Exhibitions

Geodesy (-33.923429, 18.413935) is still on view at Gallery Momo in Cape Town, South Africa until September 3, 2016

Geodesy is an exhibition that explores mankind’s endless curiosity with space and how it contributes to our awareness of dignity and limitations. The exhibition probes the sources to our surrounding landscape and how the two-dimensional depictions of landscapes have for centuries been a reference to generate understanding with our relationship to nature. Individual artists including Dillon Marsh, Jonathan Freemantle, Martin Wilson, George Hallett, Maurice Mbikayi, Florine Demosthene, and Joël Mpah Dooh, use nature, minerals, and soil as an integral ingredient in the production of their artworks. Geodesy intimately explores ‘trappings’ to our questions of how the dynamism of the earth can be represented sufficiently on a two dimensional plane. The exhibition thus portrays that individuals are not simply passive recipients but rather active participants, who “speak up, act up” and consciously insert themselves in nature.

Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design is still on view at the CCCB in Barcelona, Spain until August 28, 2016

Making Africa: A Continent of Contemporary Design is the visual manifestation of an extensive ongoing research project by German curator Amelie Klein assisted by Nigerian art critic Okwui Enwezor. Featuring the work of 120 artists and designers from across Africa, the show is a creative celebration of all things ‘design’ can be, says Klein – myriad mixed mediums that refer to local and global concerns. Yet African design is also used as a critical tool, to uproot Western prejudices and represent the eclectic, high-paced social, economic, political and technological change transforming the continent. A major thrust is to question notions that exclude Africa from the modern world, says Enwezor. The exhibition offers a new tale of Africa, an invitation to value the continent from a brand new perspective. Many of the major African capitals are seeing the consolidation of a generation that, around culture and through creation and design, is defending its right to build itself in freedom, without foreign tutelage and contradicting the stereotypes projected from the West.

The Pineapple Show is still on view at Tiwani Contemporary in London, United Kingdom until August 13, 2016

The Pineapple Show at Tiwani Contemporary is a group exhibition of contemporary African artists exploring themes and narratives around the pineapple fruit and its status as a symbol for colonialism, opulence, labour, environmentalism, and power. The show is being curated and produced by Zina Saro-Wiwa, an artist, filmmaker, and curator from Nigeria and the daughter of the late environmental activist Ken Saro-Wiwa. There are work from 10 artists on display in a range of media including photography, performance, sculpture, painting, drawing, and video. These artists are exploring the symbolism of the pineapple as an inspiration for African hairstyles, for example, or as a representation for the exploitative labour practices through which the fruit is farmed. The pineapple is the most consumed tropical fruit after the banana, and in Europe the fruit has come to symbolise exoticism, whereas in Africa it is commonplace and not so extraordinary.

Festivals

Les Rencontres d’Arles is still open at several locations in Marseille, Avignon, and Nimes, France until September 25, 2016

The festival looks kindly upon youth and new practices but is also receptive to the world and sets its sights on other places. This year, talented photographers and curators showcase an unexpected, surprising, funny, pop Africa at the 47th Rencontres. Aida Muluneh, the artistic director of Addis Foto Fest—the Addis Ababa photo festival—joins the Discovery Award nominating team and defends the work of Sarah Waiswa and Nader Adem. Through works by approximately 10 artists, Azu Nwagbogu, director of the LagosPhoto festival, looks into the Nollywood film studios’ influence on African photography. In Maud Sulter's photomontages, however, African and European cultures collide. Lastly, Richard Minier, Thomas Mondo and Madé Taounza tell us the amazing story of Las Maravillas. The Malian music group becomes a wonderful pretext to revisit the swinging ambiance of 1960s Bamako immortalised by the great Malick Sidibé.

Conference

Global Academy? is still running at the International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria until August 27, 2016

Global Academy? is the title of a long-term project focusing on the future of the Salzburg International Summer Academy of Fine Arts. Since its inception, the academy has been committed to enlist teachers and students from different nations. However, the idea of what constitutes the international as well as the global art world has continued to expand, so that now the students come from over fifty countries and the teachers from the global art world. The event will have different activities including exhibitions, courses, and conferences that deal with how art can be learned and taught globally. The conference will focus on models and initiatives for a variety of formal and mainly informal artistic training and development institutions. Some of these institutions include in their programme exhibitions, lectures and residencies, as well as workshops of varying duration, courses and other training modules; others are mainly schools. Their common factors are their global perspective and local ties, together with the aspiration to constant renewal and the design of new models.