In May The African Art Fair 1:54 was again with us New Yorkers in Red Hook, Brooklyn at Pioneer Works. The mix of artists was different than last year making the fair an opportunity for discoveries for New Yorkers and I found works that peeked my interest.

It was very well attended and therefore a great opportunity to network. A series of talks curated by Koyo Kouoh, founder and artistic director of Raw Material Company, Dakar had also been scheduled and I learned more about other creative web ventures – TrueAfrica and OkayAfrica – that focus on promoting African arts and culture and aim to reach the young hip African generation. Being cool is their motto! And it is working! They have a large following on the African continent. Most of them started for the same reason I did my blog: a desire to correct a mostly negative portrayal of the continent by focusing on the enormous creative energy that infuses the continent. Professionally run their writers are often based on the African continent, giving the fresh and dynamic reporting the perspective of an insider.

While run increasingly professionally I felt it fell short at being as exciting as the 1:54 edition last fall in London. Smaller, it represented a limited sample of what is happening on the African continent. While Red Hook is a cool location it is actually an awkward space and a few galleries found themselves assigned pathways/passages in lieu of booths where the works were not shown to their best advantage.
Walking into the fair I found myself immediately absorbed by the work of Omar Ba who had a solo showing at the Art Bartschi & cie booth. His work was just fantastic. I have written about his art before and it is with pleasure that I see his painting becoming more self-assured. The usually slightly chaotic scenes are more structured yet keep their highly patterned quality and imagery that references tribal decoration, natural fauna, self-styled leaders, and factional warfare. His characters loom larger, closer to the surface almost spilling into our space minimizing the psychological distance between the turbulent worlds he evokes and our present circumstances.

“His work was mostly sold by the beginning of the opening night” said the gallery attendant with satisfaction. Owning two of his earlier works I am particularly pleased that he is doing well though that also means his prices are going up and getting a new piece may be a bit more expensive. I also have to contend with more competition! While still represented by Art Bartschi in Switzerland he has changed galleries in Paris and is now with Daniel Templon.

Em’kal Eyongakpa’s photographic installation at Apalazzo gallery was the next work to catch my eye. I was not quite sure what was going on but I found the enigmatic interweaving of reality and illusion in the forest setting particularly intriguing. I felt the same way as when I read poetry. My senses are awakened, I am drawn by the dreamy quality and the elusive meaning is what makes me feel challenged and leads me to ponder my reactions.

Hanging on the opposite wall two of Edson Chagas conceptual photographic self-portraits where his head is covered by carrier bags were a reminder that rampant consumerism is taking over urban Africa. I thought the one with the words “World of Hope” turned upside down particularly appropriate these days!

One of Ruby Onyinyechi Amanze’s drawings was hanging at Mariane Ibrahim gallery. She creates these fantastical scenes that have a collage aesthetic where imaginary characters that she calls aliens or hybrid creatures engage in mysterious and playful activities. As she explained during one of the Fair’s panels much of her work is anchored in the idea of play. Yet through out her work and as she constructs these new paradigms she also addresses contemporary issues of displacement and hybridity. She is getting a lot of attention these days. She is one of the finalists of the Prix Canson Sixth Edition whose works are being shown at the Drawing Center in Soho, New York City. Njideka Akunyili Crosby is the other finalist of Nigerian descent. I am thrilled to see African artists’ work being shown at the Drawing Center!

Kenyan multi-disciplinary artist Jim Chuchu’s photograph tinged with eroticism where a man seems engaged in some mysterious ritual is part of a body of work that attempts to reconstruct future-past anonymous deities, their devotees and forgotten religious rites. Being gay and therefore rejected by the local prevailing religions Chuchu invents new religions and rituals that are inclusive of gay people.

Hanging in the back of Jack Bell’s booth, in his storage corner, was a lovely wall hanging “ God Save The King” by Gastineau Massamba from the Republic of Congo. Here an Okapi, a native animal to Central Africa and a national icon is beautifully and sparingly embroidered on a broad sheath of linen speckled with delicate flowers. The whimsy of the piece was enchanting and I was seduced. However it is the story behind the work and the artist’s choice of medium that moved me deeply. Massamba has chosen embroidery in part because that particular process helps him contend with the recurring war traumas that he has been living through. Part art / part therapy: a magical mix.

In a totally different vein just around the corner at Richard Taittinger hangs the work of Frances Goodman from South Africa from her recent solo New York show Rapaciously Yours. Her wall sculptures made out of acrylic nails looked like scaled creatures at once beautiful and yet also somewhat creepy. I preferred her car seat sculpture where she sews on the worn cover of a car seat a text using pieces of fake diamonds that speaks of sex workers mixed feelings as they lose their innocence while gaining sexual power. The contrast between the refinement of the glittering text and the roughness and coarseness of the car seat was what caught my attention at first. Once I knew the underlying story I was even more intrigued. I liked the feminist tone and there was a little of Tracy Emins’ sexual provocation and aesthetic but with even more of an edge and without her narcissistic undercurrent. Boy! Did that take me back to my teenage years in Paris where hookers were part of daily life in my posh neighborhood, the 16^th arrondissement. I would notice the same hooker regularly pull into our street in her green car, presumably service her customer and then drive away. We were not shocked, it made for a good story but mostly it made me aware of other lives, other realities that were not so easily dismissible.

The work of painter Beatrice Wanjiku at Artlabafrica is edgy,  aggressively disturbing. She paints howling figures that are struggling to break out from the constraints of straightjackets and become metaphors of human struggles and pain.. There is no holding back here. Her paint is applied thinly and has the transparency and looseness that one would associate more with watercolors and as a consequence the resulting image has a blurry quality almost like a dream; maybe more a nightmare in this case. All facial features dissolve into a big black howl. She is an artist who deserves our attention!  I find her  raw and direct. She makes herself totally vulnerable and the work is that much more convincing for it.