Exhibitions

Goddesses of Healing will be on view at M.Bassy in Hamburg, Germany from November 12 to December 12, 2021

Goddesses of Healing is a powerful healing journey through historical and social injustice. It is the complex layers of displacement, identity and belonging that are subtly explored in the video works of the Afro-American artist Lorna Simpson, the Franco-Guyanese artist Tabita Rezaire and the South African artists Berni Seale and Buhlebezwe Siwani. In these performative narratives, the relationship to color, ethnicity, gender, land, race and sexuality is evoked as are the timeless emotional, physical, and spiritual trials associated with the politics of cultural erasure and structural exclusion. By highlighting and embodying silent narratives, the artists seek to challenge the roles assigned by our societies as well as to change perceptions of Western notions of history. Accepting, incarnating and speaking about trauma and unresolved feelings of injustice is paramount to the healing process of individuals and collectivises.

Art Fairs

Art X Lagos 2021 will open at the Federal Palace in Lagos, Nigeria from November 4-7, 2021

People around the world are welcome to experience works from 30 galleries showing over 110 artists from 25 countries in Africa and the diaspora. This year, the fair’s curatorial theme “the restful ones are not yet born” presents an opportunity to challenge projected images and clichés about the continent with reinvented modalities of our own presence in the world. By taking inspiration from archives of the past and our experiences in the present, the fair’s special projects and speakers at ART X Talks will share ideas that contribute to creating a more collective and diverse possibility for the future. ART X Live! Will combine the best of last year’s blockbuster performance film with an intimate music showcase, with its artists being invited to think about the various ways in which their work has been subjected to a combination of influences, as they subvert Western art forms and make them their own.

Auctions

Africa + Modern and Contemporary Art will open at Piasa in Paris, France on November 24, 2021

Piasa’s second sale of the year dedicated to the African continent and its related scenes will include several sections. The first section will feature works from the collection of Maine Durieu, a collector, gallerist and artist who was the niece of celebrated French sculptor Germaine Richier, and who passed away in 2015. Another section will be devoted to the masters and rising stars of contemporary African art, with works from the School of Dakar, Bili Bidjocka, Abdoulaye Konate, Yinka Shonibare, Billie Zangewa and Mario Benjamin. Piasa is also honored to partner with the Moleskine Foundation and curator Simon Njami for an exceptional charity sale to benefit the Foundation’s educational programs in Africa and beyond. Its lineup will offer works by Theo Eshetu, Mwangi Hutter, Donna Kukama, Maurice Pefura and Andrew Tshabangu.

Talks

Curator’s Perspective on the African Museum will take place online at Independent Curators International on November 10, 2021

Two visionaries in the museum field in Africa, Koyo Kouoh, Chief Curator and Executive Director of Zeitz MOCAA in Cape Town, South Africa, and Daouda Keïta, Executive Director of the Musée national du Mali in Bamako, Mali, will be in conversation as part of ICI’s Curator’s Perspective talk series. The two will discuss the essential role that museums in Africa play in sustaining contemporary artistic practice and developing new curatorial perspectives. Kouoh and Keïta were appointed to their current roles in recent years, and they will share their vision for the future of their institutions, drawing from a variety of experiences, including the creation of innovative curatorial and cultural models in Senegal and Mali, respectively. This program is recorded and available in French and English. The English recording will include ASL Interpretation.

Conferences

1st WOPHA Congress will take place at Pérez Art Museum Miami in Miami, United States from November 18-19, 2021

Women Photographers International Archive (WOPHA) and Pérez Art Museum Miami (PAMM) present the First-ever WOPHA Congress: Women, Photography, and Feminisms, which invites women photography organizations and artists around the world to an in-person and online space for dialogue, celebration, and critical debate about women’s contributions to modern and contemporary art, with the aim of rewriting the established artistic canon and provoking social change. “I believe in the power of photography as a political force to rearrange the structure of power and domination of society,” says Latinx art historian, and curator Aldeide Delgado, WOPHA Founder and Director who conceptualized the congress. “I have conceived the WOPHA Congress as a space that will render women photographers visible while advancing critical debate about modern and contemporary photography by women and non-binary practitioners.”