Category: Arts

Arts

Artist Oluseye Ogunlesi builds a Black Ark to explore Canada’s colonial history

BY BETTY WOOD | THE SPACES

What looks like the hull of a long-lost ship has appeared at Toronto’s Ashbridges Bay – a haunting installation by Nigerian-Canadian artist Oluseye Ogunlesi exploring Canada’s ‘forgotten’ role in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.

Dubbed Black Ark, the 12-ft-tall immersive sculptural installation is presented as part of the Luminato Toronto Arts Festival. It’s conceived as a ‘symbolic home’ to commemorate the survivors of slavery, with its form evoking both the pitched silhouette of a chapel and the bow of a ship.

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Arts, News

‘BROOKLYN IS AFRICA’ EXHIBIT DISPLAYED AT BROOKLYN BOROUGH HALL THROUGH MARCH 21

By Kirstyn Brendlen | Brooklyn Paper

A new cultural and historical exhibition, “Brooklyn is Africa,” opened to the public at Brooklyn Borough Hall last week, and is on display through next Monday to honor the African diaspora in Brooklyn.

“As home to the largest population of Africans in the United States, it is Brooklyn’s pride and obligation to celebrate this rich and diverse history that’s still omnipresent in our communities,” said Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso in a release.

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Arts

In ‘A Place In Time,’ A Painter And A Photographer Explore Africa’s Give And Take With Black American Culture

By Maxwell Evans | Black Club Chicago

Nigerian-born painter Dayo Laoye always has relied on the generosity of South Siders to support his work. After twelve years tirelessly working to establish himself within the South Side’s Black arts scene, South Side Community Art Center co-founder Margaret Burroughs gave him several canvasses to use. They were musty and needed priming before he could use them, but they were a meaningful vote of confidence from one of the community’s most influential supporters of the arts.

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Arts

SMITHSONIAN TO RETURN COLLECTION OF BENIN BRONZES TO NIGERIA

By artforum

In a decision that could mark a turning point in the growing restitution movement, the Smithsonian Institution announced on March 8 that it will repatriate to Nigeria nearly all of the thirty-nine Benin bronzes held in its collection. Many of the objects are believed to be part of the trove of some 90,000 brass, bronze, and ivory items looted from the Republic of Benin, as Nigeria was then known, in 1897 by British troops and dispersed across the Continent and then to parts west.

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Arts

The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York will return two Benin Bronzes to Nigeria

The Benin Court plaques donated in 1991 with more than 150 other works, have been deaccessioned, while a third object, an Ife Head offered for purchase, will instead be restituted

By HELEN STOILAS | The Art Newspaper

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Arts

In Houston, Eko Art Gallery Evokes Nostalgic Feelings of Lagos

ARTBEAT |Thisday

As one of Houston’s most iconic silo buildings, The Silos at Sawyer houses 97 workspaces for over 100 artists. Here, in good company among others, a visitor would find Eko Art Gallery, which was officially opened on Saturday, March 6.

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Arts

Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe | The Ascent of Young Ghanaian Artist

By Terence Trouillot | Artsy

On a hot summer day this year, I was relieved to speak to the Ghanaian artist Otis Kwame Kye Quaicoe over the phone and not through a screen. Sure, it would have been nice to see him face-to-face, but there was something quite familiar and soothing to just hear (and focus on) the timbre and natural joy in his voice—his friendly disposition signaled by the cadence in his speech.

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Arts

Amoako Boafo: How Feverish Selling and Infighting Built the Buzziest Artist of 2020

Nate Freeman | artnet News

One of the hottest invitations at Art Basel Miami Beach in December was to a star-studded dinner at the chic Faena Hotel honoring artist Amoako Boafo. A few years earlier, Boafo was in Accra, Ghana, struggling to sell works for $100 apiece to support his mother and grandmother. Now, he was the headliner of the art world’s buzziest week of the year, with a suite of gigantic paintings at the Rubell Museum and a sold-out booth at the fair.

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Arts

Amoako Boafo | Ghanaian artist’s gestural portraits exude strength in times of crisis

BY PEI-RU KEH | | Wallpaper*

In a new show at Mariane Ibrahim Gallery, Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo explores self-reflection, self-celebration and seeks to challenge existing beliefs about Black identity

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Arts

Patrick Quarm | Ghanaian Artist Weaves Together Vibrant Tapestries That Reflect His Personal Experiences

Patrick Quarm earned his MFA in Texas before returning to his native country, where he lives and works. Some of his recent works would be in an exhibition which will be his first New York solo.

By Caroline Goldstein | artnet

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Arts

Peter Ntephe | Nigerian-born lawyer and art collector talks on African arts

Dr. Peter Ntepheis a man of many parts. With six degrees from some of the world’s leading universities, including Oxford, and a PhD from the University of London, he undoubtedly qualifies to be described as “well-read.” The one-time practicing lawyer, London academic, and football commentator is also quite well-traveled, including in Africa, and has built up a remarkable collection of African art. In this interview with Ibene Magazine, Dr. Ntephe, who lives in Houston, Texas, shares his views on African Arts and its place in contemporary society.

 by IBIENE MAGAZINE

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Arts

Dawit N.M | Photographer, director draws on Ethiopian, Virginian roots in Chrysler exhibition

By DENISE M. WATSON | THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT 

Even when he isn’t thinking as a photographer, Dawit N.M. knows how important it is to be seen.

Not looked at. Seen.

His photo of two girls playing in a street in Ethiopia, shyly hiding their faces in matching pink hoodies, is a portrait of innocence and youth. It isn’t one of starvation, death and calamity, which are often associated with the country in which Dawit was born.

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Arts

The Meteoric Rise of Somali Gallerist, Mariane Ibrahim, Champion of African Diasporic Art

By Claire Voon | Artsy

Somali-American Mariane Ibrahim is always thinking ahead. As a young dealer, she is enjoying a precocious, meteoric rise on the international art scene. She’s built her reputation with a roster of trailblazing contemporary artists, predominantly from the African diaspora.

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Arts

Ghanaian artist, Amoako Boafo, Is Navigating Art-World Success While Lifting up the African Diaspora

Harley Wong | Artsy

Ghanaian artist Amoako Boafo has experienced a meteoric rise in the art world over the past year. Known for large-scale portraits of Black subjects rendered in bold, gestural strokes, Boafo has only gained momentum in 2020. Recently, in April 2020, he donated a painting, Aurore Iradukunda (2020), to an online benefit auction supporting the Museum of the African Diaspora during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The painting sold in early May for $190,000, nearly six times its $35,000 estimate.

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Arts

The resurgence of Ben Enwonwu : Africa’s greatest contemporary artist

By Ciku Kimeria | Quartz

A few recent discoveries of long-lost works by Africa’s greatest contemporary artist, Ben Enwonwu, are leading to a reexamination of his legacy. How is it that the works of a man who in 1949 would be named Africa’s greatest contemporary artist by Time magazine, would decades later be gathering dust, long-forgotten in an apartment in London or in a family house in Texas?

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Arts

Best Places to See African Art in New York City

By Mazuba Kapambwe | Culture Trips

The African continent offers extraordinary cultural richness and diversity manifested in its visual art. It employs a variety of mediums, from textile to painting, masks, jewelry, figurines, and more. We profile the top 10 places to see African art in New York City.

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Arts

Online Art Auction Aims to Keep Museum of the African Diaspora Afloat

By Sam Lefebvre | KQED

An auction benefiting Museum of the African Diaspora (MoAD), one of the many Bay Area cultural organizations experiencing dramatic revenue shortfalls during mandatory closure, opens April 21 via the online marketplace Artsy and features works donated by a growing number of noted artists.

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Arts

Congolese refugee launches American art career with help from Refugee Assistance Partners of N.J.

By Brenna Holland | For NJ Advance Media

When Muyambo Marcel Chishimba was referred to the Refugee Assistance Partners of New Jersey (RAP), he expected to be helped in his effort to navigate the government, housing and school systems in his new home of Elizabeth. What Chishimba did not expect was that RAP would be the organization to help jump start his career as an artist in the United States.

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Arts

Buffalo Museum of Science exhibits ancient Egyptian artifacts

By: Mustafa Marie 

The Buffalo Museum of Science in America dedicated a dimmed room to display ancient Egyptian mummies alongside their unique coffins and gold-plated bandages.

The curators at the museum said that the mummies date back to the Greco-Roman era. They further stated that the Egyptian artifacts displayed at the museum span back to the year 332 BC.

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Arts

Artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby explores memory, Nigerian culture in work, visits Baylor

By CARL HOOVER choover@wacotrib.com

Los Angeles artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby explores the cultural collage of memory, particularly for those who straddle two or more cultures, on her canvases for good reason: It’s her story.

Akunyili Crosby, born in Enugu, Nigeria in 1983, came to America to study medicine only to find a different calling in art — a calling that has led to a host of international prizes, a MacArthur Fellowship and pieces that have sold for more than a million dollars.

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