A Fiction of Authenticity : Contemporary Africa Abroad

Saturday, 22 July 2006 09:33

Houston, TX – The Blaffer Gallery, the Art Museum of the University of Houston, is pleased to announce the exhibition A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad featuring new work in painting, sculpture, installation, video and performance by some of the most prominent African artists working in Europe and the United States.  The eleven artists that contributed to this exhibition represent an important generation, born just before or during the postcolonial era in Africa, between 1956 and 1975, which concerns itself with the dismantling of an imperialist/colonialist mindset that created the original fictions of “authentic” culture.  Their work, creative strategies and formal vocabularies considered within this context, challenge prevailing notions about Africa and the largely Western desire for an authentic African art.  The exhibition seeks to analyze intellectual constructs about what constitutes authenticity–within the African continent and abroad.  It considers how such constructs have skewed the understanding and meaning of African art in a global contemporary culture.

All of the artists in the exhibition have chosen to practice abroad, calling into question their Africanness as a fixed notion of identity.  Instead they produce new histories composed of fractured geographies that embody ideas of multiplicity and hybridity.  Their migration to countries such as Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK and the US, while retaining ties to Algeria, Benin, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, South Africa, and Tunisia, involves complex choices, forging relationships with places and cultures, and requiring a perpetual reassessment of self and practice within these constantly fluctuating parameters.  The principal ideas explored in this exhibition are cultural definitions, categories, and signifiers of social, political, and economic exchange, as well as concepts of commodification, exploitation, exile, memory and home.

Siemon Allen investigates how nation building and identity are created through the emphasis or lack of emphasis that media places on particular historical moments.  Fatma Charfi’s work consists of the creation of tiny, hand wrought tissue paper surrogate representations of human beings entitled the Abrouc (singular) or Abérics (plural), Arab words meaning ‘human’.  Godfried Donkor uses collage, silkscreen, photography, and historical archival texts to reconstruct the past that explores a distinctly American history and imagination.  Mary Evans creates large-scale temporary installations made of craft paper cutouts adhered directly to walls or glass, synthesizing elements of Evans’ African background and her European culture.  Meschac Gaba is interested in the nature of cultural appropriation, institutional legitimacy, and economic commodity and continues his investigation into how art and culture are institutionally through the ‘burial’ and ‘discovery’ of contemporary ‘artifacts’.  Kendell Geers’ videos, sound pieces, performances, and installations challenge the structure of institutional politics, language, history, and cultural boundaries.  Moshekwa Langa’s signature usage of Polaroid self-portraiture, drawing, and collage seeks to map out the often-incongruent movement of the diasporic experience.  Ingrid Mwangi’s performances, sound pieces, and videos are autobiographical journeys through her own self-reflected African gaze.  Odili Donald Odita’s paintings tackle Western stereotypes, myths, and other forms of social transformation.  Owusa-Ankomah’s paintings combine symbols and markings taken from many traditional West African sources with ancient symbols from China, indigenous America, and Oceania to create geo-abstract grids.  Zineb Sedira’s photographs and videos confront issues of cultural appropriation and identity within Muslim society while interrogating Western perceptions of the Muslim woman and Islam.

A Fiction of Authenticity: Contemporary Africa Abroad was organized by the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis and co-curated by Shannon Fitzgerald and Tumelo Mosaka.  The exhibition has been made possible through generous support from the Rockefeller Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; the National Endowment for the Arts; Mondrian Foundation, Amsterdam; the Consulate General of the Netherlands of New York, Pro Helvetica, The Arts Council of Switzerland, Monsanto Fund, Regional Arts Commission, St. Louis; the Missouri Arts Council, Arts & Education Council, Courtney and Gyo Obata, and Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro.  Exhibition September 9-November 11, 2006.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue.

Visit The Blaffer Gallery at : www.blaffergallery.org