Africas: The artist and the city. A journey and an exhibition

by Akinbode Akinbiyi

The Artist and The City is an exhibition that contains a double it corroborates the existence of an "other" urban and artistic reality in Africa; and it asserts that these realities do not correspond with what topics and stereotypes would have us see as Africa's sole reality. In the words of Pep Subiros, we should talk not of Africa, but of Africas. Yet until now, there has been little said about the Africas depicted by this exhibition. Because what, in fact, do we really know about processes of urban change in cities like Dakar, Cape Town, Abidjan or other cities that are undergoing urbanisation and growth at breakneck speed? And what do we know about the work of the artists based in these cities? Very little, it must be said. The Artist and The City aims to illustrate a moment in which a fertile collision is taking place between tradition and modernity, between the local and the global. And it seeks to introduce us into the settings where this confluence is occurring.
The exhibition The Artist and the City is one of the chief proposals of the first Barcelona Art Report 2001 which, under the name Experiences, are jointly presented by the Institute of Culture, the MACBA and the CCCB. This makes the vision and reflection proposed by the exhibition on the special moment being experienced by contemporary art in Africa all the more relevant. A vision that is necessary if we want to better understand and grasp what is happening to us ourselves.

224 pages, Paperback

First published February 15, 2002

Reviews

[Tisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book in Barcelona, at the exhibit it represents. It's very high quality, and offers a look at contemporary African arts and artists, within a regional, historic and, notably, economic context. It's a bit text-heavy for my taste, and for my memory of the dynamism of the exhibit, but the narratives offered do not wholly overshadow the value and visual pleasure of the book.