African Art Outlook for December

African Art Outlook for December

Publié dans Events

As interest in contemporary African art continues to grow, we identified several events that are worth visiting in December. From Lyon to London, we’ve got you covered with a quick guide of what to discover this month. So, we’ve rounded up our favorite events of December featuring African and Africa related art practices and projects.

Exhibitions

Helen Evans Ramsaran: Strange Fruit is still on view at Welancora Gallery in New York, United States until January 4, 2025

Created in response to the history of lynchings and the utilization of the woods and forest as sites of terrorist activity in the American South, this subject matter is a departure from the themes that Helen Evans Ramsaran is known for addressing in her work, primarily ancient African architecture, their way of life and reverence for nature, and other indigenous cultures. Instead, this new series deals directly with the brokenness of the African-American experience and the fruitfulness that it produced. The exhibition includes a wall installation, tablets inspired by ancient scribes, a grouping of tabletop sculptures, and three large works that use trees, vines and the female body to directly reference the trauma experienced and endured as a result of racial violence.

Amoako Boafo: Proper Love is still on view at the Belvedere in Vienna, Austria until January 12, 2025

As one of the most important voices from a new generation of Black artists, Boafo portrays his friends, acquaintances, and people from public life, presenting a contemporary image of Black self-empowerment and self-perception. This exhibition closes, for the time being, a circle in the artist’s biography: After graduating from art college in Accra, Amoako Boafo began studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna in 2014. These were years that shaped him as an artist, in which he developed his signature style characterized by his unusual finger-painting technique. Applied to the human body, this creates a sculptural effect that contrasts with the flatness of the rest of the painting. The people portrayed by Boafo embody the idea of Black identity that draws on its own culture, to be understood as an act of resistance against the racist labels of a predominantly white society.

Sammy Baloji is still on view at Goldsmiths CCA in London, United Kingdom until January 12, 2025

Comprising two new commissions and important recent works, all of which will be on display in the UK for the first time, this major exhibition presents interconnected strands of Baloji’s artistic research on climate, tropical architecture, Belgian Art Nouveau, and extraction from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Baloji’s film Aequare, The Future that NeverWas (2023) and print-based works selected for the basement galleries are key examples of his ongoing research on the cultural, architectural and industrial heritage of the Katanga region. Shinkolobwe’s abstraction (2022), a work comprising 15 screenprints, recomposes the crystallographic geologic studies of the region into coloured abstracted forms and superimposes them on top of images of a nuclear explosion. In so doing, the work addresses the period in which the major Cold War powers, the Soviet Union and the United States, wanted to gain access to uranium, of which Shinkolobwe was the largest resource in the world.

Biennials

17th Lyon Biennale is still open at various locations in Lyon, France until January 5, 2025

With the title “Crossing the water,” this Lyon Biennale offers artworks, many of which are new commissions that are all about relationships. Organized by guest curator Alexia Fabre, director of the Beaux Arts de Paris School, and Biennale artistic director Isabelle Bertolotti, the exhibition explores how one approaches differences and what that can teach us. Fabre’s intention was to create a pathway along the Rhône, which she described as “a metaphor for all waterways that connect to form a stronger current,” which she connected to the 15 arrondissements of Lyon’s metropolitan area and the wider Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, the regional government of which coproduced several projects. While the traditional Musée d’art contemporain de Lyon (macLyon) hosts around a third of the 78 exhibiting artists, Les Grandes Locos, a former train maintenance center, and the Cité internationale de la Gastronomie, a cultural center for food and cuisine, are new sites for this edition.

Art Fairs

Art Basel Miami Beach is still open at the Miami Beach Convention Center in Miami, United State until December 8, 2025

Since its inception in 2002, Art Basel Miami Beach has routinely drawn more than 80,000 visitors annually, from art dealers to artists, collectors and art aficionados. It has become the splashiest cultural event of the Greater Miami and Miami Beach social calendar, with parties and events galore attended by celebrities and tastemakers. This year, over 285 galleries from 38 countries will showcase works by thousands of emerging, mid-career, established and blue chip artists. And while Art Basel Miami Beach is the singular fair at the Miami Beach Convention Center, Miami Art Week opened from December 2-8, encompasses over 20 satellite fairs for a whirlwind week filled with art.

 

Publié dans Events  |  décembre 07, 2024