Interactive Talks | Now Look Here. The African Art of Appearance

On the 25th of January eighteen contemporary artists from across the African continent will be in Amsterdam for the opening of the exhibition NOW LOOK HERE - The African Art of Appearance. They are artists who upend perceptions of the continent through digital media, photography, performance, and fashion design. They are image makers who present a new visual language and identity in representation and presence by exploring irony, beauty, and style. Their work stands out for its attention to outward appearances: everything is colourful, radiant, smooth and aesthetic. On closer inspection the seductive surface proves to be a lure that draws visitors into a deeper story, in which perspectives are reversed.

A selection of these artists will join us for an afternoon of interactive artist talks on 25th January. They will share their drives, motivations and inspiration with the audience while also exchanging ideas with artists from the African diaspora in The Netherlands. Through these conversations we hope to engage artists and art curators, critics, students and educators, as well as a wider audience.

The talks are moderated and curated by Ama van Dantzig. She is a social entrepreneur who co-founded the social innovation agency Dr. Monk. She divides her time between Accra and Amsterdam searching for solutions to the global challenges of our time.

The talks will be held in the pop-up exhibition space in Amsterdam North, Asterweg 17, from 14.00 – 17:00 hrs. The talks give you the exclusive chance to meet the artists and get to know their work intimately.

Tickets

Due to the limited seating, we recommend you getting your ticket in advance.

Participating speakers:

Omar Victor Diop (Senegal)

Multimedia artist Omar Victor Diop (1980, Senegal) developed an interest in photography and design at an early age, essentially as a means to capture the diversity of modern African societies and lifestyles. The success of his first conceptual project ‘Fashion 2112, le Futur du Beau,’ featured at the biennial photography exhibition Rencontres de Bamako in 2011, encouraged him to dedicate his career to photography. Working as a visual artist as well as a fashion and advertising photographer, Diop enjoys mixing his photography with other art forms such as costume design, styling and creative writing.

Sunny Dolat (Kenya)

Independent fashion curator and creative director Sunny Dolat (1988, Kenya) co-founded The Nest Collective in 2012, a multidisciplinary Kenyan squad working with film, fashion, visual arts and music. The Nest Collective started out as a gathering place for young and emerging creators in Nairobi who were interested in the intersections between poetry, feminism and queer theory, design and technology. In 2017, Sunny Dolat was creative director of the book ‘Not African Enough’, that asserts the right of African designers and artists to step out of the narrow confines of what the world considers to be African. During the N ‘GOLA biennial, Dolat and the Nest Collective staged a fashion performance, together with 55 fashion designers, one from every country of the African continent and one from the diaspora.

Samuel Fosso (Cameroon)

Photographer Samuel Fosso (1962, Cameroon, lives and works in Paris, France, Central African Republic, and Nigeria) has worked for most of his career in the Central African Republic. Born in Kumba, Cameroon, as the son of Nigerian parents, Fosso grew up in Afikpo, his ancestral home, until 1972, when he was forced to flee to Bangui (CAR) in the wake of the Nigerian Civil War. His work consists of self-portraits adopting a series of personas, often commenting on the history of Africa. In 1994, Fosso became known abroad when he won the first edition of African Photography Encounters in Bamako, Mali, the most important photography festival in Africa. He won the Prince Claus Award from The Netherlands in 2001. His work is represented in important museums such as Centre Pompidou (Paris), MoMA (New York), and Tate (London), and in prestigious private and corporate collections.

Raquel van Haver (Colombia/ The Netherlands)

Raquel van Haver (1989, Colombia, lives and works in the Netherlands) refers to her work as ‘loud’ paintings that sympathetically portray people on the fringes of society. Her works are often monumental in scale, at times dark and ominous, colourful and energetic, negotiating boundaries between alienation and recognition. Van Haver explores identity, meditation, presentation, spirituality, urbanism and the diaspora, while drawing inspiration from African, Western, Caribbean and Latin American cultures within her community in South-East Amsterdam. She also spends long periods abroad gathering source material in both West Africa and South America. Her work has been exhibited in a solo exhibition at the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, at the Dordrechts Museum, Netherlands, LagosPhoto festival, Nigeria, and BOZAR Brussels, Belgium. She recently won the prestigious Dutch Royal Prize for Painting and the Amsterdam Art Award.

Emo de Medeiros (Benin/France)

Multidisciplinary artist Emo de Medeiros (1979, Benin) lives and works in Cotonou, Benin, and Paris, France. Emo de Medeiros works with a wide range of media, including sculpture, video, photography, performance, electronic music, drawing, interactive devices, performative installations, painting and connected objects. His work hinges on a single concept he calls contexture, a fusion of the digital and the material, of the tangible and the intangible, exploring hybridizations, interconnections and circulations of forms, technologies, traditions, myths and merchandises. It also rests on the new perspectives and conversations happening in a novel space: the current context of the post-colonial, globalized and digitalized world of the early 21st century. The focus of his research encompasses transcultural spaces and the questioning of traditional notions of origin, locus or identity and their mutations through non-linear narratives.

Sethembile Msezane (South Africa)

Multidisciplinary artist Sethembile Msezane (1991, South Africa) lives and works in Cape Town. Using an interdisciplinary practice encompassing performance, photography, film, sculpture and drawing, Msezane creates commanding works heavy with spiritual and political symbolism. The artist explores issues around spirituality, commemoration and African knowledge systems. She processes her dreams as a medium and poses questions about the remembrance of ancestry. Part of her work has examined the processes of mythmaking which are used to construct history, calling attention to the absence of the black female body in both the narratives and physical spaces of historical commemoration.

Buhlebezwe Siwani (South Africa)

Buhlebezwe Siwani (1987, South Africa, lives and works between Cape Town and Amsterdam) works in performance, photography, sculpture and installation. Some performances she documents with photographic stills and videos, which act as a stand-in for her body when she is physically absent from the space. Thematically Siwani’s work interrogates the patriarchal framing of the black female body and black female experience within the South African context. As an initiated sangoma, traditional healer, Siwani has also used her artistic practice to delve into religious subjects and the often-perplexing relationship between Christianity and African spirituality. Siwani completed her BAFA (Hons) at the Wits School of Arts in Johannesburg in 2011, and her MFA at the Michaelis School of Fine Arts in 2015. Notable international exhibitions include Curitiba Biennale 2019, Bamako Biennale 2019, Documenta14, Art/Afrique, Le Nouvel Atelier, Fondation Louis Vuitton.

Tabi Bonney (Togo/USA)

Togo-born, Washington, D.C.-raised musician, director and photographer Tabi Bonney (1977, Togo, based in U.S.A.), is the son of Itadi Bonney, an afro-funk musician popular during the 1970s in Togo and West Africa. Bonney achieved recognition in the Washington metro area with his radio singles ‘The Pocket’ and ‘Doin It’ which featured Raheem DeVaughn. He has directed and produced commercials and music videos for several brands and artists, including friend and fellow D.C. associate Wale. Now Los Angeles-based, Bonney’s visual content has won awards at Toronto Film Festival and has aided campaigns for Adidas, DC Tourism, Alaffia, Tidal and more.