By
Tajudeen Sowole
A
new 6-part TV series titled African
Masters, which features cubist Yusuf Grillo, sculptors, Bruce Onobrakpeya,
El Anatsui, Romouald Hazoume, Yinka Shonibare and Sokari Douglas-Camp is
currently showing on cables in the United States of America.
Monitored
via the Internet, the series, which is courtesy U.K-based The Africa Channel also features
curators,
such as French-born André Magnin and Bisi Silva of the Center for Contemporary
Art (CCA, Lagos). The documentary, which is quite educative, brings the
progressive contents of African art into focus, while diffusing the ancient
perspective from which African art has been viewed by the west.
Yusuf Grillo's Blue Moon, Oil on Board (1966, 60 x 60 cm)
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In the
first episode with the sub-theme, Revelations,
a retrospection of African contemporary art is taken against the background of
how the west truncated the continent's creative growth. It takes viewers’
memory back into the ancient art of the continents and the looting era when
most of the works were taken to Europe and the Americas. The camera gets to
Lagos where Grillo and Onobrakpeya speak on the rise of African modern art.
Onobrakpeya notes that the texture of European art cannot be removed from the
contents and influence of ancient African art. Grillo argues that the
contemporary world of art can no longer refuse to recognise artists of the
continent.
Director, Raw
Material Company, Dakar, Senegal and curator at 1:54
Contemporary African art fair, U.K., Koyo Kouoh, who also feature in the
documentary, states that the rise of African art has produced “writers,
curators and critics” who are passionate about the art of the continent.
The work includes interviews with renowned
artists of African descents such as El Anatsui, Shonibare, Douglas-Camp and
Hazoune, who stress the diversity of modern and contemporary art scene on the
continent and Diaspora. Features include studio visits to Senegal, art
activities like art residencies in Nigeria, galleries in New York, auctions as
well as art exhibitions abroad.
The
first episode looks at the challenges of being an African artist in the
contemporary world within the context of identity. Indeed, producers of the TV
series appear to have brought in a crucial issue of identity at a period when
artists of African descents are divided on the issue. Most often, some artists
from the continent avoid being labeled according to their skin colour or
geographical space. Art, they say, is universal. But with the collapse of
artistic boundaries and strengthening of globalisation, a kind of identity
would be as important as the value of an artist's work, others have argue. In
fact, in the African Masters, episode
one, Silva would not comprehend boxing “artists who work in diverse medium and
themes” into a single identity.
In the past few years, African artists’
presence on the international space keeps increasing as new
entrants, 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair and an online outlet, The
Auction Room, come with focus on art from the continent.
In Nigeria, art auctions, which started fully in 2008, have
contributed to the growth of modern and contemporary art both at home and in
the Diaspora.
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