By Tajudeen Sowole
After a recent
resurgence at home and gradual inroad into the art market of the west,
contemporary art from West Africa tests the waters of the Middle East.
Interestingly, the next testing ground for West African
artists is the new blue-eyed boy of the 21st century’s business and leisure
travel hub, Dubai. Under Marker, a
sub-event of Art Dubai Fair, five
artists via art advocacy organizations across West Africa will from March 20 to
23, 2013 at
Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai be the focus of visitors. Art Dubai Fair has been rated as a major
yearly international art gathering in the Middle East, with as much as 500
artists and 75 galleries from 32 countries participating every year, it attracts
an estimated 22, 000 visitors.
The 2013
edition of Marker, according to the
organizers, is making its third appearance in the seven-year old Art Dubai Fair, and has been dedicated to art from West African. It’s
Africa’s debut appearance at the fair. Although Marker appears more like an exposition and cultural contents
exchanges, it could, indirectly boost the increasing value and appreciation of
art West African art. In recent years, Europe, particularly the U.K has hosted
several art shows, which focused African art. In fact, there is a yearly art
auction, Africa Now by Bonhams,
dedicated to African art.
 |
| Taiye Idahor’s Head Series (Newspaper, film cartridge and acrylic paint on wood, 61x61cm, 2012), courtesy of CCA, Lagos. |
Young, up-and-coming Nigerian artist, Taiye Idahor joins
Ghanaian master, Ablade Glover and others such as Soly Cisse (Senegal)
Abdoulaye Konate (Mali) and Boris Nzebo (Cameroun) in what the orgnisers of Art Dubai described as exploring “the
nature of evolving cities in West Africa and the way in which this change
impacts society.” Designed as five artspaces, works of the artists have been
selected from Centre for Contemporary Art (CCA, Lagos, Nigeria); Espace
doual'art (Douala, Cameroon); Maison Carpe Diem (Segou, Mali); Nubuke
Foundation (Accra, Ghana); and Raw Material Company (Dakar, Senegal).
Instructively,
Glover and Idahor, indeed, represent the dynamics of art across West Africa;
each comes from the two extreme ends of generations of artists whose works are
currently uplifting the status of African art. Glover is among the masters who
have been celebrated over the decades and Idahor is of the new generation
artists, impatiently eager to rub shoulders with the established signatures.
For example, in a Lagos art scene
characterised with diverse and competitive art spaces, it could be tasking for
a young artist to create an identity. For Idahor, she had twice made a
statement during two group exhibitions Water
E No Get Enemy and Colours and
Creativity. In the African Artists Foundation (AAF)-organised Water E No Get Enemy, Idahor’s
analogical view, from a life-size sculpture of a lady, indicts the mass media,
particularly advertising industry for increasing exploitation of women’s
fragility. For Marker 2013, Idahor’s
work titled Head Series, viewed via soft copy
stresses her creative incendiary in a collage form that plays around Nigerian women’s
gele (head dress) identity.
Long before Lagos started
its recent gradual steps towards becoming the art hub of Africa, Glover’s art
was well known in Nigeria. In fact, he joined a selected group of Nigerian
masters such as surrealist, Abayomi
Barber;
printmaker, Dr Bruce Onobrakpeya; and realist, Kolade Oshinowo, for the
exhibition An Evening with the Masters
organized by Terra Kulture Gallery, Victoria Island, Lagos to mark Nigeria’s
50th Independence Anniversary in 2010. During a chat, shortly after the show,
Glover exuded the prospect in having young and old masters work together as he
noted that there existed “a
very good relationship between the masters and the younger artists”.
Three years
after, the prospect is becoming a reality, and in far away Dubai where Marker appears like a stronger forum for
African artists of all generations to start a new journey. Few days ago, the Director at Art
Dubai Fair, Antonia Carver, during a chat via e-mail
recalled that Marker was launched in 2011, as a medium to connect arts of other places – not
properly represented in international art events – with that of the UAE and the
Gulf. In three years, Matker, she
explained, has beamed light on “general selection of spaces from the Middle
East and Asia, and then in 2012, focused on Indonesia.” However, Africa, she
acknowledged, has been within that radar of the organisers. “We knew from the
beginning that in 2013 we wanted to focus on an aspect of the African arts
scene. And when we got into the research period, a couple of years ago, we
realised that there were such incredible artspaces and artists in the West of
the continent”.
Saddled with the curatorial responsibility of Marker is Bisi Silva, who works in
collaboration with the five art organisations that promote the selected
artists.
And typically the Nigerians’ style of celebrating
their own wherever, quite some art enthusiasts and connoisseurs from Lagos have
expressed interest in attending the Art
Dubai Fair 2013, sources said.
Speaking on the curatorial content, Silva noted that the
flexibility of the theme has inspired the arts organisations and artists
involved to a theme-friendly space. “The theme allows each contributor to
approach it from a local context. At the same time, visitors to the fair will
discover several common threads that link the works - the vibrant dynamics of
the cities as well as the tensions that arise when the modern collides with the
traditional, the urban displaces the rural and the boundaries between the
public and private become blurred.”
Silva assured that Marker
opens up possibilities and opportunities for artists and art organisations from
West Africa to engage with their contemporaries in the Middle East and Asia.
“Making their work and artists known in other regions, and creating new
audiences is a strategic move for any organisation, which will hopefully result
in new collaborations and partnerships.” She listed varieties of genres such as
painting, photography, sound art and other experimental media as some of the works
to expect at the event.
Supporting the visual contents to maximize the prospect of
the fair is an interactive session, Carver disclosed. She said the session Global Art Forum “features a panel
discussion on Lagos and the influence the city has had on writers and artists.”
Listed among the discussants with Silva are writer Tolu Ogunlesi, sound artist
Emeka Ogboh and director of Raw Material Company, Koyo Kouoh.
Still on the visual contents, Carver said a Nigerian-born,
and London-based artist, Mary Evans “has been commissioned to create a
site-specific work at the fair, as part of our non-commercial Art Dubai
Projects programme.”
 |
| Untitled by Soly Cissé (pencil and acrylic on paper, 72 x 102, 2012), courtesy of Raw Material Company, Dakar, Senegal. |
Really, connecting the mainstream art markets and the
intellectual exchanges in art of West Africa and the Gulf appears like the
ultimate goal. However, the five arts-paces seem like a starting point in
bringing the rich art and culture of West Africa to the Middle East. And as
artists are the focus this year, where exactly do the mainstream art galleries
of West Africa – as crucial as they are – come into this
exchange? “Of course, there is a
long relationship of trade and business between the Gulf and different parts of
Africa. We now see increased exchange between the UAE and West Africa – and
wherever there is a relationship of trade, then there is also an exchange of
ideas and traditions – and so it’s an ideal time to kick-start a long-term
exchange through contemporary art,” Carver explained.
Art Dubai is organized in partnership with Abraaj Capital
and sponsored by Cartier.
The
International Press Consultant of Art Dubai
Katrina Weber Ashour recalled that
over the last six years, the fair has proven to be “the leading international
contemporary art fair in the Middle East and South Asia, becoming a cornerstone
of the region’s booming art community. In 2012, it welcomed 22,500 visitors and
hosted 75 galleries from 32 countries.”
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