'Art of Africa: Objects from the Collection of Warren Robbins' at Keene State College

From carved serving bowls to ceremonial masks, art is interwoven into the African way of life, as shown in an exhibit set to run from Friday, Sept. 3, through Sunday, Oct. 31, at the Thorne-Sagendorph Art Gallery at Keene State College.

“‘Art of Africa: Objects from the Collection of Warren Robbins’ depicts how life and art come together in African culture,” curators said. “The exhibit presents more than 60 objects, including sculpture, textiles, beaded clothing and jewelry, which broadly represent the creativity and diversity of artistic expression of nearly 30 cultures of sub-Saharan Africa. Accompanied by a video on African masks and dance, the exhibition illustrates the broader cultural context in which these art forms were created and used.”

Robbins was founding director of the National Museum of African Art, now a branch of the Smithsonian Institution. He discovered African art while serving in the American Diplomatic Service in Germany and Austria from 1950 to 1960. Robbins visited an African art dealer’s shop near Hamburg, where the African objects immediately captured his interest and imagination. He returned to the United States with 32 objects, the beginnings of a collection that later grew to include 5,000 pieces. Robbins opened the Museum of African Art on Capitol Hill, with the hope it would help “foster a deeper understanding of African culture, its history, its values, its creative tradition,” and its relevance to lives of contemporary Americans.

Originally collected by European explorers and ethnologists as academic specimens or curios, African sculpture had, by the end of the 19th century, begun to accumulate in European natural history museums and with dealers in antiques and the “exotic” arts.

“At the beginning of the 20th century, a handful of European artists in France and Germany were intrigued by the unique forms and styles of African art and began to draw creative inspiration from them,” curators said. “The aesthetic significance of African art became highly appreciated and respected in Europe and served as a catalyst for the artistic revolution that ushered in modern art around the world.”

“Art of Africa” is from the collection of the Robbins Center for Cross Cultural Communication and organized by International Arts & Artists, Washington, D.C.

The Thorne-Sagendorph Gallery’s hours are Sundays through Wednesdays from noon to 5 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays from noon to 7 p.m.; and Saturdays from noon to 8 p.m. It will be closed Monday, Sept. 6. There is no admission fee. The gallery is located on Wyman Way on the Keene State campus. For more information, call 358-2720 or visit www.keene.edu/tsag.

Source: New Hampshire Union Leader, Keene State College

Magic Masks, Curvy Women From Congo Bewitch in Paris: Review

Congo doesn't have the best reputation.

If the two countries sharing the name of Africa’s second- longest river, the (formerly French) Republic of the Congo and the (formerly Belgian) Democratic Republic of the Congo, pop up in the news, you can bet it’s about civil wars, refugees, abysmal poverty or shameless corruption.

“Fleuve Congo: Arts d’Afrique Centrale,” an exhibition at the Musee du Qui Branly in Paris, presents a more attractive image of that unfortunate region.

The Benedictine monk Francois Neyt, emeritus professor at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, and curator of the show, spent more than 20 years in Africa. He casts his net wide. Besides the two countries mentioned, he includes their neighbors -- Cameroon, Gabon, Equatorial Guinea and parts of Angola -- an area eight times the size of France, stretching from the Atlantic to the Great Lakes in East Africa.

The political frontiers and tribal wars notwithstanding, Neyt is convinced that the vast, outwardly fragmented region shares a common cultural heritage. As proof, he points to cross- border myths, therapeutic rituals, songs and dances.

He also emphasizes sculptures. The 170 pieces, on loan from Belgian and French museums as well as private collectors, are supposed to demonstrate the common roots of the art produced by the Fang in Gabon, the Luba in Katanga, the southernmost part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the Chokwe in Angola.

‘Powerful Women’

Neyt exemplifies his theory with the help of three types of sculpture: masks in the shape of a heart, reliquaries with the bones of ancestors and “powerful women.”

The masks are used on various occasions -- initiation rites, circumcisions, necromantic ceremonies and dances. Some are white, others red or ochre. Some have a second pair of eyes, a symbol of prophetic vision. One, representing a sprite of the rain forest, has six eyes.

The guardian figures containing bones of ancestors serve more or less the same purpose as relics of Christian saints: They are believed to possess magical powers protecting against bad luck and evil forces. They come in a confusing variety of shapes; one has the face of a python.

A widespread feature is the diamond-shaped posture of the arms. The figures also are used as title deeds.
The third section is the least convincing. It’s true that the matrilineal transmission of power was the rule in the ancient kingdom of Kongo. Still, it’s hard to believe that “powerful women” with curvaceous bodies and elaborate hairstyles are specific to the Congo region.

Never mind. You can easily enjoy the exquisite beauty of the sculptures without buying into Father Francois’s theoretical edifice.

Just follow the example of Pablo Picasso, who was bowled over when he saw, in 1906, a statuette from the Congo region that his friend Henri Matisse had bought at a curiosity shop on Rue de Rennes. A display case documents the craze for “art negre,” as it was then called, and how the Paris art market responded.

“Fleuve Congo: Arts d’Afrique Centrale,” which is sponsored by Total SA, is at the Musee du Quai Branly, Paris, through Oct. 3. Information: http://www.quibranly.fr or +33-1-5661-7000.

Source: Bloomberg Online, Muse
By: Jorg von Uthmann

Through African Eyes at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art Explores African Artists' Perceptions of Westerners

A groundbreaking visual examination of how African artists expressed the dynamic interactions between African cultures and Europeans and Westerners will open Sept. 25 at The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Through African Eyes: The European in African Art, 1500–Present, on view through Jan. 9, 2011, will feature 95 works of art exploring 500 years of contact.

The exhibition, which debuted this past spring at the Detroit Institute of Arts (DIA), is the first to give a wide perspective of the African point of view of Europeans, from first encounters and trade relations, to European settlements and colonization, through the contemporary years of post-independence. Sculptures, masks, utilitarian objects, textiles, photographs and paintings lent from more than 30 museums, institutions and collections give a riveting visual commentary on artistic perceptions from more than 20 African countries.

“These works express an incredible diversity of response to white people, spanning the gamut of emotion from admiration to resentment,” said Leesa Fanning, associate curator, Modern & Contemporary Art, at the Nelson-Atkins, who served as curator for the Kansas City venue.

The exhibition was initiated and curated by Nii Quarcoopome, who leads the Department of Africa, Oceania and Indigenous Americas at DIA. As a child in the 1960s in Ghana, he witnessed first-hand the complex relationships between Africans and white Europeans and Americans.

“At the heart of the exhibition and its accompanying catalogue is the desire to give agency to African voices; indeed, the title, Through African Eyes, primarily obtains from this thinking,” he said. “After all, what good is African art and history without the African voice?”

The works of art generally take three forms. First are the portraits of specific Europeans or images that represent a particular moment in time; next are images of white people as a metaphor or allusion to authority, power, brutality, wealth, literacy, etc.; and finally, there are utilitarian objects that Africans used to denote European or Western culture, such as guns, books and eyeglasses.

“At first, because Africans encountered Europeans only as occasional visitors to their communities, white people remained exotic characters,” Quarcoopome wrote in the catalogue. “But once Europeans decided to settle among Africans, African attitudes changed toward them as a people and culture. Increased familiarity eroded much of the initial fascination and enabled Africans to more fully assess the racial and cultural differences.”

The exhibition is organized in seven sections:

Strangers and Spirits: Histories passed down through generations of Africans tell of various reactions to first meetings with Europeans. The arrival of the Portuguese around 1450 created a sensation. In many African cultures, whiteness is traditionally associated with the supernatural and spirits. African sculptures with white pigment surfaces are instantly recognized by Africans as representing spirits. With their pale skin, the Portuguese were first thought to be supernatural beings. This sculpture represents an ancestor spirit. It was used as a grave marker and it functioned as a mediator between the living and the dead. The figure has filed teeth characteristic of Yombe peoples but wears European-style clothes.

Traders: Direct partnerships between Portuguese traders and African kingdoms resulted in a long-lasting impact on African arts and cultures. African artists incorporated European imagery, imported materials and goods. Objects in this section show the European as a trader of goods and slaves–lucrative for some, destructive for others.

Settlers: Although European settlers lived apart from their African neighbors, Africans observed them closely. These works reveal the results of those observations, such as the sculpture of the couple walking their dog (first page of release) by the Yoruba artist Thomas Ona Odulate, who documented colonial life in his carvings. In African culture, dogs perform functional roles, such as hunting and providing protection. With this sculpture, the artist makes a commentary on the European lifestyle – dog walking as a leisure activity – and represents an African stereotype of European culture in which love for dogs trumps that for humans.

Spirituality and Technology: Africans usually admired and welcomed European technologies. Artists here reflect the desire to own or be associated with European technology, but also express caution about its use. This work, Fantasy Coffin, a sculpture of a Mercedes Benz from 1996 by the Ghanaian artist Ben Kane Kwei, would have been commissioned to celebrate a life of wealth and achievement, provide an elegant ride for the deceased in the afterlife and fulfill the lifetime fantasy of owning such a car.

Education: The introduction of Western teachings created tensions within African societies, and many Africans saw access to Western education as a way to influence and resist European ways of understanding the world.

Colonizers: In the late 1800s representatives from 12 European countries divided Africa into colonies and established themselves as masters. Works here reveal how African artists expressed their attitudes toward colonizers from resistance to alignment. Between the 1950s and 1960s, as Africa’s boundaries were redrawn and independent nations appeared, artists created works of art reflecting on the era of colonization with feelings that ranged from deeply critical to nostalgic.

Westerners: African artistic interpretation of the West continues today. This section features art forms that reflect the ongoing complex interaction with the world.

This exhibition has been organized by the Detroit Institute of Arts. Generous support has been provided by the Friends of African and African American Art, the DTE Energy Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Endowment for the Arts. In Kansas City the exhibition is supported by The Helzberg Fund for African Art.

The African sculptures mistaken for remains of Atlantis

A hundred years ago when German explorer Leo Frobenius visited West Africa and came across some sculpted bronze heads and terracotta figures, he was sure he had discovered remains of the mythical lost city of Atlantis.

He refused to believe that the sophisticated and ornately carved bronze sculptures were made in Africa.

In his book, Voice of Africa, Frobenius wrote: "Before us stood a head of marvellous beauty, wonderfully cast in antique bronze, true to the life, incrusted with a patina of glorious dark green. This was, in very deed, the Olokun, Atlantic Africa's Poseidon."

"I was moved to silent melancholy at the thought that this assembly of degenerate and feeble-minded posterity should be the legitimate guardians of so much loveliness," he added.

Frobenius was referring to the people who lived in the Kingdom of Ife and whose artists, in fact, created the sculptures over the course of some four centuries. Leading art experts believe they are among the most aesthetically striking and technically sophisticated in the world.

The Ife kingdom was believed to have flourished from the 12th to the 15th centuries in the lush forests of the lower Niger in West Africa in what is today the south western region of Nigeria.
Frobenius' assertions helped reinforce long held assumptions of African art as primitive and inferior to European art.

However, 30 years later, Europeans were forced to revise these previously held assumptions when 18 brass and copper sculptures were discovered in the Ife kingdom. The works were later brought to London, where they were enthusiastically received.

A 1948 article in the Illustrated London News was headlined: "African art worthy to rank with the finest works of Italy and Greece" and "Donatellos of medieval Africa."

As critic Michael Glover notes in the UK's Independent newspaper, "At the same historical moment that Andrea del Verrocchio was doing his wonderfully painstaking, high-Renaissance drawing of a female head, anonymous artisans in Ife were working with brass, bronze, copper and terracotta to produce a series of exquisite heads that are not only the equal of Donatello in technical brilliance, but also just as naturalistic in their refinement. So much for African primitivism."

Now, a worldwide touring exhibition is bringing the show to modern audiences in the first-ever show dedicated to the Ife sculptures.

The exhibition features more than 100 bronze, terracotta and stone sculptures, ranging in date from the ninth to the fifteenth centuries.

Many of these have never been on display outside Nigeria. Most of the works are on loan from the Nigerian National Commission for Museums and Monuments.

The sculptures are currently on display at the British Museum in London until 4th July and will move to various states in the United States from September.

According to Neil Macgregor, Director of the British Museum, there was a conscious effort to display the Ife sculptures at the same time as an exhibition of Italian Renaissance drawings at the museum because he wanted to highlight the "relationship between Nigerian culture and the rest of the world."

"We wanted to make the point that nobody, when they learn European art history, studying Italy and Renaissance in the fourteenth, fifteenth centuries, is taught that at exactly the same time in West Africa, artistic production of the same level and the same quality is going on," he said during a talk on Nigeria at the museum.

The sculptures depict human figures from a cross-section of Ife society and provide a fascinating insight into local customs and beliefs of the time.

However, not much is known about the origins of the Ife casts or who they were made for or for what purpose.

Macgregor said: "This is a history that is still very much in the making. And it's not, of course, just the history of Ife. The bronze casting world of West Africa is an astonishingly large and rich one.

"The quality of the objects continues to astound and particularly the objects that have never been seen before," Macgregor continued. "On any view they are a masterpiece, not just of observation but of sculpting and casting."

Source: CNN
BY: Stephanie Busari

Oceanic & African Arts Sale at Webb’s

Webb's has been appointed by a US museum to manage the return of a significant collection of Maori, Australian Aboriginal and Oceanic pieces to the South Pacific region. Exceptional examples of sculpture, traditional dress and adornment, weaponry, ceremonial clubs, and other forms of indigenous art from Aotearoa and the broader Oceania area will be offered. The event also gives collectors the opportunity to consider a selection of African art of exceptional provenance from private Australasian, European and North American collections.

The viewing will be from June 11 through June 16, 2010. The auction itself on Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 4PM.

Lot 344a from the Sale:




Important Pou-Tokomanawa – Ancestral Totem - Architectural Element 
A highly prestigious form of ancestral carving, the pou-tokomanawa supported the central pole of the meeting house (pou-koukou-aro) at the base and signalled the delineation between entry and exit. As an ancestral totem, the pou-tokomanawa often represents celebrated traits of important leaders and thinkers. This pou-tokomanawa is carved with a firm muscular stance and an unflinching, confident, relaxed expression. Holding a patu in the right hand, denoting his knowledge of martial arts, and his left hand resting equally on the stomach. The torso is accentuated by its strong round shoulders and the simplicity of the form are both typical of the carving style of the North Island, east coast region. There is evidence of a piupiu having been previously attached. During the late 19th century, as Western sensibilities influenced concepts of social decorum and prestige, the addition of piupiu and cloaks to ancestral figures became increasingly common. The patina suggests significant age with remnants of early trade paint, heat damage and weather exposure evident. The base of the figure has deteriorated which is common given that this architectural form rested on the ground. The moko is prestigious with triple hae hae forms and complex rarua spirals evident on the upper and lower quarters of the nose and cheeks. The four extending forehead rays are also in triple haehae form. The stability of the wood is generally good, however the head, used to support the meeting house, carries a support cavity and is split. Later addition of mounting 19th century nails at the base still in place. Contemporary application of white paint to eyes. The Y registration form states that the object was found amongst the sand dunes of Gisborne during the 1950s and was then gifted to a member of the current owner’s family. H782mm W313mm. Y14046. 
$40,000 - $80,000

African and International Marketplace Festival hosted by Spirits in Stone

This weekend is filled with international artists and incredible deals on African and global art including- masks, baskets, sculpture, jewelry, textiles, and more. Experience exotic cuisine and live entertainment while browsing through the work of international artists and vendors.
World renowned Shona sculptor, Bronson Gengezha will be on site to showcase his newest collection.

Be sure to ask how you could win a collector's crate filled with $1,000 worth of African art and jewelry.

African and International Marketplace Festival hosted by Spirits in Stone on Saturday, June 5 11:00am to 4:00pm at Spirits in Stone Warehouse, Sonoma, CA.

For more information, visit: http://www.spiritsinstone.com.

Sculptors Create Unique South African Art

World Cup fans looking for a break from watching the art of soccer can slip out to see a different kind of artist at work in the heart of Natal Midlands, it's home to South Africa's most remarkable groups of artists

In this sculpting studio at the foothills of the Drakensberg mountains --winged elephants sit next to birds, sculpted lions and flying warthogs.

The artists here work tirelessly to perfect their pieces. Each one is hugely imaginative and all involve animals or references to life and nature in some way.

Victor Shabalala is one of Ardmore studio's most accomplished sculptors. His work is exhibited in Christie's of London, and sold internationally.

Petros Gumbi has been sculpting with Ardmore since 1999. Gumbi previously bagged groceries at the supermarket, but he has clearly found his calling with clay.

After the pieces are painted with painstaking attention to detail, they are glazed and fired, before finding their way to a showroom, gallery or shop.

Mark Read is the owner of a upscale gallery in Johannesburg. Read has has exhibited Ardmore pieces in his gallery and says he is a big fan of their work.

Ardmore pieces are now sold in stores in Johannesburg and Cape Town, as well as exhibited around the world.

Source: Ebru News

Sculpture Deemed Too Complex for Africa Could Be Real After All

Ever since a pure copper sculpture was found buried in a palm grove near the Nigerian city of Ife, experts from the West have argued that the artefact was a fake that was too sophisticated to have been created by African hands.

Found in 1910, the "Olokun head" left Western curators doubting that such a technically advanced work of art could have been created by indigenous people. Years later, they even began to doubt its authenticity, claiming that the original had been sold illegally and the one which remained in Nigeria was an ingenious copy. But now, new science is set to turn past wisdom on its head. There is a growing belief among contemporary curators that the "counterfeit" sculpture is the real thing, according to The Art Newspaper.

When it first travelled to the British Museum in 1948, it was exhibited as a copy; scholars claimed it was made from a blend of ancient materials that had been melted down, while the real work of art was thought to have been smuggled out of Africa by a European or American collector. The artwork, now on its second visit to the British Museum, where it is currently displayed again as a "replica" will undergo a thorough scientific investigation next month to establish the truth, once and for all.

Nigel Barley, a former British Museum curator who briefly examined the head in January, believes it may well be the original. Enid Schildkrout, from New York's Museum for African Art and curator of the current exhibition at the British Museum, agrees. If, she said, the real treasure had in fact been stolen, "it is surprising that the original has never reappeared".
It was first found by Leo Frobenius, a German anthropologist who had heard rumblings of a buried sculpture in a palm grove, just outside Ife, near a shrine dedicated to the goddess of the sea, Olokun. He organised a dig to investigate, and found the artwork.

Some days later, the colonial administration seized the sculpture on the grounds that it was sacred and should be returned to its original site, before it was transferred to the Ife Museum. One theory that emerged was that Frobenius commissioned a replica when he was instructed to hand over the artefact, and smuggled the original out of the country.

At the time of discovery, the head was considered too great a masterpiece to have been created by indigenous African artists a reflection of prevailing attitudes of the early 20th century. Some Europeans even theorised that the work was a remnant from the lost city of Atlantis. A spokeswoman for the British Museum said when the head travelled to the West, it caused a huge stir because "it flew in the face of Western perceptions" (of African heritage and cultural achievements).

It is now accepted by the curatorial community that the advanced artistic techniques used to create the sculpture were "more advanced than those of Renaissance Italy, and comparable to those of [the artist] Donatello".

Such sculptures, discovered in Nigeria and neighbouring Benin, were sold on the open market for under £100, in some instances, during the 1950s. This particular work was surrounded by various myths and beliefs, but it was not actually examined until 1948, when it left Nigeria and specialists at the British Museum declared it was a replica.

Since then, curators have cast doubt over the idea that Frobenius organised the deceit, not least because it is highly unlikely that such a complicated replica which was found to be made from authentically ancient materials could have been made in such a short space of time.

Source: www.archaeologydaily.com

Soccer Art From Fifa 2010

(Jackson Hlungwane, Hand of God, 1989. Wood. 88.5 x 55 cm. )

(Gerard Bhengu, A Goal, 1926. Pencil and watercolour on paper. 21.3 x 33.2 cm.)

(William Kentridge, Bicycle Kick, 2009. Official FIFA art poster. 100 x 70 cm.)

This (football) flagship exhibition, will showcase a range of artworks that respond to the global phenomenon of soccer and the passion it evokes. The exhibition, which runs from 1 June to 17 July 2010, focuses on the African continent, with a significant South African component and, of course, the enthusiastic support for the South African national team is featured prominently.

Artworks are drawn from the Standard Bank African Art Collection and from other South African collections, as well as loans from international sources and several specifically commissioned works. Designed to showcase the full spectrum of cultural manifestations of the love of soccer, the exhibition includes makarapas (crafted soccer helmets), vuvuzelas (embellished soccer trumpets), commercially produced soccer merchandise (such as clothing and taxi bumper stickers) as well as personal tributes created by adoring fans and fine art by internationally acclaimed artists.

Other components of the show are local cartoons from the popular press such as Super Strikers, in-depth analyses such as BBC’s History of soccer: The Beautiful Game starring soccer legend Pele, and photographic essays, for example, a feature on African soccer audiences by Nigerian filmmaker and photographer Andrew Dosunmu. Historical and contemporary artworks are included, from a Zulu staff commemorating Bafana Bafana captain Neil Tovey, to a commissioned sculpture by Johannes Maswanganyi.

The exhibition title is drawn from the traditional South African celebratory cry on a goal being scored. The exhibition is curated by Fiona Rankin-Smith of the Wits Art Museum, and will be accompanied by a catalogue of images and essays.

Source: blogs.timeslive.co.za

Santa Cruz Bank Hosts African Art Collection

Since opening its doors in 2004, Santa Cruz County Bank has taken on an unlikely second role -- an art museum.

The bank has about four exhibits a year, and while only local art has been displayed in the past, the bank now welcomes its first international exhibit.

"Circle of Life" is a collection of works from seven Zimbabwean artists. The art, which is currently on display, will remain up until July 9, and a reception will be held May 7. Mary Anne Carson, director of the Santa Cruz County Bank Arts Collaborative, heard about the collection, owned by Jess and Laura Brown, and contacted the couple in the hopes they'd be interested in sharing their art with the community.

"We like the public to have artwork that hasn't been seen before," said Carson, who is also the bank's senior vice president and director of marketing.

There are about 60 pieces in the exhibit, including sculptures and the paintings. The paintings are now up in the Aptos, Capitola, Scotts Valley and Watsonville offices, while the sculptures are on display in the bank's downtown Santa Cruz location.

Carson said the paintings are full of life and vibrancy, a stark contrast to the country's current economic and political climate.

"I was very impressed with the work and how colorful and vibrant and joyous the works are," she said.

The artwork creates an intersection where people can gather.

"It's our way of connecting the bank with our community and welcomingthe community into our bank," she said.

Jess Brown, the collector as well as the executive director of the Santa Cruz County Farm Bureau, began volunteering in Zimbabwe in 1998. While there, he helped bring small-scale farmers together to form larger communities that could work together to yield more efficient and productive crops.

"The economy and politics is really bad over there," Brown said. "I really believe in these people and I want to help them"

His collection includes more than 100 pieces, ranging from paintings to sculptures. All of the pieces in the exhibit are for sale, and all of the money made will go directly back to the artists.

The bright colors and interpretation of life illustrates the hope they have as a people, he said.

"There's such vibrancy and joy in the paintings," he said.

Curator Joan Blackmer was touched by the sincerity in the work.

"I could feel the heat of the sun, I could feel the connection to the community," she said of the paintings. "There was a depth to how the figures were relating to each other."

The sculptures in the exhibit are Shona sculptures, an ancient process that enables spirits in the stone to be acknowledged in a more recognizable form. The sculptures on display in the bank combine ancient and contemporary principles, she said.

"They're really building on their cultural sensibilities and philosophies," she said.

Working as the curator for the bank's art collaborative has allowed Blackmer to be part of an emerging scene while sharing her love of art.

"It's exciting because it's developed into part of the arts community," she said. "Art enriches our lives."

Brown and his wife have long collected local art, but he feels a special connection to the people of Zimbabwe. Their art shows hope and inspiration, as well as the deep connection to community and culture. Most people who have seen the collection have been impressed with the spirit, he said.

"You smile," he said. "You feel good about it."

Source: Santa Cruz Sentinel

By: Justine DaCosta

Nigeria's Nike Art Gallery’s Twist Climb of the Auction stake…

At last, the planned maiden edition of the 1st African Art Auction by Nike Art and Culture Foundation held last Saturday on the ground flour of the gallery at Lekki. The Nike organized art auction came in the heels of other auctions conducted by ArtHouse Contemporary and Tribes Art Gallery. The success of these auctions point to the fact that the Nigerian Visual Art Sub sector is finally keying into emerging secondary art market.

Despite the low turn out of invitees at the event , coupled with the fact that the auction took off about an hour behind schedule added with the failure of the appointed auctioneer in carrying out his duty, a situation that forced Prince Yemisi Shyllon the founder of OYASAF and one of the Patrons of the centre to take over the job, and he surprised everybody when he performed the duty of the auctioneer excellently.

The auction which witnessed the presence of few art patrons and artists was unique in many ways: first, it went down into history as the first auction that was done by an indigenous auctioneer and second, it remain the only auction in the country that has included photography in its auction items.

In all, the total sales was over six million for only 20 works out of the 140 works that were put up for sale. There were probably about 50 works bided that didn’t come up to the reserve.

The highest work sold was lot 44, a piece by Ben Enwonwu Untitled Landscape 1970, oil on canvas.

It went for N1,650,000. It was followed by Ben Osawe’s Untitled Sculpture 1971, Bronze and Images, oil on canvas by Bruce Onabrakpeya that went for N700,000.00 and N600,000.00 respectively.

Other works sold included works by Emmanuel Dudu, Nike and Tola, Rom Isichei, Jimoh Buraimoh etc. and pictures by Adolphus Opara. It was fun as the guest were treated with the best choice wine by the host, while the students of Nike Art Centre in Osogbo gorgeously dressed in their beautiful Adire clothes entertained the visitors with traditional dance.

The auction ended around 5.00 pm with another unique action by Mr Reuben Okundaye , the husband of Nike who as a true African man poured libation to the ancestors for a successful auction.

Commenting on the auction, Ms. Donnie Day Patriaca, the Business Manager of the centre said “while it was somewhat disappointing, it’s really not bad for a first time show. Also, I think our timing on the show being just a week after Easter hurt the attendance, and the attendance was extremely low for the number of invites sent.

It was a great learning experience for all the gallery employees who had never had an auction, including Nike & Reuben, and it was a great learning experience for me in having auctions in Lagos. That which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger and we will definitely be much wiser about timing and hiring the right person for auctioneer and the right printer.”

Chief Frank Okonta, AGAN president commended Mrs Nike for all her efforts towards putting arts in a proper perspective. “I am one of those who like to see innovations. Many people are afraid to start something, but Nike is not. Look at the building she built for arts and today she has brought most of the artists and gallery owners together for her auction, I love what she is doing, she is a credible woman.”

For the SNA chairman, Oliver Enwonwu, “I think it is a step in the right direction and I am very happy that we have a number of auctions going on in Nigeria. It is a good thing for arts because it gives more value to arts, it makes people to see the inherent values of arts as an investment potential. So, I think that in due time we will stabilize. Nike has done very well..”

For Engr. Yemisi Shyllon “This is her first auction. It is a learning process and am sure that the second auction will be better than this. The works that were packaged are okay. But in all, one should give kudos for a woman of substance who has made inroads into auction apart from the great inroad she has made in life.”

For Nike,“today’s event has really put me to know what to do next time. It is very good because if you don’t start something you wont know where you are going.”

Source: Vanguard

By Japhet Alakam

New Book: African Art in Detail

From the Harvard University Press comes a book written by Chris Spring entitled African Art in Detail. The book opens with the question: What is African art? The answer is a brilliantly colorful and detailed look at the myriad materials and genres, forms and meanings, cultural contexts and expressions that comprise artistic traditions across this vast and varied continent. Viewing artworks in their contexts—ancient and modern, urban and rural, western and eastern, decorative and functional—the book is nothing less than a virtual tour of African culture.

Masks, textiles, royal art, sculpture, ceramics, tools and weapons—in each instance, the book features examples that reveal the most significant aspects of workmanship, materials, and design in objects of wood, stone, ivory, clay, metalwork, featherwork, leather, basketwork, and cloth. Photographs of each piece alongside close-ups of fine details afford new views of these works and allow for intriguing comparisons between seemingly unrelated objects and media. The featured details evoke the hand and eye of the most accomplished craftspeople across Africa, past and present. In sum, these photographs, along with Christopher Spring’s enlightening commentary, offer an experience of African art that is at once broad and deep, richly informed and intimately felt. They are, at the same time, a kaleidoscopic view of art from pre­history to gestures prefiguring the future.

The book, which can be purchased for $22.95 is available in hardcover and was published in February 2010.

I See Africa Enlightens Cincinnati

I See Africa is a group show offering artists' concepts of Africa's influence through sculpture, painting and photography, including the work of Nigerian photographer Alfred Olusegun Fayemi.

"Fayemi's photographs articulate the realities of contemporary Africa and Africans," curator Barbara Gamboa says. "They traverse a wide spectrum in the rhythm of the daily lives of Africans, from the resplendent attire of African women in markets and churches, to children playing with home-made toys to crowded classrooms; from pounding yam to grinding pepper; from street minstrels and itinerant musicians to open-air dancing parties in far-flung locations like Nigeria, Ghana and Ethiopia."

The show also features artists James Haase, Queen Brooks, Cynthia Lockhart and Elliott Jordan with contemporary work inspired by traditional African art. Educational exhibits and African artifacts on loan from Cincinnati Art Museum, Cincinnati Museum Center and private individuals provide cultural context.

Through June 5. Opening reception 6-8 p.m. Saturday, free; preview 6-8 p.m. tonight includes a gallery talk by Fayemi, music and East African food. Tickets $30 per person at www.kennedyarts.com and 513-631-4278. 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Friday. 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Saturday. 6546 Montgomery Road, Kennedy Heights.

In conjunction with I See Africa, Kennedy Heights Arts Center will present an African Culture Fest from 1-6 p.m. May 2 with music and dance, activities provided by Cincinnati Art Museum.

Source: Cincinnati.com

By: Jackie Demaline

Senegal's 'Idolatrous' Statue Unveiled

Senegal inaugurated its giant "African Renaissance" monument, brushing aside complaints that the personal project of President Abdoulaye Wade was a waste of money and un-Islamic.

One imam in the mainly Muslim West African state issued a fatwa on Friday condemning the statue, of a man, woman and infant, as idolatrous, a charge dismissed by Mr Wade's allies.



Slightly bigger than the Statue of Liberty, the $28 million (£18.4m) copper monument overlooking the capital Dakar has been criticised as a waste of money in a country with crumbling infrastructure and welfare provision.



More than a dozen heads of state, including Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe and Ivory Coast's Laurent Gbagbo, attended the statue's inauguration, which coincided with the country celebrating 50 years of independence from France.



"Every architectural work sparks controversies – look at the Eiffel Tower in Paris," pro-Wade senator Ahmed Bachir Kounta said.



Mr Wade, 83, who has confirmed he will seek re-election in two years' time, has said he was personally involved in designing the statue. Critics have said it is more Soviet-style realism than traditional African art form.



The 50m-tall monument has been built by North Korean labourers, another source of discontent in a country where formal employment is scarce.



Many Dakar residents, struggling with increasingly frequent power cuts, disintegrating city roads, rising living costs and scarce formal employment have mixed feelings about the monument.

Source: The Scotsman
By Andy Sullivan

Review of "Kindgom of Ife" from the Guardian

By Jonathan Jones:

This is an exceptional exhibition, even by the high standards the British Museum has established in recent years. It is extraordinary because it brings together such a large number of masterpieces that have rarely or never been exhibited outside Nigeria before – and when I say masterpieces, I mean artworks that rank with the Terracotta Army, the Parthenon or the mask of Tutankhamen as treasures of the human spirit.

For European artists a century ago, African sculpture was powerful precisely because it did not conform to the smooth idea of beauty that Picasso's generation had been brought up on – ideas that went back to classical Greece. But they had not seen the art of Ife, a medieval city-state that flourished from the 12th to 15th centuries in West Africa, trading across the Sahara with the Islamic Mediterranean world.

The superb sculpted heads in this exhibition – statues of sick people, monuments to warriors, royal heads whose strange vertical scars tell of the ceremonies of the court – were first rediscovered in quantity in an amazing find on a building site in the modern Nigerian city of Ife in 1938. This art was so different and unexpected, so "un-African", that one of its first students thought it must be the lost art of Atlantis.

But these works were not Greek, let alone from Atlantis. The faces that gaze coolly past you from these cases are challenging and formidable in their beauty. And they are disturbing to anyone who has any lingering belief in the uniqueness of European art. Sculptors in Ife imitated the human face as accurately and sensitively as any Greek, and matched the Greek feeling for harmony, balance and proportion.

What we see here is an African classical art – by which I mean an art with a strong concept of order that gives it a special authority, whether it comes from Athens, China or Ife. Like that of ancient Egypt, the art of Ife is perfect, remote, godlike and yet – as with Egypt – when you look again it is highly observational, rooted in the real life of this lost civilization.

Ife remains mysterious. The catalogue admits there's so much still to learn about this art and the world that created it. Hopefully this exhibition will be the starting point for new archaeology. It elicits awe. To behold these royal heads is to travel to a fabled realm far beyond your imagination, a place richer than Atlantis.

The Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures of West Africa at the British Museum

This major exhibition presents exquisite examples of brass, copper, stone and terracotta sculpture from West Africa.

The Kingdom of Ife (pronounced ee-feh) was a powerful, cosmopolitan and wealthy city-state in West Africa (in what is now modern south-west Nigeria).

Ife flourished as a political, spiritual, cultural and economic centre in the 12th–15th centuries AD, and was an influential hub of local and long-distance trade networks.

The exhibition features superb pieces of Ife sculpture, drawn almost entirely from the magnificent collections of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.

The artists of Ife developed a refined and highly naturalistic sculptural tradition in stone, terracotta, brass and copper to create a style unlike anything in Africa at the time. The technical sophistication of the casting process is matched by the artworks’ enduring beauty.

The human figures portray a wide cross-section of Ife society and include images of youth and old age, health and disease, suffering and serenity.

The exhibition will run from March 4th through June 6th, 2010. For more information and to watch an video about the exhibit visit: http://www.britishmuseum.org/whats_on/future_exhibitions/kingdom_of_ife.aspx.

Tomorrow, we will include a review of the exhibit that was featured in the UK's Guardian.

West African Art at the British Museum

Starting in the beginning of March, the British Museum will host “Kingdom of Ife: Sculptures from West Africa.” According to the museum, this major exhibition resents examples of brass, copper, stone and terracotta sculpture from West Africa.

The Kingdom of Ife (pronounced ee-feh) was a powerful, cosmopolitan and wealthy city-state in West Africa (in what is now modern southwest Nigeria).

Ife flourished as a political, spiritual, cultural and economic centre in the 12th–15th centuries AD, and was an influential hub of local and long-distance trade networks.

The exhibition features pieces of Ife sculpture, drawn almost entirely from the magnificent collections of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Nigeria.

The artists of Ife developed a refined and highly naturalistic sculptural tradition in stone, terracotta, brass and copper to create a style unlike anything in Africa at the time. The technical sophistication of the casting process is matched by the artworks’ enduring beauty.


The human figures portray a wide cross-section of Ife society and include images of youth and old age, health and disease, suffering and serenity.

The exhibit will run through the beginning of June.