Conference on Global Art History @ LMU, Munich

A section of the audience in the massive LMU auditorium where Hans Belting gave the Keynote lecture Nov. 12 (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)


Yesterday, was the opening of the conference on global art history, "Horizonte: Principles and Terms of Global Art History," organized by a team of art historians led by Professor Ulrich Pfisterer, who holds a Chair at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Munich. The uber-art historian Hans Belting gave a keynote lecture that, I understand, set the grounds for the knotty issues tackled by panels that started today and continuing tomorrow. Bottomline is that there is no good news, perhaps not anytime soon, about the value of global art history, and I am not saying this because my paper was titled "Art History, Globalization and the Specter of Difference"! Two noteworthy things that have happened here: first, at the end of Professor Belting's lecture, during the reception that must have had a million people jostling to make new acquaintances while grabbing snacks and drinks, he wondered why I looked so despondent during his lecture (I was seated at the front!). I was struggling to keep jet-lag at bay, I informed him, and moreover, I did not understand a word of his talk and failed woefully to follow him through the slides presentation. I must have sprouted more gray hairs trying to understand the part of his lecture that dealt with contemporary African art! His lecture was in German and no translator was at hand! It got even worse for me (the only speaker in the conference who did not have German as first/second/or third language) in the morning panel today, which had all panelists delivering papers in German. Of course, I said to myself, I should have learned some German in graduate school. But, well, I didn't. And I don't have immediate plans to do so! Traveling from my native Igbo to English and a little French is all that I can take. The paradox of course is that a conference examining the question of global art history reinforces the boundaries of linguistic differences and the pressures these put on the possibilities of a global art history, or even a global conversation, simple. The world needs translators!

Second, as I write, the organizers are still not sure that my colleague from University of Port Harcourt, Nigeria, Dr. Frank Ugiomoh will show up to give his paper Saturday morning (he is the only non-European invitee living outside of Euro-America). The problem? Well, it turns out the German Embassy in Nigeria seems unenthusiastic about granting him travel visa. So when really smart folks talk about the ease of movement across borders in the age of globalization, they must not be from countries below the visa line (think of the migrants from these countries dying in the Mediterranean trying to reach Europe). Or when people like James Cuno argue that "global" museums must be defended for their role in safeguarding and making accessible to the whole world mankind's artistic heritage, I say to him, yea right! Because your idea of the whole world does not include the millions like Dr. Ugiomoh who must go through severe psychological torture to get legitimate access to fortress Europe/America. This sucks!

While I gripe about these realities of our postcolonial age, here are some pictures from the conference, which has gone really quite well. I can say so for my panel of anglophone speakers (which included papers by Kitty Ziljmans and Monica Juneja), and the response to the presentations by Belting.


Professor Ulrich Pfisterer, one conference organizers introducing the keynote speaker
(Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)


Professor Hans Belting during his keynote lecture (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)


My co-panelist, Professor Kitty Zijlmans of University of Leiden (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)



Pfisterer, Belting and co-panelist Monica Juneja of Heidelberg University (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)


Hans Belting with a conference participant during tea break (Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu)

Book Presentation evening in New York

Okwui with Andrea Albertini (Damiani President) and Alex Galan of DAP. Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu

As it turned out, the book presentation and my conversation with Okwui at the New York Public Library on October 27 were, on all counts, quite successful. The Margaret Liebman Berger Forum was filled up, the books sold out (to the disappointment of many who came to get a copy of the book), and many of our friends turned out. Even our editor, Monica Rumsey--who must be the best editor in the whole world!--came with her son to celebrate with us, and for us to meet in person after a summer of incredible work that made the book possible. So, when we were done with the book signing, we went with some of our friends--Salah Hassan, Carina Ray, Thelma Golden, Chris Ofili, David Adjaye, Glen Ligon, Claire Tancons, Alex Galan and Andrea Albertini--for Champagne (Okwui ordered a cranberry mix for me, an incorrigible teetotaler).


Glenn Ligon, Thelma Golden (foreground); David Adjaye, Chris Ofili (background). Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu




Salah Hassan, Carina Ray and Claire Tancons, and Glenn Ligon. Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu

Nnenna Okore at Princeton's Fields Center

Doyin Teriba (Princeton Grad Std), Nnena Okore and Tayo Ogunbiyi at the opening
Photo: Chika Okeke-Agulu

Last Saturday, the Nigerian US-based artist Nnenna Okore had a mini exhibition at the brand-new Carl A. Fields Center, Princeton University. Organized by Tayo Ogunbiyi, a Princeton alumna and curatorial consultant for the Fields Center, the exhibition was planned to coincide with the closing events of the Black Princeton Alumni annual conference. It was wonderful to see Nnenna and her work here in Princeton. Come to think of it, it is also a rare treat to have the work of two African artists (counting of course Odili Odita's permanent mural) on campus this semester. Or should I say that these are but the beginning of a new era in Princetonland.

Book Launch_Contemporary African Art Since 1980

On Tuesday October 27, Contemporary African Art Since 1980, the book I wrote with my friend and long-time collaborator Okwui Enwezor will be presented at the New York Public Library. Click here for details about the book and NYPL event. The book is available on Amazon.com for advance purchase. One thing to note: Although the book is advertised as 320-pages long, it is actually 368 pages with 470 color images. I am sure I am allowed at least to say that it is a gorgeous book! If you don't agree with me (when you get to see a copy), send me a stinker!

Odili Donald Odita's Princeton University Mural

Last month the Nigerian-American artist Odili Donald Odita joined an elite list of artists--which includes Richard Serra, Sol Lewitt, and Scott Burton--commissioned by Princeton University to create public art on campus. Odita's work, Up and Away, a vast mural spanning two floors and seven walls, in the newly built Butler College, is impressive, visually stunning. The effervescent color and dramatic geometry of the mural provides a matching counterpoint to the quiet grandeur of the brick structure characterized by rhythmic, undulating exterior wall. Each time I encounter this mural as I enter this building, where thankfully my fall seminar class meets once a week, the sensation is close to what might happen if you let loose a group twirling Yoruba Gelede masks (and their musical accompaniment) inside auditorium of a senate building!

The artist will be speaking about the Up and Away at the Princeton University Art Museum on October 9.

Here are some of the before..






During...

Odita (right) with Assistant


Assistants working on the drawing









Vanishing the Mural




Views of the final wall installation:









Odita talks about Up and Away October 10, 2009:



Odita with James Steward, Director, Princeton University Art Museum at the artist lecture, October 10, 2009

"Life Objects" at the Princeton University Art Museum

Areogun, 1885-1954, Yorùbá, Osi-Ilorin, Ekiti state, Nigeria, Maternity figure, early 20th century. Wood and pigment h. 66 cm., w. 30.5 cm., d. 39.4 cm. (26 x 12 x 15 1/2 in.) Collection of J. Thomas Lewis, Class of 1959, and Mrs. Lewis (photo: Charles Davis)

So yesterday, my exhibition called Life Objects: Art and the Lifecycle in Africa opened at the Princeton University Art Museum. Co-organized with Holly Ross, an independent scholar, and fabulously designed by Alan Knezevich, this is one very beautiful exhibition of which I am so proud. All the works on show, which includes many really fine examples of African sculpture, and early 20th-century postcards showing objects similar to the ones on show in their cultural contexts, are available online. Several came from the Smithsonian's National Museum of African Art (including the glorious Nkanu Initiation panel the never leaves the NMAfA!) and others from important private collections, and a couple from Princeton's collection. If you can't come to Princeton, the only thing you will miss, which is crucial though, is the tropical morning-haze, ambient color of the gallery space, and Alan's design! The exhibition runs till January 10, 2010.

Check out the online show at:
http://artmuseum.princeton.edu/art/collections/online_exhibits/Life_Objects/index3.xml

Contemporary African Art Roundtable

I am convening a roundtable of art historians--many of the heavyweights in the field--to discuss the state of the scholarship in Contemporary African Art. This is part of a series for the journal I co-edit, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art. But it is also to mark an important milestone for our journal. From spring 2010, it will become a member of the Duke University Press family of journals; hasn't Nka come a long way, since 1994 inaugural issue?!

What is even more exciting is you don't have to wait for the print version of Nka to read about the roundtable, because it will be--is being--published on the Duke University Press blog. So you all are invited to visit the blog. We welcome comments or questions some of which could be presented to the panel for response.

Here is the list of panelists:
Okwui Enwezor (San Francisco Art Institute), Elizabeth Harney (University of Toronto), Salah Hassan (Cornell University), dele jegede (Miami University, Ohio), Sidney Kasfir (Emory University), Dominique Malaquais (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris), Steven Nelson (UCLA), Ikem Stanley Okoye (University of Delaware), John Peffer (Ramapo College), John Picton (Emeritus, SOAS), Peter Probst (Tufts University), Colin Richards (University of Witwatersrand), Frank Ugiomoh (University of Port Harcourt), Susan Vogel (Columbia University), Jessica Winegar (Northwestern University).