African Culture
Prophecy and the past.
Upcoming shows, retrospectives, and museum openings highlighted by Maika Pollack, Ratik Asokan, Alex Zafiris, Gideon Jacobs, Michael Barron, Wendy Vogel, Zack Hatfield, and Legacy Russell
“I don’t want to mention names, but there are several black artists that would like to shoot me today because they weren’t in that show. Some of them are dead, but the ones that aren’t dead still give me a lot of bullshit every time I see them.”
From Lagos to LA, a young painter’s images resonate with meaning, both personal and political.
Of all the weddings I went to in Mauritania, this one had the most intense music. Here, I know, the audio quality is sort of insane and blown-out sounding, but that’s actually what it sounded like in person.
“I’m a Zimbabwean and I should show in my paintings where I’m from. In our culture, when you have a dream about dogs, cows, or whatnot, it means an evil spirit is coming to attack.”
A new documentary celebrates the great filmmaker Ousmane Sembène.
Stepping into 75 Dollar Bill’s practice space in Greenpoint is a bit forbidding at first. The building has a hermetic, industrial flavor compounded by the taste of wet paint.
“I just wanted to be sure I didn’t get caught not expressing what I thought was important to me. That can easily happen, because you can easily get discouraged by not being allowed to participate, or just being ignored, when you know your work is beyond ignoring.”
Word Choice features original works of fiction and poetry. Read “Development,” a short story by Matthew Pitt, selected by Fiction Editor Rosie Parker.
The Malian songwriter on the origins of his hypnotic desert blues.
Krystian von Speidel sits down with artist Nick Cave to talk about his incredible Soundsuits and his concurrent exhibits at Jack Shainman and Mary Boone Galleries. Cave shares his thoughts on pipe cleaners and fashion week, and invites everyone to come to his playground.
Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina is inexhaustible, a public intellectual very much engaged with the literary and political worlds. His memoir, One Day I Will Write About This Place, published this July by Graywolf Press, chronicles the multiplicity of his middle-class African childhood: home squared, we call it, your clan, your home, the nation of your origin.
An exhibition of photographs from three series, exploring absence, decomposition and dislocation. Shot in Cape Town and New Orleans, subjects vary from migrants in their intimate spaces, empty beds, and ruined houses.
The growing importance of African artists involved in contemporary artistic practices is exemplified by the career and work of El Anatsui, a Ghanaian sculptor who teaches in Nigeria.
The superb, carefully calibrated compilations released on David Byrne’s Luaka Bop label have effectively introduced vital international traditions to hungry new audiences; many artists from Brazil, Peru, Cuba, and Lusophone Africa have experienced mini-booms after getting the Luaka Bop treatment.
I can’t remember where I first met Nuruddin Farah, but it was at some sort of conference.
Fela Kuti, composer, musician, dissident, candidate for Nigerian presidency, and the father of Afro-beat, has been compared to Bob Marley and Bob Dylan for his musical innovation and political voice.
