New York Africa Film Festival at the Walter Reade theater
This weekend is a great opportunity to learn more about African film. The New York African Film Festival at at Lincoln Center’s Walter Reade Theater is screening contemporary and classic African film exploring notions of home and homeland. April 11 – 17, 2012.
Rotimi Fani-Kayode: “Nothing to Lose” in Chelsea
Rotimi Fani-Kayode: Nothing to Lose at the Walther Collection Project Space. I was thrilled to see that finally Rotimi Fani-Kayode was getting a proper showing in New York. This tribute to his photographic work is long overdue. Indeed he was seminal in his portraiture of black African homosexuality. “The first solo exhibition in New York […]
Contemporary Dance and African Heritage
New work by Okwui Okpokwasili and Nora Chipaumire. Friday night at St Marks Church in New York city, Danspace, in the context of Platform 2012 curated by Ishmael Houston- Jones, presented the powerful performances of two highly accomplished performers and Bessie award-winners: Okwui Okpokwasili, a second generation African American from the Bronx – her parents […]
Omar Ba’s paintings: Beyond Appearances
On my way back from Kenya, I stopped for a few days in Paris. It was perfect timing because I was able to see Omar Ba’s exhibition “ Le Monde des Apparences” at Anne de Villepoix’s gallery. I was in for a feast of allegories, bursts of intense color, and charged political meaning. Omar Ba […]
Congolese Wrestlers by Colin Delfosse
These images taken in Kinshasa by Colin Delfosse, a documentary photographer and member of the collective Out of Focus, remind me of the theatricality of Pieter Hugo‘s Nollywood photography series. However here, there is an added mystical and magical “voodoo” element. Delfosse writes from Kinshasa in 2010: Eight million inhabitants, thousands of shegués (street children), […]
Africa at Paris-Photo
African Photography at the Grand Palais The fifteenth edition of Paris-Photo was held for the first time at the Grand Palais, a grand Beaux Arts building remarkable for its iron, steel, and glass barrel vaulted roof. This new location for the fair, which was previously underground in the Carrousel du Louvre, is best adapted to […]
Highlights from Bamako Biennale
BAMAKO BIENNALE A few impressions: Walking through the PanAfrican exhibition is to get a feel for the diversity of expressions, experiences, peoples, and landscapes of the African continent. No one genre dominates. Landscapes are no longer sublime . Deceptively banal, silently empty, Jo Ratcliffe’s landscapes document the aftermath of war. Her method is subtle and […]
Les Rencontres de Bamako
The Bamako Encounters opened with a formal ceremony which combined Malian music and traditional dances and formal speeches. This year’s big treat was the presence of France’s Cultural minister Frederic Mitterrand. A big fan of photography he highlighted African photography’s present status: No longer emerging it is now intergrated in the international cultural scene. Indeed, […]
News Update: African photography Bamako and Paris
African photography: a few important events are coming up. On November 1, 2011 African photography will hold center stage in Bamako, Mali with the opening of “Rencontres de Bamako” featuring African contemporary photographers. This year, the theme of this Biennale’s 9th edition is the quest for a sustainable world. The Rencontres /Encounters are a joint […]
Heroic Africans at the Metropolitan Museum
HEROIC AFRICANS REINSTATED by Isabel Stainow Wilcox The exhibition “ Heroic Africans: Legendary Leaders, Iconic Sculptures” at the Metropolitan Museum curated by Dr. Alisa LaGamma, gathers pre-colonial sculpture from eight landmark sculptural traditions from West and Central Africa created between the 12th century and the 20th century. Focused on sculptural forms that commemorate important leaders, […]
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