as they surveyed the display, I am confident that the final word on the long term fate of the captive objects will be different. May be not in my lifetime, but some day after.

In the meantime, now that Labour is power in the UK, I hope they do not continue the awful attitude of the Conservatives who saw the matter of restitution as their cheap football for their impoverished culture wars. For the trustees of US museums, it is high time they get off their post-imperial high horses!

2024 African Studies Association Distinguished Lecture

 

ACASA Triennial 2024 Open Session: Best Practices for Restitution and Care of African Art in US Museums

Since the previous Triennial in 2021, a group of over seventy ACASA members and international experts have worked together to produce a best practices document for the restitution and ethical care of African arts in United States museum collections. In a special session of the 2024 ACASA Triennial, the leaders of this project will present the final document to the public and discuss how it was crafted. Presenters will reflect on how this group assessed case studies and set criteria for returns. Speakers will also share the next steps intended to ensure that procedures outlined in the document are attainable for all museums.   Please forward this information to anyone who may be interested in attending:    11:15am-1:15pm CT Friday, August 9, 2024 DePaul Conference Center & Zoom Free and Open to the Public Zoom Information: Meeting ID: 83770192148 Passcode: 847700

Zoom Link

Please contact Caroline Bastian, ACASA Project Manager, for any questions or comments at bastian@acasaonline.org.

Announcement: The International Jury of the 60th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia

 La Biennale di Venezia

60th International Art Exhibition

Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere

The International Jury

of the Biennale Arte 2024 /

Julia Bryan-Wilson president

Venice, April 4th, 2024 – 

The International Jury of the 60th International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia is made up of Julia Bryan-Wilson (president), American curator and professor at Columbia University; Alia Swastika, Indonesian curator and writer; Chika Okeke-Agulu, Nigerian curator and art critic; Elena Crippa, Italian curator; María Inés Rodríguez, French-Colombian curator.

The appointment of the Jury has been deliberated by the Board of Directors of La Biennale di Venezia upon recommendation by Adriano Pedrosa, the Curator of the 60th Exhibition titled Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere, that will be held in Venice (Giardini and Arsenale) from April 20th to November 24th, 2024. 

Julia Bryan-Wilson – president – is Professor of Contemporary Art and LGBTQ+ Studies at Columbia University. Her curatorial credits include Cecilia Vicuña: About to Happen (with Andrea Andersson) and Louise Nevelson: Persistence. She is the author of Art Workers: Radical Practice in the Vietnam War Era; Fray: Art and Textile Politics (winner of the ASAP Book Prize, the Frank Jewett Mather Award, and the Robert Motherwell Book Award); and Louise Nevelson’s Sculpture: Drag, Color, Join, Face. Bryan-Wilson was a 2019 Guggenheim Fellow.

Alia Swastika is a curator and researcher/writer that expands her practices in the last 10 years on the issue and perspectives of decoloniality and feminism, where she involved with different projects of decentralization of art, rewriting art history and encouraging local activism. She works as the Director of Biennale Jogja Foundation in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. She continues her researches on Indonesian female artists during Indonesia’s New Order and how the politics of gender from the regime influenced the practices of artists from that period. She is now part of curatorial team of Sharjah Biennale 16 in 2025.

Chika Okeke-Agulu is Director of the Program in African Studies, Director of Africa World Initiative, and Robert Schirmer Professor of Art & Archaeology and African American Studies, Princeton University. Okeke-Agulu is Slade Professor of Fine Art, University of Oxford (2023), and a Fellow of The British Academy. He is editor of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art and author of El Anatsui. The Reinvention of Sculpture (2022). He is on the advisory board of the Hyundai Tate Research Centre, Tate Modern.

Elena Crippa is an Italian curator based in London. Since 2023, she has been Head of Exhibitions at London’s Whitechapel Gallery. She was previously Senior Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Tate Britain, where her exhibitions explored transnational and transcultural intersections and engaged with art from a global perspective. Her shows at Tate included All Too Human (2018), Frank Bowling (2019) Paula Rego (2021) and the 2022 commission Hew Locke: The Procession.

María Inés Rodríguez is a Colombian French curator, currently Director of the Walter Leblanc Foundation in Brussels and Artistic Director of Tropical Papers. With a profound commitment to fostering a dialogue between artistic production and historical, political, and social contexts on both local and global levels, she has consistently championed the interconnectedness of art and its broader cultural implications. She was the Director of the CAPC Musée d'art Contemporain, Bordeaux, Curator at Large at MASP, São Paulo; Chief Curator at the MUAC in Mexico City, as well as at the MUSAC in Spain and guest curator at the Jeu de Paume in Paris.

The International Jury will award the following official prizes:

• Golden Lion for best National Participation
• Golden Lion for best participant in the International Exhibition Stranieri Ovunque –Foreigners Everywhere
• Silver Lion for a promising young participant in the International Exhibition Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere

The Jury may also award:

• a maximum of one special mention to National Participations
• a maximum of two special mentions to the participants in the International Exhibition Stranieri Ovunque – Foreigners Everywhere

The Awards Ceremony will take place in Venice on Saturday, April 20th 2024.

Official website of the Biennale Arte 2024: www.labiennale.org

Official hashtags: #BiennaleArte2024 #StranieriOvunque #ForeignersEverywhere

IMAGES of the Biennale Arte 2024 may be downloaded at the following link:

https://cloud.labiennale.org/url/biennale2024

password: biennale2024

CONTACTS

Visual Arts and Architecture Press Office

La Biennale di Venezia

Ph. +39 041 5218 - 846/849 | pressoffice@labiennale.org

Facebook: La Biennale di Venezia | X: @la_Biennale

Instagram: @labiennale | YouTube: BiennaleChannel

Two-Year Funded International Fellowship in UK Institutions

The International Fellowships Programme provides support for outstanding early career researchers to make a first step towards developing an independent research career through gaining experience across international borders. Each award is expected to involve a specific and protected research focus with the award holder undertaking high quality, original research.

This scheme is jointly run by the British Academy and the Royal Society.

Aims

The overarching aim of the International Fellowships Programme is to attract and retain emerging talent in the UK and build a globally connected, mobile research and innovation workforce. The objectives are to:

• Attract talented international early career researchers to establish and conduct their research in the UK;
• Support early career researchers to pursue high-quality and innovative lines of research;
• Provide opportunities to acquire and transfer new skills and knowledge through training and career development;
• Foster long-term relationships through networking opportunities and the International Fellowships alumni programme.

Eligibility Requirements

The applicant must:

• Have a PhD, or applicants in the final stages of their PhD will be accepted provided that the PhD will be completed (including viva) before the start date of the Fellowship. Confirmation of award of the PhD will be required before any Fellowship award is confirmed.
• Applicants should have no more than seven years of active full time postdoctoral experience at the time of application (discounting career breaks, but including teaching experience and/or time spent in industry).

• Be working outside the UK.
• Not hold UK citizenship.
• Be competent in oral and written English.
• Have a clearly defined and mutually-beneficial research proposal agreed with a UK host researcher.

Applicants should ensure that they meet all the eligibility requirements, which are explained in the scheme notes.

Duration and Value of Award

The International Fellowships offer support for two years and the award is offered at 80% FEC. Applicants may apply for research expenses of up to £12,000 and relocation costs of up to £8,000. Applicants will need to justify the level of research expenses and relocation costs requested in their application.

Applicants may also be eligible to receive Alumni funding following the tenure of their Fellowship to support networking activities with UK-based or international researchers.

To Apply: Click HERE