Some Photos from Wangechi's "A Fantastic Journey" private opening last Wednesday

So, last Wednesday, I saw Wangechi Mutu's first major museum survey at Brooklyn Museum, originally organized by Trevor Schoonmaker of Nasher Art Museum at Duke University (we need more curators like Trevor, by the way). The show, Wangechi Mutu: A Fantastic Journey brings together some of her best known two-dimensional works, along with new sculptural installations, and her first animation work, The End of Eating Everything (2013), which she created in collaboration with the singer and producer Santigold. I found the cabinet of collages from Wangechi's sketchbooks the most intriguing work in the exhibition; and I am sure to return to them in the near future. In any case, this exhibition reminds you of the intensity of Wangechi's fertile, proliferating imagination, and her ability to tame the monumental scale with pictorial details that can border on the delirious. Standing before these gigantic, terrifyingly sassy and sexy, sutured women dominating her mixed media works, you can not help but be in thrall of her simultaneously powerful, titillating, dark, and teasing vision of the postcolonial condition.

Guests watching End of Eating Everything (2013)

Exhibition installation view: foreground: cabinet of artist's sketchook

Wangechi (C), with artist and Columbia Univ. professor, Coco Fusco (R)

"Modernists and Mentors" symposium at Cambridge University, Nov. 7

On November 7, 2013, the ‘Modernists and Mentors: Indigenous and Colonial Artistic Exchanges' symposium, will take place at the Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Cambridge University, as part of the multi-year, multi-site "Multiple Modernities" project originally conceived by Ruth Phillips, who is the Canada Research Chair in Modern Culture and Professor of Art History, Carleton University.  The inaugural symposium for the "Multiple Modernities" project was hosted by the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute, Williamstown (MA), in 2011; and in 2012 the second edition held at the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa (2012). After Cambridge, the group will meet, in the next couple of years at Victoria University of Wellington, in Wellington, New Zealand; and at the University of Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, South Africa.
For details about the Cambridge Symposium: Click HERE

American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora Symposium

The past two days, Friday and Saturday (Oct. 4-5) were among the two best days of any conference I have been privileged to attend in recent years. Organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and convened by the museum's intrepid Amelia Goerlitz, the Fellowship and Academic Programs Coordinator, the "American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora" Symposium featured, as far as I know, some of the best research being done these days on the work of artists (black and white) who have engaged directly or indirectly, ostensibly or surreptitiously with African art and visual cultures (and we are not talking about that "affinity" stuff!). Just check out the program below, and see for yourself!
It is somewhat of  a miracle that the stupid government Shut Down did not torpedo the entire program (anyway thanks to whoever made it possible for Amelia to stay on the job, for the symposium!). Yes, the symposium had to take place in an alternative venue, the National Museum for Women in the Arts (NMWA), and some of the panel chairs, employees of the Smithsonian, could not attend. But then participants Renee Ater and Tanya Sheehan and Kelly Quinn stepped in and did the job fabulously well. Also, participants were allowed to see Survey of Faith Ringgold's1960s work--when every other Smithsonian museum is still under lock. Speaking of which, I am almost on the verge of cursing out the politicians for the Shut Down, because I could not see the Kerry James Marshall survey at the National Gallery, organized by James Meyer. The Shut Down also made it impossible for the planned live webcast of the symposium to happen. But I understand that as soon as government returns to work, the whole program will be made available via web stream. In the meantime, here is the outline of the symposium Program

There below are photos of the presenters and guests (* Not shown are Shawn Michelle Smith, Associate Professor of Art History, School of the Art Institute of Chicago; and Venny Nakazibwe, Dean of Faculty of Arts, Makerere University, Kampala, Uganda). All photos copyright Chika Okeke-Agulu.

Elizabeth Broun, The Margaret and Terry Stent Director of the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Johnetta Cole, Director, Smithsonian National Museum of African Art

Amelia Goerlitz, Convener

Ikem Stanley Okoye, Associate Professor, University of Delaware

Krista Thompson, Associate Professor, Northwestern University

Renee Ater, (Panel Chair), Associate Professor, Univ. of Maryland, College Park

Panel I, Tobias Wofford, Assistant Professor, Santa Clara University (C)

Anne Lafont, Associate Professor, Universite Paris-Est Marne-la-Vallee

Camara Dia Holloway, Assistant Professor, Univ. of Delaware

Tanya Sheehan (panel chair), Associate Professor, Colby College

James Smalls, Professor, Univ. of Maryland

Image from Prof. Smalls' presentation on the dancer, Feral Benga

Mia Bagneris, Assistant Professor, Tulane University

Nicholas Miller, PhD Candidate, Northwestern University

Panel III

Ruth Fine, Curator, National Gallery of Art, introducing David Driskell

David Driskell, the legend

David Driskell's presentation on his work

David Driskell

Kelly Quinn (Panel Chair), Terra Foundation Project Manager, Archives of American Art

Jeffrey C. Stewart, Professor, Univ. of California, Santa Barbara

Rebecca Keegan VanDiver, Senior Lecturer, Vanderbilt University

Anne-Grit Becker, PhD Candidate, Freie Universitat Berlin

Peju Layiwola, Associate Professor, University of Lagos

Community Mural Project, Univ. of Lagos, directed by Brett Cook

Daniel Haxall, Associate Professor, Kutztown Univ. of Pennsylvania

With David Driskell

Celeste-Marie Bernier, Professor, Univ. of Nottingham

Participants: Nengi Omuku (R); Jean Borgatti (2nd R); Evaristus Obodo (R)

Amelia Goerlitz (L) with guest

Renee Ater (R), Victor Ekpuk (C)

With Amelia and Ikem Okoye

Wangechi Mutu at the Brooklyn; Hank Willis Thomas at the Cleveland

Wangechi Mutu (Kenyan, b. 1972). The End of eating Everything (still), 2013. Animated video, color, sound, 8 min. Courtesy of the artist. Commissioned by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. © Wangechi Mutu

Just a few months after the close of El Anatsui's phenomenal show at the Brooklyn Museum, the museum is putting final touches to the opening of what promises to be a terrific exhibition: Wangechi Mutu's mini retrospective "A Fantastic Journey," originally organized by the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University. The show features her montages, paintings and sculptures but also her first major animation video work, The End of Eating Everything (2013) in which all her previous work seem to find a formal and conceptual resolution.

In the wake of Wangechi's opening, a large survey of Hank Willis Thomas opens on October 20 at the Cleveland Museum of Art. Great things are happening for artists whose work I admire; or should I say that the museums are finally(?) doing what they ought to have been doing before now: pay attention to artists who without doubt are making some of the most important work in contemporary art anywhere.

Congratulations to Wangechi and Hank. All the way, friends!

Princeton in Africa: Great Opportunity

If you are a fresh graduate or graduating student from any American university or college (it is only open to students from US schools), and you want to spend a year working somewhere in Africa, you may want to explore the opportunity provided by Princeton in Africa. They are receiving applications now, and I recommend the program! Check out their website for details.

"American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora" symposium opens tomorrow

The Symposium on "American Art in Dialogue with Africa and its Diaspora" organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum opens tomorrow at the National Museum of Women in the Arts will take place this weekend, October 4-5, 2013.
Although this is far from the most serious consequences of the shut down of the US Government--given that some people are not going to receive their paychecks, and some sick people are not receiving services they direly need--the symposium has already taken a hit from the shut down. The venue changed, the program compressed, and many prospective visitors are being turned away because of the smaller alternative venue. And the planned live webcast will not happen (the good news though is that the symposium will still be available online, later). Even so, I think it is going to be a memorable event.  Looking forward to it!  

Click here to access the symposium website: