Okey Ndibe's new novel, Foreign Gods Inc.

Okey Ndibe's second novel--following his powerful debut, Arrows of Rain--is out, and I cannot wait to read it! One of the best story-tellers writing today, the plot of Foreign Gods Inc., from the novel's synopsis is tantalizing. I am calling his publisher Soho Press for my copy today. --Chika
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Foreign Gods, Inc., tells the story of Ike, a New York-based Nigerian cab driver who sets out to steal the statue of an ancient war deity from his home village and sell it to a New York gallery. 

Ike's plan is fueled by desperation. Despite a degree in economics from a major American college, his strong accent has barred him from the corporate world. Forced to eke out a living as a cab driver, he is unable to manage the emotional and material needs of a temperamental African American bride and a widowed mother demanding financial support. When he turns to gambling, his mounting losses compound his woes.

And so he travels back to Nigeria to steal the statue, where he has to deal with old friends, family, and a mounting conflict between those in the village who worship the deity, and those who practice Christianity. 

A meditation on the dreams, promises and frustrations of the immigrant life in America; the nature and impact of religious conflicts; an examination of the ways in which modern culture creates or heightens infatuation with the "exotic," including the desire to own strange objects and hanker after ineffable illusions; and an exploration of the shifting nature of memory, Foreign Gods is a brilliant work of fiction that illuminates our globally interconnected world like no other.

Kathleen Bickford Berzock joins Northwestern's Block Museum

* Congratulations to my friend Lisa Corrin for this major move! - Chika

The Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University is pleased to announce that Dr. Kathleen Bickford Berzock, Curator of African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago, has accepted the position of Associate Director of Curatorial Affairs. Dr. Berzock will assume her new role at the Block on January 20, 2013. Dr. Berzock will play a leading role in making the Block a dynamic site for exhibitions that look broadly at the visual arts across cultures and time periods and that draw on the unique resources of Northwestern University, including its collections, faculty and students. Dr. Berzock says she is excited to be joining the Block Museum and Northwestern University. “The Block Museum is poised to play a major role as an ambassador for groundbreaking research and as a laboratory for the innovative work of its faculty and students. I bring the skills of an experienced museum professional and as an Africanist art historian to my new role at the Block, coupled with an openness to multiple perspectives and diverse voices that will enrich the Block’s approach to presenting art from around the world.” The Block’s Ellen Philips Katz Director, Lisa Corrin, states, “Dr. Berzock will have a critical shaping role in the artistic program of the museum, advancing its new emphasis on a global perspective that considers the relations between art and cultures cross-historically. Her presence will also enable the Block to contribute to Northwestern’s significant legacy of scholarship in the field of African history grounded in research through its extraordinary Melville J. Herskovits Library of African Studies. Her international experience, strong commitment to collaboration, and her willingness to turn our galleries into a place for fresh, interdisciplinary thinking about art and ideas, will set a new standard for the Block’s programming. Known for her thoughtfulness and integrity, she will be a tremendous mentor to our students.” In her 18 years at the Art Institute, Dr. Berzock guided the development and display of the museum’s African art collection. She has been responsible for the acquisition of major iconic works that have built on the collection’s strengths as well as broadened its scope, including significant purchases of work from Ethiopia and Morocco. In 2011, she conceived, developed, and implemented the new and greatly expanded permanent collection gallery for African art, bringing the collection to life by spearheading an innovative collaboration that produced three short films to contextualize the works on view more fully. Dr. Berzock has presented internationally acclaimed exhibitions at the Art Institute, including the groundbreaking Benin-Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria (2008), which set the museum’s record for attendance of an African art exhibition; Masterpieces from Central Africa: Selections from the Belgian Royal Museum of Central Africa, Tervuren (1999); and Baule: African Art/Western Eyes (1998). In 2005 she curated and wrote the scholarly catalogue for the exhibition For Hearth and Altar: African Ceramics from the Keith Achepohl Collection, which highlighted the ceramic arts of the African continent and celebrated the gift of 75 ceramic works to the museum’s collection. She has also curated exhibitions of work from the museum’s permanent collection, including African Artistry: Gifts from the Faletti Family Collection (2003); The Miracles of Mary: A Seventeenth Century Ethiopian Manuscript (2002); and Yoruba Masquerade (1999). In 2010, her book Representing Africa in American Art Museums: A Century of Collecting and Display, which she conceived and co-edited with Christa Clarke of the Newark Museum, was published by University of Washington Press. In its thirteen essays the publication chronicles more than a century of building and presenting collections of African art in this country, including at the Art Institute of Chicago, and explores shifts in meaning and the public perception of African art. Prior to moving to Chicago, Dr. Berzock was Research Assistant for African Art at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (1993–1995), and she has served as adjunct curator to the Milwaukee Art Museum (2000) and the Indianapolis Art Museum (1989). She received her Ph.D. in African art history from Indiana University. Her dissertation, on factory-printed textiles in Côte d’Ivoire, has served as the springboard for articles in several journals and a catalogue essay for the University of Missouri–Kansas City Art Gallery (1997). Last year Dr. Berzock was named a Fellow at the prestigious Center for Curatorial Leadership (CCL) and was awarded a residency at the British Museum in London. In reflecting on Dr. Berzock’s new appointment, Douglas Druick, President and Eloise W. Martin Director of the Art Institute of Chicago, stated, “While we are very sorry to see Kathleen leave the museum after nearly two decades of inspired curatorial endeavor, we are also heartened that her experience here and her professional development with the CCL are enabling her to move into a leadership position at another Chicago institution that will benefit greatly from her creativity, initiative, and collegiality.” At the Art Institute, Dr. Berzock worked closely for nearly two decades with Richard Townsend, Chair of the Department of African Art and Indian Art of the Americas. Dr. Townsend has remarked, “She leaves the Art Institute with lively new African galleries, an expanded collection of international standing, and the example of ambitious exhibitions that have broadened our awareness of the breadth of African art and culture. Kathleen has notably attracted a wide and diverse public to African art, effectively asserting the role of the museum in acquiring and exhibiting the great range of African traditions. We are very proud of her singular contributions to the life of our city, region, and nation, as well as to the international community. We wish Kathleen every success in her new assignment and extend to her our heartfelt thanks for the contributions that have so enriched us during her years as Curator of African Art at the Art Institute of Chicago.” Her long-time colleague Kate Ezra, the Nolen Curator of Education and Academic Affairs at the Yale University Art Gallery, says Berzock has made substantial contributions to the field of African art and the way that museums have shaped our understanding of it. “As associate director of curatorial affairs at the Block Museum, Kathleen will bring her unique perspective as an Africanist, which rather than restrict her focus has given her a broad understanding of the importance of global connections throughout history and in the contemporary world,” Ezra said. For more information about the Block Museum, visit www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu.

Mandela is dead; Long Live Mandela!

Interview with Okwui Enwezor: Director of 56th Venice Biennale

My interview with Okwui Enwezor about his career and about his appointment as Director of the 56th Venice Biennale has been published on my Huffington Post Blog. To read please click HERE. 

PRESS RELEASE Okwui Enwezor Appointed Director of the 56th International Exhibition of the Venice Biennale

It is with great pleasure that we share with you the news of the appointment, by the Board of Directors of la Biennale di Venezia, of our dear colleague and friend Okwui Enwezor as Director of the Visual Arts Sector and Curator of the 56^th International Art Exhibition scheduled for May 9-Nov 22, 2015. There is no greater testament to Okwui’s stature as one of the most important curators and brilliant critical thinkers of our times. We note that by this appointment, he has accomplished a historic feat: he is the second person in history (after Harald Szeemann) to organize the Documenta and Venice Biennale.

As editors of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art we are proud to have shared with him the incredible journey that began with the first issue of the journal in 1994–a critical platform, which he initiated and has tirelessly championed.  We have absolute confidence that Okwui will produce a memorable exhibition in Venice. For we believe that it is his acute sense of history, his unflinching belief in the art exhibition as a platform for proposing new ways of imagining our world in all its artistic, cultural, political and ideological complexities, and his knack for making rigorously conceived, and spectacularly staged exhibitions that recommended his appointment as the director of the flagship of international biennales!

Please join us in extending our heartfelt congratulations and warmest wishes to our dear friend as he begins the necessary work on this thrilling project.

We share with our friends, colleagues and readers the press announcement from the Venice Biennale Foundation:

http://www.labiennale.org/en/art/news/04-12.html

Congratulations Okwui!

Salah M. Hassan (Cornell University)

Chika Okeke-Agulu (Princeton University)

Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art

Okwui Enwezor appointed Director of the 56th Venice Biennale!

 Munich and Venice, December 4, 2013

The Board of Directors of la Biennale di Venezia, chaired by Paolo Baratta, after thanking and expressing its gratitude to Massimiliano Gioni for the excellent results of the 55th International Art Exhibition, appointed Okwui Enwezor Director of the Visual Arts Sector. Enwezor has been granted the specific responsibility of curating the 56th International Art Exhibition, to be held in 2015 (Venice, Giardini and Arsenale, May 9 - November 22, 2015).

At the end of the meeting of the Board, President Baratta stated: "We have closed an extraordinary research exhibition, which was brought to term with great success by Massimiliano Gioni, and had the record number of visitors, particularly young visitors. This success demonstrates the ever-widening range of people that directly enjoys the cultural and the emotional experience that the Biennale can provide. For the next edition, we now turn to a person who has a great many experiences to his name, with an ample history of activities and studies in a wide range of topics concerning art. Enwezor has investigated, in particular, the complex phenomenon of globalization in relation to local roots. His personal experience is a decisive starting point for the geographic range of his analysis, for the temporal depth of recent developments in the art world, and for the variegated richness of the present."

In response, Okwui Enwezor has stated: "No event or exhibition of contemporary art has continuously existed at the confluence of so many historical changes across the fields of art, politics, technology, and economics, as la Biennale di Venezia. La Biennale di Venezia is the ideal place to explore all of these dialectical fields of reference, and the institution of la Biennale itself will be a source of inspiration in planning the Exhibition."

"I congratulate Okwui Enwezor on his appointment, which is an extraordinary recognition of his work, and which reflects on the international value that Okwui Enwezor's activities and influence bring to Haus der Kunst," said Ludwig Spaenle, the Bavarian State Minister for Education, Science, and the Arts, commenting on the appointment.

The Haus der Kunst team congratulates Okwui Enwezor on this new challenge.

Portraits of Okwui Enwezor can be downloaded on our press area www.hausderkunst.de/presse/info.htm, at the top of the landing page ("Aktuelles/News").
For information on la Biennale please get in touch with
Press Office of la Biennale di Venezia
Tel. 041 - 5218846/849
Fax 041 - 2411407
e-mail: infoartivisive@labiennale.org
FB: La Biennale di Venezia
@twitter.com/la_Biennale

If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact
Elena Heitsch  

Photos from "Crossing Archives" Symposium @ Goethe-Insitut, Lagos (December 1, 2013)

Director of Goethe-Institut, Lagos, Marc-Andre Schmachtel

Consulate General, Federal Rep. of Germany, Lagos, Michael Derus

Hanna Hayduk, Curator of Research, Scientific Cooperation and Dev., Museum Folkwan, Essen, Germany

Kerstin Meincke, convener of symposium and curator, Museum Folkwang, Essen, Germany

Artists Osahenye Kainebi, Victor Ekpuk, Victor Ehikhamenor, and Okwui Enwezor

Behind Okwui: critic and publisher Toyin Akinosho with art historian Frank Ugiomoh

Panelists: Berlin and Johannesburg-based curator Storm Janse Van Rensburg, and Bisi Silva of Center for Contemporary Art, Lagos

Storm with photographer Santu Mofokeng

Okwui with gallerist Oliver Enwonwu (2nd L), and performance artist Jelili Atiku (2nd R)

Art historian Frank Ugiomoh

Sculptor Ndidi Dike and artist-entrepreneur Anaele Iroh

Osahenye and Onyema Offoedu-Okeke

Okwui and Michael Derus

Okwui, Uche James-Iroha, and Jelili

Okwui and architect John Godwin

Okwui, John and Gillian Hopwood

Moi, Okwui and Victor

Writer Toni-Kan Onwordi, Moi, Okwui and Victor

Marc-Andre and Frank

Photographers, Uche Okpa-Iroha and Adeola Olagunju with Marc-Andre  and Michael