African Contemporary Art

“My art is not made of technique, but of feeling”, an interview with artist TOY BOY, in Luanda

Toy Boy has followed the various stages of the country’s post-independence and initiated his artistic practice after the civil war. His work is an expression of life in Luanda, intrinsically linked to the suffering and creativity one feels in the streets. In tune with the city’s artistic movements and circles (such as Elinga Teatro and Fuckin’ Globo), Toy Boy tells us his story with the sincerity and sensitivity that describe him. Dribbling the difficulties in his path and the need for survival, he appropriates a certain pop art, making collages or ready-mades, installations, and using recycled materials such as rust, but, above all, he gives body and voice to the singularities of urban life. In Luanda 2022.

Face to face

12.06.2024 | by Marta Lança

“Institutions change, in a slow and tedious way, but it happens”. Interviewing Philipp Schramm and Katharina Fink from Iwalewahaus

I think we always have the responsibility of looking into the ghosts of these colonial dreams and taking the ideas further. For example, we must rethink what are artwork features and what exactly defines them? Institutions change, in a slow and tedious way, but it happens. If we also think about the thesis and how it is configurated, how free can we be about the aesthetic part of it? Now we can offer “decolonize art studies” as a course. All the reconfigurations are a very long process to be achieved. A very important thing I would like to highlight is that where you are you must do your work and contribution. We should try to influence others with our work, inspiring them and trying to change what we know is wrong.

Face to face

18.03.2022 | by Arimilde Soares

Market, Visibility and Sustainability for Contemporary African Art: a conversation with Touria El Glaoui, director of 1:54.

Our original strategy was always to bring African artists to the international stage, which I think is what is missing, and maybe one day we would be very happy to go but I think there are many other places where we can go, which we are trying to do already, for example, workshops for galleries, for artists. I think there’s much more on the educational side of things that we can bring with our knowledge to the continent than having a commercial initiative about sales.

Face to face

08.05.2016 | by Icaro Ferraz Vidal Junior

African Contemporary Art: Negotiating the Terms of Recognition - Interview of Vivian Paulissen with Achille Mbembe

I hate the idea that African life is simple bare life - the life of an empty stomach and a naked body waiting to be fed, clothed, healed or housed. It is a conception that is embedded in "development" ideology and practice. It radically goes against people's own daily experience with the immaterial world of the spirit, especially as it manifests itself under conditions of extreme precariousness and radical uncertainty. This kind of metaphysical and ontological violence has long been a fundamental aspect of the fiction of development the West seeks to impose on those it has colonized. We must oppose it and resist such surreptitious forms of dehumanization.