The Defiant Ones: AfricanColours Calls for a Rebalance

International Mon 04-10-2010

The Defiant Ones: AfricanColours Calls for a Rebalance
Osei G Kofi | AfricanColours.com

What is art, and who is an artist?

Just like the economy and economists, get four experts in a room and pose that sort of question and there will be four different views, strongly held.

^{Bodo Pambu | Art works courtesy Jean Pigozzi Collection, Geneva.

Bodo is inarguably the most talented among the Kinshasa School of popular art.}

Cheri-Samba-Grand-Sapeur

^{Grand Sapeur by Cheri Samba | courtesy of Jean Pigozzi Collection}

Art is, perhaps, the most subjective of human endeavours and the most warped in our individual or collective tastes. So much that the awful, overrated British artist Lucian Freud, who paints awful nudes of celebrities and obese office workers, can disparage Picasso and describe da Vinci’s Mona Lisa as “awful.”

Go take a look at Freud’s nude study of the then heavily pregnant Jerry Hall, Mick Jagger’s former wife, a beautiful statuesque Texan who after weeks of sitting for Mr Freud was reincarnated as a hot water-scalded tadpole. Ms Hall has put that painting up for auction. Understandably.

I’ve come across paeans such as: Art is the life of forms. Art is the conscious expression of our subconscious emotions. Art is the plastic result of permutative sensations. Art is the aesthetic expression of our inner and outer Id.

Halloo! The fantabulous Swiss-Russian Serge Diakonoff says the job of an artist is to produce “beautiful” works and to “primarily feel and express their universe and, through that, everybody’s world.”

A European friend runs a posh ultra modern gallery in Düsseldorf. Every now and then an expensive-looking card lands in my mailbox requesting the pleasure of my company at So-&-So’s vernissage.

The truth is, I am always hard-pressed to grasp how and where her mainly stark, conceptual, ahem, “beautiful” installations express everybody’s universe or inner world. The one occasion when I tried to nudge her to consider the prospect of my bringing some pulsating red-blooded art, from the cradle of humankind, to jolt the people of Düsseldorf into a little more sensate, if not exuberant, vistas was met with: “Sorry, that wouldn’t work here.”

Wangechi Mutu - Entertwined

^{Kenya’s pride Wangechi Mutu at Berlin Guggenheim, 2010. She was named the Guggenheim Artist for 2010 and given a show at Guggenheim New York and Guggenheim Berlin.}

Last year The Times of London and the Saatchi Gallery sponsored a mammoth art survey whose results underscored the futility of trying to come to a universal appreciation of what constitutes art, or artistic creativity. Readers were asked to select the “Top 200 Artists of the 20th Century to Now.” It took sixteen weeks, and 1.4 million people cast their vote.

The results? That Picasso (No 1), Klimt (3), Pollock (7), Warhol (8), and De Kooning (9) made the top 10 enchilada may be appreciated by most. But, that Martin Kippenburger made Top 20 – and indeed was rated above Rothko, Rodin, Giacometti and Munch? Good gracious.

Brancusi made the cut at 16, Renoir at 47, Man Ray at 48, Modigliani at 58, Chagall at 71, Picabia at 72, Edward Weston at 91, Van Dongen at 140, and the totemic muralist Diego Rivera at a disgracing 155. Rubbing salt into the wound, his inamorata Frida Kahlo, a mere OK artist, outclassed him at 19. Diego must be turning in his grave.

Most unfathomable of all was Tracey Emin who, at slot 52, solidified her position among the (in) famous Brit Pack or MBAs (Modern British Artists – which include Bacon, Hockney and Hirst). Now, Tracey who? Remember the tortured soul who exhibited her unkempt bedroom as art, unmade bed, reeking tissues, overflowing ashtrays and all?

Damien Hirst - For the love of God

^{Damien Hirst}^{- For the love of God}

^{Marlene Dumas at Art Basel 2010.}

There was only one African among the Great 200: Marlene Dumas, a white South African resident in Amsterdam. She made it at 104. I regularly come cross Dumas’ art at some of the cathedrals for contemporary high mass (Tefaf-Maastricht, Art Basel, FIAC-Paris, Art Zurich, and Pan Amsterdam).

I betcha, very few outside Europe and North America might pay $5,000 for a Dumas but, well, there are actually people out there who plunk down $80,000 to $1.8 million for a piece of her mournful, lonesome ink on paper renditions. Dumas was the first ever to break the million-dollar glass ceiling for a living female artist.

So, I guess The Times’ readership and the connoisseurs at Saatchi never heard of El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare, Wangechi Mutu, Pambu Bodo, Moke, Katarikawe, Mzuguno, Malangatana, Ibrahim el Salahi, Owusu Ankomah, Sokari Camp, Gerard Sekoto or any of the other sons and daughters of Mother Africa who inspire and produce art like few others.

Yinka Shonibare - Scramble for Africa

^{Scramble for Africa by Nigerian British Yinka Shonibare. An eccentric by highly skilled craftsman who wows the western art public. He is very successful, always on commission for installations across the globe.}

^{Writer Osei G Kofi standing next to Ghanaian El Anatsui's work on show in Nigeria. El Anatsui was plodded away for decades teaching art until he hit the jackpot in the beginning of the 2000s. Now every museum in the western world wants one of his intricate tapestry, wrought from flattened bottle tops, pieces of alluminum and held together by copper wire. He models his designs on the Kente cloth of the Ashanti of Ghana.}

The kind of art that goes beyond the Double Fantasy album cover which John Lennon autographed for Mark Chapman couple of hours before the sicko gunned him down in front of his New York Dakota apartment block. That album cover now belongs to an anonymous buyer who paid $525,000 at auction a few years back.

I have an idea. Let’s find out who you think should be on a list of Africa’s Top 50 contemporary visual artists. Watch this space for further instructions from African Colours for the vote.

Osei G. Kofi, Art Africa Consulting & Investment, Geneva.

Posted By: Maggie Otieno

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Your Comments

Gonda Geets: You are probably right when you state : 'So, I guess The Times’ readership and the connoisseurs at Saatchi never heard of El Anatsui, Yinka Shonibare, Wangechi Mutu, Pambu Bodo, Moke, Katarikawe, Mzuguno, Malangatana, Ibrahim el Salahi, Owusu Ankomah, Sokari Camp, Gerard Sekoto or any of the other sons and daughters of Mother Africa who inspire and produce art like few others.' But it would also be worthwhile to understand why they 've never heard of them or if they have, why they (still) don't rank them in their top 200. (and as a side comment...I do like the work of Marlene Dumas and Lucian Freud. As much as Yinka Sonibare or El Anatsui. They are great artists, regardless which colour they have or where they come from.

jan jordaan: mmm wel art is first and foremost about values, in particular the ethical values contained in the pramble of the UDHR and art's primary function is to make these values visible. The above article focusses on artists and not art, at the end of the day it is the art that is of interest to the viewer, artists might only be of interest to the academic or the investor....

Max: Easily, Daniel Novela, getahune Assefa,Joseph ntensibe, Elga rabe, benard matemera, chika idu, tony wakaba mutheki,tola wewe, Bruno serunkuma, David Kibuuka, Dominic benhura...as well as some not so young artists like ablade glover, etc

Aarti: Wangechi Mutu’s work is featured on Saatchi’s website, so one cannot accuse them for not trying. The Tate Britain had a major retrospective of Turner Prize-winning Chris Ofili, British-born, of Nigerian descent, earlier in 2010, so it is not that the public is not exposed. Tony Curtis, who died last week, insisted on sharing the billing with Sidney Poitier on The Defiant Ones, a film about two jailbreakers. The point here is that all artists should be judged on merit. So I am not even sure you should create a Top 50 Contemporary African Visual Artists, but rather an African Colours’ Top 50 Contemporary Visual Artists (who could be from anywhere). You could have two lists. One compiled by curators, another by the general public.Tony Curtis, who died this week, insisted on sharing the billing with Sidney Poitier on The Defiant Ones, a film about two jailbreakers. The point here is that all artists should be judged on merit. So I am not even sure you should create a Top 50 Contemporary African Visual Artists, but rather an African Colours’ Top 50 Contemporary Visual Artists (who could be from anywhere). You could have two lists. One compiled by curators, another by the general public.

Aziz: I must agree somewhat with Jan that the article is really all about artists and not art. For me art means something pretty to stick on the wall, I've never thought of it any deeper and don't think I need to. We have a saying in Sudan that loosely translates into:"If it weren't for differences in opinions merchandise would remain unsold". I find that in general people in the temperate zones prefer less bright colours than those in the tropics either as artists or consumers, understandable considering the light. I see stuff on "African Colours" and think nice and some I think not to my taste, but its only artists (with degrees?) who seem to ever rubbish other artists. I doubt whether the guy who bought the Lennon album cover did so as a piece of art. I've run out of wall space as I don't own a gallery and as much as I'd love it to happen my purchases are probably not going to turn out to be a very lucrative investments. Oh, and by the way Tracy Emin is African!

margaretta wa gacheru: i don't know why anyone would be surprised that Saatchi Gallery fans came up with survey results that they did. All very predictable. All in the box, not out of the box mainstream thinking. But African art is not only innovative in its own right; it is also at the disadvantage of having poor media infrastructural support. That is why the one African on the list, Wangechi Mutu,has the big advantage of living in New York. Much work needs to be done to bring attention to the awesome artworks underway, especially in East Africa which rarely gets reference, except re: Jak who is semi-retired and UK-based magdelene odundo & wangechi. Much more is going on!

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