African Art history position at the University of Hong Kong

If you know anyone interested in a teaching job in African art history, the University of Hong Kong has created a new position for this. The call for application can be found by clicking here: 

The Nigerian-Biafran War and the making of "Igbo art" collections in the West

If you have had the chance to read my Opinion essay in today's  NYT, Sunday Review, you will notice that it includes a personal note, about the discussion I had with my mother about the effect of the Nigerian-Biafran War on art and culture in my hometown: This is the passage:

"Recently, my 72-year-old mother was looking at a glossy catalog of Igbo sculptures from major European collections, most of which were acquired during the Nigerian-Biafran War of the late 1960s. She told me that the disappearance of similar sculptures from our hometown shrines in southeastern Nigeria, and the end of the associated festivals, was one of her most painful memories of that war."

I am sure some want to know more, about what appears to be a link between the disappearance of these sculptures in time of war and their simultaneous emergence in the major European collections. I too want to know. And that is a topic for another day. Stay tuned; for how long, I am not sure!

My Opinion Piece in New York Times, Sunday Review

To read the Op-Ed piece click HERE

Op-Ed Piece in the New York Times, Sunday Review, May 21

So, I have an opinion piece coming out tomorrow (May 21) in the New York Times, Sunday Review, on matters arising from the increasingly strong auction market for modern and contemporary African art. The motivation for this was the inaugural Sotheby's Modern and Contemporary African Art auction this past Monday, along with a new department in the world's largest and arguably the most influential art business. What does this mean? What's good about this, and what challenges does this portend for the field and for Africa?  I mull over these questions in the essay. Like it or not, comments will be most welcome! 

On Damien Hirst's Ife Head controversy

Golden Heads (Female)
All images from Damien Hirst's Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, courtesy, CNN.com

I have been reading with mild amusement about the so-called controversy surrounding the inclusion by the British artist Damien Hirst of a golden head made after the famous brass heads of ancient Ife Kingdom in southwestern Nigeria. He has been accused of "cultural appropriation" and the CNN has even featured this. Unsurprisingly, the charge is led by Africans. And Hirst's people have been forced to make a statement. Of course Hirst has built a career, a stupendous one at that, by courting controversy and delivering highly provocative work. So another controversy would be just part of Hirst business you might say.

But what is all the brouhaha about? What naughty game has Hirst pulled this time? What about the Ife head appropriation? What exactly did he do with this head? Did he copy and exhibit it as his own golden sculpture, in the manner of the Appropriation artists of the 1980s (Sherrie Levine, Richard Prince, etc) and after? And if so, wouldn't his critics have some point, just as people were riled up by the work of the Appropriation artists, some of the cases ending up in the court of law?

Scale model of the ship, "Unbelievable"

Installation view

Actually, I doubt that most of the people who accuse Hirst of cultural appropriation have taken a look at his project, Treasures from the Wreck of the Unbelievable, in which we find the Ife-style head among numerous other sculptures made after ancient treasures from many cultures across the planet. For in this sprawling installation (btw, how does anyone find the money to put up such a show?!), there are objects and sculptures made in the manner of ancient objects and sculptures from Europe (Rome, Greece), Middle East (Minos, Mesopotamia), Africa (Egypt, Ife), Asia (Indus Valley, China, India) and the Americas (Olmec, Maya, Aztec, Inca), etc. You could say that he has gathered in this exhibition examples of the world's ancient artistic and cultural heritage, all supposedly recovered from the wreck of a fictional Greek ship owned by a freed slave. 

Sphinx

And by the way, there is a note accompanying the Ife-style head (see p. 23 of the exhibition guide), referencing the story of the German Leo Frobenius who, on encountering the Ife brasses in the first decade of the 20th century, claimed that they proved the existence of the lost, mythic, city of Atlantis (for in his estimation, only an artist as sophisticated as those from ancient Greece could have made the sculptures he saw in Ife). In other words, the Hirst project acknowledged the original ancient works from which he copied or adapted the objects in the Treasures exhibition. 

So, my question to Hirst's critics is this: given the idea behind his project, would  you have been happier if he decided to NOT include any example from Africa (besides Egypt) in his list of the world's ancient treasures? Then, perhaps someone would have accused him of blatant refusal to acknowledge African contribution to the world's artistic heritage. 

Just because an artist is called Damien Hirst does not mean we have to have a knee-jerk response to every work by him. Crying wolf this time makes no sense.

My Video Review of Congolese Art Workers exhibition at New York's Sculpture Center

Exhibition Installation view

Irene Kanga, Viol (Rape), 2016

The Art Collector (2014), by Jeremie Mabiala and Djonga Bismar

Cedrick Tamasala, How My Grandfather Survived, 2015

Self-Portrait Without Clothes (2014), by Mbuku Kimpala

The current issue of Artforum, the New York-based contemporary art magazine, published my review of a recent exhibition of sculptures made out of chocolate, by Congolese plantation workers, supported by the Dutch artist, Renzo Martens. It is a most interesting project, and I don't mean this in a good way! Here is a video review produced by Artforum to accompany the in-print version. Unfortunately, you have to be a subscriber to read the magazine online. The video is free access.

Clike HERE for the video statement.