Annansi Chronicles

YG points to a new exhibit by UK-based Ghanaian star architect David Adjaye opening today at the Studio Museum of Harlem in New York City. The exhibit, Making Public Buildings, introduces Adjaye’s architecture to American audiences by carrying viewers through his working process-from inspiration to completion-through ten projects, both built and uncompleted. Having been awarded an Order of the British Empire by the queen for services to architecture, following several public works including his Idea Stores, which have shaken up the notion of the library, and his Nobel Peace Center in Oslo, Mr. Adjaye is set to take on America. With both a New York office for his company Adjaye/Associates and his Museum of Contemporary Art in Denver opening this fall the star architect has his American debut all lined up. About his current work Mr. Adjaye tells New York Magazine:

We are building a house for an amazing art collector [Adam Lindemann and his wife, gallerist Amalia Dayan] on the Upper East Side. It is quite hermetic. In ten years, 50 percent of the world will live in cities; they are becoming massive. The home is something that becomes an emotional incubator and resuscitator. It is not about tricks but about the way in which you reorient a person’s perceptions by focusing on water or on a tree or on a texture of a wall, making the home a meditative space. For this house, the thing the house reflects on will also be art.

The June issue of Modern Painters magazine features a cover story on the first African Pavilion to ever open at the 112 year old Venice Biennale. The Biennale, arguably the most prestigious contemporary arts festival in the world, has been around since 1895 with little or no African representation, until now. Curated by Fernando Alvim and Simon Njami (Africa Remix), the Check List Luanda POP show at the Africa Pavilion features 30 artists’ works from the Sindika Dokolo African Collection of Contemporary Art in Luanda, Angola. The exhibition which opened on June 10 was selected by a panel of experts composed of Meskerem Assegued, Ekow Eshun, Lyle Ashton Harris, Kellie Jones, Bisi Silva and chaired by Robert Storr to represent the African continent at the 52nd International Art Exhibition.

Renowned fashion photographer Nick Knight is at it again with another fashion/art/multimedia project. His seminal SHOWstudio site - through which I had the honor of participating on the iD Magazine/London Fashion Week “Bring and Buy” project some years ago - now features a commercial project that “rethinks traditional advertising using motion image”. The project features 10 models from a range of mixed ethnic backgrounds -five male and five female- filmed wearing pieces from adidas’s new ‘Materials of the World’ line, “a collection influenced by the indigenous fabrics of different world cultures”. If you’d like to see the latest release of the Adidas Materials of the World Africa jackets in action on live models head over to the SHOWstudio Skin project site.

Skin is an undertaking by the company &Son, the creative consultancy run by stylists Simon Foxton and Nick Griffiths; a commercial project that rethinks traditional advertising using motion image. Ten models from a range of mixed ethnic backgrounds -five male and five female- are filmed wearing pieces from adidas’s new ‘Materials of the World’ line, a collection influenced by the indigenous fabrics of different world cultures. Over a period of ten days beginning on May 10, the living portraits will be also be displayed in the windows of a Curtain Road shop front in London’s Shoreditch where the attention of passers by will be tested to register that it is film and not stills that they are seeing. In this sense, Skin is a subtle development out of Simon Foxton’s previous Sittings: Thirty Men project of 2005 and a handsome addition to SHOWstudio’s ongoing study of living fashion portraiture.

On April 12th, the Design Made in Africa exhibit opened in New York at 4 World Financial Center. The exhibit is the first major traveling exhibition of contemporary African design. It presents a selection of 30 designers from 14 African countries featuring both utilitarian and decorative objects, including seating, lamps, tableware, wall hangings, graphic designs and body ornaments. The exhibition will be on display at the Courtyard Gallery. Featured designers are: Algeria: Amira Atallaoui-Deverchere, Abdelaziz Bacha, Mhedi Izemrane, Mohamed Faycal Guenni; Burkina Faso: Vincent Bailou and Vincent Rossin, Anthony Labouriaux, Hamed Ouattara; Cameroon: Sandrine Dole, Jules Bertrand, Wokam; Congo: Frederic Ruyant and Julien Robert; Cote d’Ivoire: Issa Diabate, Vincent Niamen; Ethiopia: Fasil Giorghis; Mali: Cheick Diallo, Marianne Montaut; Uganda: Sanaa Gateja; Rwanda: Laurent Hategekimana; Senegal: Balthazar Faye, Frederic Hardouin, Babacar Niang, Dominique Petot; South Africa: Marisa Fick-Jordaan, Maira Koutsoudakis, Piet Pienaar, Strangelove (Carlo Gibson and Zimek Pater); Togo: Kossi Assou, Ameyovi Homawoo; Zimbabwe: Ralph Gallagher.

On the train ride home last week I ran into a Ghanaian friend of mine and we got to talking about what else, doing business in Ghana. As we compared stories and ideas, my friend expressed to me his frustration with building a house in Ghana. Granted he still lives in the US, it is taking him 3 years to begin the process due to land disputes. The way he tells it, the land he purchased had been sold to another person by the same chief who was now dead. And because of the “light” record keeping, he was now stuck trying to haggle with another developer who stood to gain a lot more from the land. The discussion brought about one of my many fears of going back to Ghana with a Western mentality of doing business. I’ve heard from more than enough people about the complicated processes which slow down or even halt business in many countries on the continent, and at least for now I can’t get my head around it. In my rationale it serves a government entity, or even a businessperson, well to maintain processes that allows for ease of enterprise, particularly when that entity already has a bad reputation with foreigners. I’m not saying that we should kneel to foreign investments, but it doesn’t do anybody any good to run things as if it were a personal household. When we are in a position where we need all the help we can get, it serves us well to go beyond our comfort zone to make things easier for both foreign and domestic businesses. I guess Ghana in particular is in a transitional stage right now, with many of us returning home after living for so long in the UK and US, and trying to create a way of life we are already used to. In an allafrica.com article Benin highlighted in his Africa Investment series we are made aware of the Ghanaian ambassador’s investment “tour” of the US. In the article the ambassador, Dr. Kwame Bawuah-Edusei, says,

“The right environment should be created in the country so that those who have shown interest in setting up businesses in Ghana would not be frustrated. For example, the registration of businesses should take a day not days or weeks. That is the only way we can attract more investors into the country.”

South African Photo Exhibit “IMBIZO”by photographer Ezra Mabengeza
When: Friday, January 7, 2007
Where: Lava Gina (116 av C, between 7 and 8 streets)
Time: 7:30 till 10 pm

$5 dollar suggested development donation

• Will Smith plans to move to South Africa:

• Wesley Snipes wants more Africans making films

• Chris Rock vows to help Kenyans

• Yale puts African art on a pedastel

• DiCaprio adopts a South African girl. Thats one way to open the door to immigrants

• George Clooney advocates for Darfur with film

• Adoption groups criticize Angelina Jolie who criticized Madonna who thinks EVERYONE should adopt an African baby.

• Vh1 gets Bling’d for the United Nation on February 22

For the past few years I’ve been reading a lot about a talented Kenyan-born artist named Wangechi Mutu. Ms Mutu’s art “explores the contradictions of female and cultural identity and makes reference to colonial history, contemporary African politics and the international fashion industry”.

Having seen images of her work I can see what all the fuss is about. At first the images are intentionally awkward and grotesque; taking a closer look you see a butt here, an eye there, a headline somewhere else, which points to the deeper imagery. Piecing together magazine imagery with painted surfaces and found materials Wangechi Mutu is able to create satirical scenes of her take on “a European preference to physique that has been inflicted on and adapted by Africans, resulting in both social hierarchy and genocide”. Still in her early 30’s Ms. Mutu is heralded one of the best young artists. Coming from a solo show at the San Francisco MoMA, Wangechi Mutu’s works will go on display May 12 - June 17, 2006 at the Sikkema Jenkins & Co gallery and at Salon 94 May 21 - July 7, 2006.

The International Center of Photography currently has a great exhibit of contemporary African photography called “Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography”.

Curated by Okwui Enwezor, “Snap Judgments brings together some of the most forceful propositions by contemporary artists and photographers on how to look at Africa”. With themes such as local responses to the international media, framing the African body, identity and postcolonial memory, urban sites, and the machines and institutions of modernity, the exhibit highlights conceptual art, documentary, and fashion photography; most of which have been shot in recent years. Through the colorful images we are able to appreciate how African people combine styles and themes and create the looks which are our own.

Snap Judgments: New Positions in Contemporary African Photography
March 10–May 28, 2006

International Center of Photography
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