An Exhibition Aims at Accessibility Against a Backdrop of Protest in Kenya’s Capital | Contemporary And

Opinion

Installation view of ’60 Years: the NCAI Collection’ at the Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute, Kenya.

Letter from Nairobi

An Exhibition Aims at Accessibility Against a Backdrop of Protest in Kenya’s Capital

Mūhunyo Maina reviews a pertinent exhibition at NCAI, following protests against the 2024 Finance Bill, exploring ways to democratize art viewing.

Installation view at John Randle Centre for Yoruba Culture & History. Courtesy of Obinna Emelike

Museum for Yoruba Culture and History

Five Things You Need to Know About the John Randle Center Before It Opens

C& author Obidike Okafor shares what to expect from the new architectural marvel in Nigeria’s art capital.

Zohra Opoku,‘I am the one who shines, the one who is above the district of the sky. I go forth to the sky. I climb upon the sun’s rays. O, I am weary, I am weary, (yet) I proceed.', (Detail) 2023. Courtesy of the artist and Mariane Ibrahim

15th Dakar Biennale

The Off is On! Why We Should All Still Be in Dakar

Here, Black Pages from Dakar shares a long list of exciting exhibitions and events taking place alongside the OFF Biennale.

Installation View

The BENIN BRONZES Roundtables

The Return of the Benin Bronzes: Part of the Past or Pathway to the Future?

Agwu Enekwachi recently participated in a roundtable discussion in Abuja on the impetus and action around the promised return of the Benin Bronzes.

Acts of Opening Again: A Choreography of Conviviality, Haus der Kulturen der Welt (HKW), 3.6.2023. Photo: Mathias Völzke/HKW

Haus der Kulturen der Welt

Amplifying the Creative Structures at HKW

Edna Bonhomme examines how a Berlin institution pays tribute to anti-colonial feminists and applauds its new international team.

Heiko-Thandeka Ncube, The early rains which wash away the chaff before the spring rains, 2023. Video, 12 mins, film still.

Essay

Every Straw Is a Straw Too Much

Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung on the psychological burden of being racialized while doing art.

(Clockwise) Guest Artist Space Foundation in Lagos by Yinka Shonibare; Black Rock Senegal in Dakar by artist Kehinde Wiley; dot. Ateliers in Accra by Amoako Boafo; Lusaka Contemporary Art Centre by Victor Mutelekesha; Nairobi Contemporary Art Institute by Michael Armitage.

African Art Hubs

Institutions Build on Art Scenes that Grew Out of Common Artistic Needs

How do new arts hubs from Accra to Antananarivo relate to ongoing collective efforts that have enabled production in inconceivable circumstances?

Torkwase Dyson, Liquid A Place, 2023. Homme Adams Park 72500 Thrush Road, Palm Desert at Desert X. Photography courtesy of Lance Gerber.

Ecologies

Locating Blackness In Intimate Ecologies

Ama Josephine Budge on how to resist climate colonialism through a capacious, trans-temporal Blackness.

Peter Obi as Symbol of a new Nigeria by Douglas Jonn.

Nigeria’s Obidient Movement

Art in Support of Political Change

Peter Obi stirred an outpour of hope during the Nigerian elections. Agwu Enekwachi looks at some of the artworks made to reflect that spirit.

Art History Institute (KHI) of Freie Universität Berlin (FU), streetview. Source: Jonah Langkau

Open Letter

Decolonial Visions at the Institute of Art History of Freie Universität Berlin

The Student Working Group for an Anti-racist and Anti-Colonial Art History of Freie Universität Berlin has written an open letter. Read it here.

Common Life, Zimbabwe and Uganda, Drawing by Charity Atukunda

Common Life

A Blueprint for Common Living

Researchers and arts initiatives collaborate to investigate overlaps between arts and community organization in Africa.

Arsène Mpiana. Description: The Biennale crowd/partakers in front of the slag heap/terril of the former Gécamines mining site.

Lubumbashi Biennale

Picha Collective Responses to Gloria Mpanga’s opinion piece

Find here a response by the curators of the 7th Lubumbashi Biennale to our author’s critical piece, published ahead of the opening.

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