DÁ FALA

Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kudzanai Chiurai, Georgina Gratrix, Andrew Gilbert, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Gerald Machona, Gerhard Marx, Meleko Mokgosi, Athi-Patra Ruga.   In 1968 the Ghanaian author Ayi Kwei Armah pub­lished a brutal and vis­ceral novel of (then) con­tem­po­rary, post-Inde­pen­dent Ghana, titled “The Beautyful Ones Are Not Yet Born”. Armah recounts an unnamed man’s strug­gle in a soci­ety rotten to the core, a result of the after­math of colo­nial­ism, and the fail­ures of the new regime. A dream deferred…

The exhi­bi­tion The Beautyful Ones takes as its start­ing point Armah’s utopian lament for a better Africa, and the ongo­ing prob­lem­at­ics of the rep­re­senta­tion of the con­ti­nent, espe­cially in the pop­u­lar Euro­pean imag­ina­tion. Africa is often per­ceived as a mono­lithic entity, whilst the complexity of its mul­ti­ple real­i­ties, histo­ries, narra­tives and voices are often lost.

For The Beautyful Ones, South African curator Storm Janse van Rensburg has brought together nine young interna­tional artists: Dineo Seshee Bopape, Kudzanai Chiu­rai, Georgina Gra­trix, Andrew Gilbert, Kilu­anji Kia Henda, Ger­ald Machona, Ger­hard Marx, Meleko Mokgosi and Athi-Patri Ruga. Orig­inat­ing from Angola, Botswana, Scot­land, South Africa and Zimbabwe, they are now oper­at­ing, working and liv­ing between many places, but with a common thread link­ing them and aspects of their practice to South­ern Africa. Exemplary of a gen­er­a­tion of con­tem­po­rary artists that are mobile, and whose practices resists easy clas­sifica­tion, the exhi­bi­tion includes a selec­tion of works that connects to the artists’ social and polit­ical real­i­ties, entan­gled with their per­sonal lived expe­r­i­ences.

On the one hand, the exhi­bi­tion might sug­gest that these are ‘The Beautyful Ones’ yearned for by Armah, whilst on the other hand some artists per­haps pre­sents ideas and real­i­ties that ques­tions, if indeed, the dream is not deferred once again.

The Beautyful Ones
An exhibition curated by Storm Janse van Rensburg
20 April – 6 July 2013, Berlin
Opening reception:
Friday, 19 April, 18.00 – 21.00
 

Artigo sobre o projecto “Homem Novo” de Kiluanji Kia Henda, na frieze by Sean O’Toole.

ler aqui

Artist Kiluanji Kia Henda photographed iconic structures around Luanda and recast them as components of an imaginary space programme. Here the mausoleum of Angola's first President Antonio Agostinho Neto is described as spaceship Icarus 13. Photo courtesy Galleria Fonti Naples

The space shuttle Icarus 13, with its slender spires and massive flared base, is parked by the seafront a few blocks from downtown Luanda, the capital of Angola. But the shuttle will never leave the oil-rich west African country for the weightless serenity of space — Icarus 13 is not really a space ship, it is a mausoleum, an art project, a constructivist gesture in concrete. “My idea for ‘Icarus13’ has a lot to do with the idea of celebration, but at the same time, the failure of many post-independent African nations,” wrote Kiluanji Kia Henda, the Angolan artist behind Icarus 13, in an e-mail. Mr. Kia Henda took photographs of iconic buildings around Luanda and recast them as components of an utterly imaginary pan-African space mission: an abandoned building was photographed to look like an astronomy observatory; the Soviet-funded mausoleum of Antonio Agostinho Neto, Angola’s first President and Kremlin ally, became “Icarus 13” — a spaceship that would take an all-African crew on a fantastical journey to the sun. “The misery of many African societies forces us to be submitted on the present and basic issues,” said Mr. Kia Henda. “For me it is also important to find a new approach on the reading of African contemporary creation.” Last week, a gathering of Communication Ministers in Khartoum considered a proposal not dissimilar from Mr. Kia Henda’s art: if realised, Afrispace will be a pan-African space agency committed to “promote, for exclusively peaceful purposes, cooperation among African states in space research.” The announcement triggered a wave of chatter on social networks with many, predominantly western, commentators implying that African governments could better serve their citizens by investing in anti-poverty measures. Yet, much like Mr. Kia Henda’s art, the continent’s policymakers believe they must think beyond the immediacy of the present and support transformational technology. “A pan-African space programme that is well aligned to bring immense benefit to the needs on the continent will have significant economic impact,” said Vanashree Maharaj, spokesperson for the South African National Space Agency (Sansa), adding that countries too poor to invest in space technologies would benefit from access to satellite data to improve environmental resource and disaster management, and could contribute to scientific knowledge. Apart from the absence of the sort of detailed geological and climatic data that satellites could provide, African nations are also hamstrung by some of the world’s most expensive yet rudimentary telecommunication infrastructure. At present, the entire continent has less bandwidth than Norway; almost all of which comes from 20-odd communication satellites, positioned over Africa, that are owned by non-African companies. “Space technologies…provide commercial opportunities and strategic advantages for a tiny minority of countries controlling them,” claims an Afrispace working paper. Space technologies can be divided into the rocket science needed to put a satellite in space, and the earth station know-how necessary to make full use of the satellite once it is in orbit. “No African nation has the ability to launch a satellite even though Africa has a massive advantage having land on the equator, meaning lower costs for getting into orbit,” said Brad Inggs, CEO of Orbital Horizon, a South African company investing in commercial space flight and space advocacy. Launching from equatorial sites, Mr. Inggs said, could result in fuel savings of up to 25 per cent when compared to launch-pads further north. At present, countries like Ghana, South Africa, and Nigeria are investing in ground stations rather than rockets. While Ghana has set up the Ghana Space and Technology Centre that hopes to become a regional focal point for remote sensing, meteorological and communication technologies, Nigeria launched three satellites last year. The NigComSat-1R communication satellite was built with Chinese support, while a British company built the NigeriaSat-2 and NigeriaSat-X imaging satellites. All three were launched from foreign launch pads. Rather than each country investing in its own programmes, Michael Afful, spokesperson for Ghana’s Space Generation Advisory Council, believes that a pan-African approach “will allow for the sharing of risks and costs and ensure the availability of skilled and sufficient human resources. It will also ensure a critical size of geographical area and population required … for some space applications.” Yet, the greatest obstacles to Afrispace could be political and institutional rather than technological, says Chandrashekar Srinivasan who worked at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) at a time when many questioned the premise of a developing country like India investing in space research. “A number of detailed cost benefit studies have indicated that the benefits of the [Indian space] programme far outweigh the costs,” said Prof. Chandrashekar, now a Professor of Corporate Strategy and Policy at the Indian Institute of Management in Bangalore. “Africa as a whole is a viable entity for a space programme, [but] it is difficult to get a group of countries at different stages of development and with different capabilities and internal needs to work together.” While a lot of the technology can now be bought off the shelf rather than built from scratch, Prof. Chandrashekar believes the interface between technology and good governance is the most critical infrastructure. “This aspect is pretty bad even in India today,” he said. If it is to succeed, Afrispace must build institutions to leverage scientific infrastructure into development gains, or metaphorically risk becoming a mausoleum like Icarus 13.

From The Hindu

11-17 June | Hall 1.0 - Booth S13

 Homem Novo
Art|43|Basel - Art Statements

click here for the online catalogue

Galleria Fonti, Naples
www.galleriafonti.it

3 December, Het Utrechts Archief, Hamburgerstraat 28, Utrecht, 2 pm.

The final installment of the film-based program is devoted to an afternoon of screenings curated by Kiluanji Kia Henda (artist, Luanda), whose work is on view in the concurrent exhibition at BAK, Spacecraft Icarus 13. Narratives of Progress from Elsewhere.

The session entitled, Revisions of African Representation, explores the historical circumstances and tensions of newly independent African and Middle Eastern nations in the 1970s at the end of the colonial era. During the screening, interviews with then high-level politicians are shown that make clear the way in which military and economic support was provided to clashing factions in the “Third World,” such as Egypt, Israel, and Angola, by other countries including the two superpowers: the Soviet Union and the United States. In uncovering the Cold War conflict that underlay the foreign-backed military support in the “Third World,” the footage also reveals that the two nations, in their race for expansion in the African continent and to strengthen their respective ideologies, underpinned the ensuing decades of instability and violent civil wars in these young African nations. 

A key film in the screening is Andreas Johnsen’s documentary A Kind of Paradise, 2011, which seeks to establish new articulations of cultural and national identities through a collective portrait of a new generation of artists, poets, and musicians working in Africa, a group of individuals who are shaped by, and emerge from, the deep social and political changes in the continent. Its position among the afternoon’s films juxtaposes the familiar images of natural disasters, poverty, and corruption that dominate our association with Africa, with the new and considered images from African cultural practitioners who grapple with their own knowledge of conflict in the continent.

Film screening, A Kind of Paradise, Andreas Johnsen, 2011, 60 mins, followed by a presentation by Kiluanji Kia Henda (artist, Luanda)

Kiluanji Kia Henda (born 1979) is a photographer and visual artist who also works in theater. His photographs grapple with colonial history and perceptions of modernism in Angola. Recent exhibitions include: Experimental Station: Research and Artistic Phenomena, Centro de Arte Dos de Mayo (CA2M), Madrid, 2011; Other Possible Worlds, NGBK, Berlin, 2011; and 2nd Luanda Triennale, Luanda, 2010. Henda lives and works in Luanda.

For further information, please visit: www.bak-utrecht.nl.

Os artistas Kiluanji Kia Henda e Mário Macilau falam sobre seu trabalho no BESphoto 2011. A exposição das fotos abre a partir do dia 20 de Agosto na Pinacoteca de São Paulo.

FLUXUS African contemporary art EXPO Art 2011

julho aos sabados e domingos  

Igreja SS. Carlo e Ágata

via San Carlo, 1 – Reggio Emília (Itália) 

Primeira exposição [1ª de 6]: KILUANJI KIA HENDA (Angola) ‘Fluxus’

NASTIO MOSQUITO (Angola) & VIC PEREIRO (Espanha)

‘Find’ ‘Abuse to simplify’ ‘Customize objective mine’ ‘You what see’

TRACY ROSE (África do Sul) ‘The wailers’

O programa da exposição reúne 12 autores internacionais, como Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola), Nastio Mosquito (Angola) & Vic Pereiro (Espanha), Tracy Rose (África do Sul), Zoulikha Bouabdellah (Argélia), Mounir Fatmi (Marrocos), Ihosvanny (Angola), Yonamine (Angola), Ingridmwangiroberthutter (Quênia), Loulou Cherinet (Etiópia), Ruth Sacks (África do Sul), para além do grande William Kentridge (África do Sul), que descreve a vida na África do Sul nos anos do apartheid.

A primeira iniciativa terá como protagonistas Kiluanji Kia Henda com o video “Fluxus”, Nástio Mosquito & Vic Pereiro com “Find”, “Abuse to simplify”, “Customize objective mine”, “You what see” e Tracy Rose com “The wailers”, todos dedicados a temáticas sociais da atualidade.

A Fundação Sindika Dokolo, através da qual foi possível realizar o programa da exposição, é uma das poucas fundações e coleções de arte contemporânea com sede em África, na capital angolana. Sustentada e presidida por Sindika Dokolo e dirigida por Fernando Alvim, a fundação ocupa-se da conservação, promoção e valorização das mais de 3000 obras da coleção homónima, organiza a Trienal de Luanda e participa em exposições internacionais como a Bienal de Veneza, SD Observatorio.

tradução de Alice Girotto

“Last First Dacade” curadoria: Alexandre Melo e Ivo André Braz. Ellipse Foundation, inaugura 30 Abril.

Passados cerca de 100 anos sobre as vanguardas históricas a exposição The Last First Decade propõe-se revisitá-las a partir de obras do primeiro decénio do século XXI. Não se procura, contudo, traçar uma genealogia que conduza das vanguardas à arte dos nossos dias ou de supor uma influência directa e imediata. Ao contrário da abordagem historiográfica, que dificilmente escapa à rigidez discursiva, o modelo expositivo assenta na polissemia das obras. De certa forma trata-se de uma dupla exposição: algo que se apresenta mas não se vê (as vanguardas cujos conceitos estruturam a mostra) e algo que se vê mas cuja estrutura se elide (os trabalhos produzidos na última década). Assente neste paradoxo – entre um passado que se propunha como construção do futuro e um presente que se pensa a si mesmo como actualidade – The Last First Decade replica o modo como a ideia de vanguarda percorre a arte contemporânea através de retornos e distanciamentos, antecipações e retrospecções. 

Incluí trabalhos de Kiluanji Kia Henda, Angel Ihosvanny e Yonamine (entre outros).

www.ellipsefoundation.com

Famoso, de um lado, pelos petrodólares, e de outro, pela desigualdade social, o país exporta também a cultura, que conta seu passado e projeta o que pode vir a ser o seu futuro.

Por Eliza Capai

Fotos de construções e uma maquete dentro de um semiglobo de acrílico anunciam: a África vai enviar um foguete para o espaço, o Icarus 13. Na capital angolana, Luanda, já vemos a nave instalada. “A primeira ideia foi uma viagem lunar, mas a lua já havia sido visitada. Então lembrei de uma história sobre isto de Samora Machel, primeiro presidente de Moçambique”, explica o angolano idealizador da “façanha espacial”, Kiluanji Kia Henda. Enquanto americanos e russos disputavam o espaço na Guerra Fria, Samora decidiu não ficar de fora da disputa e anunciou que os africanos também deveriam ir para o espaço: mas eles iriam para o sol. “As pessoas ficaram muito animadas com esta idéia”, continua Kiluanji, “mas um dos camaradas questionou Samora: `mas o sol é muito quente` e então Samora respondeu: `não se preocupe, camarada, eu já pensei nisto: nós vamos para o sol, mas vamos à noite”, diverte-se.

Cinco candidatos seleccionados de quatro países lusófonos representados: Portugal, Brasil, Angola e Moçambique. Assim determinou o júri do Prémio BESPhoto 2011, na primeira edição aberta aos artistas de expressão portuguesa no Brasil e Países Africanos de Língua Oficial Portuguesa (PALOP) desde que o prémio foi lançado em 2004.

Esta sétima edição adquire estatuto internacional também pela itinerância. Os cinco escolhidos vão apresentar, pela primeira vez, o seu trabalho na Pinacoteca de São Paulo (em Julho e Agosto de 2011) depois da habitual exposição no Museu Colecção Berardo em Lisboa, entre 14 de Março e 13 de Junho. Depois das mostras, será anunciado o vencedor. O prémio terá um valor pecuniário (40 mil euros) superior ao habitual. 
Ao angolano Kiluanje Kia Henda (Luanda, 1979), escolhido pelo “trabalho desenvolvido em torno da sua experiência da história recente de Angola”, juntam-se os portugueses Carlos Lobo (Guimarães, 1974) de quem o júri realça “a precisão da sua abordagem à fotografia da paisagem urbana” e Manuela Marques, notada pela “sua poética da intimidade expressa em diversos projectos”. 
Mas integram também o grupo final o moçambicano Mário Macilau (Maputo, 1984), do qual o júri refere “a qualidade da sua representação do panorama social e cultural de Moçambique” e o brasileiro Mauro Restiffe (São José do Rio Pardo, 1970), escolhido pelo “uso que faz da tradição da história da fotografia na tomada de paisagens contemporâneas”. 
O júri é composto pelo curador, crítico de arte e professor Delfim Sardo, por Portugal, Bisi Silva, a curadora e fundadora-directora do Centro de Arte Contemporânea de Lagos, na Nigéria, por África, e pelo Brasil o curador e crítico de arte Ivo Mesquita. A selecção dos candidatos foi feita a partir de exposições e edições realizadas em suporte fotográfico no último ano. 

Ana Dias Cordeiro, Público

Amanhã (sábado - 08/09) é o último dia para conferir as exposições em cartaz na SOSO arte contemporânea africana e no Espaço Cultural SOSO+: Kiluanji Kia Henda e Segunda Ponte.
Kiluanji busca levar os espectadores a refletir sobre a contemporaneidade e seu reflexo nas sociedades, como as alterações dos hábitos e costumes que ocorrem a todo instante, utopias que pretendem antecipar um futuro possível, ou ainda a implantação de novos elementos da globalização na paisagem. Num estilo experimental, com ironia apurada, conjuga a linguagem da foto-reportagem com a da fotografia conceitual.

A Segunda Ponte é parte de um projeto maior, o 3PONTES, que integra a II Trienal de Luanda e, a convite da Fundação Sindika Dokolo, tem curadoria de Daniel Rangel, diretor de Museus do Instituto do Patrimônio Artístico e Culturaigl da Bahia. Ao todo, o projeto levará o trabalho de 20 artistas contemporâneos baianos a Luanda, fortalecendo um processo de trocas e intercâmbio cultural entre Angola e Bahia. Integram a Segunda Ponte os artistas: com Adriana Araújo, Caetano Dias, Glauber Rocha, Ieda Oliveira, Maxim Malhado, Marepe, Sarah Hallelujah e Virgínia de Medeiros.

Espaço SOSO+ (av. São João, 284, São Paulo-SP; de terça a sexta, das 11h às 19h, e aos sábados, das 11h às 17h)

Individual do artista Kiluanji Kia Henda, selecionado para a 29ª Bienal de SP, é aberta junto com coletiva de artistas contemporâneos da Bahia, como Marepe e Caetano Dias. Curadoria: Daniel Rangel

Venice, 24 July 2010 – The Art Enclosures project now reaches its third exhibition. 

The end of residency exhibition of the third group of Art Enclosures artists will open Saturday, July 24th at 18:00.  Jabulani Maseko (South Africa) and Kiluanji Kia Henda (Angola) are the two artists hosted in the Venetian studios of Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa between January and April 2010 under the Art Enclosures residency project. The exhibition, open from July 25 to August 8 at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa Gallery in Piazza San Marco, is the final stage of the artists’ Venetian journey, and will display the works and projects created during the residency period. During the three months’ residency, they were involved in an intense program of events and exchanges with the urban fabric, the local arts community, and leading figures from the international art scene.  

Galleria di Piazza San Marco Dates: 25 July - 8 August 2010. Opening hours: 11.00 - 17.00 (closed on Monday) 

For further information: Fondazione di Venezia  (a.stradella@fondazionedivenezia.org)