Milking the dream
The 2022 Venice Biennale shows that despite the lack of investment from African nations or the occasional hijacking by mercenary curators, African artists are finding ways to be seen.
Art
Colonial Vice at the Venice Biennale
At the world’s most prestigious art exhibition, all is not well when it comes to relative newcomers from the African continent.
Art and the struggle for Ambazonia
Artist Adjani Okpu-Egbe, interrogates sovereignty and solidarity in southwest Cameroon, for what is known as Ambazonia, and beyond.
The art of football
Why should people be invested in a football game in a bubble called the art world? “Exhibition Match,” a multifaceted installation, explores responses to this question.
Against a willing amnesia
Two books, by art historian Bénédicte Savoy and journalist Barnaby Phillips respectively, detail how we got to this point in the restitution of African heritage.
Story maps of no location
Julie Mehretu, an Ethiopian-American painter, defies expectations that artists of color should produce representational work.
International thief thief
There can no longer be false justifications for holding Benin Bronzes, and other pilfered materials, in museums outside of Africa.
Exile is more than a geographical concept
Episode #39 of AIAC Talk is about exile: a new film on a Libyan dissident and a new exhibition on the black experience. Watch it live Tuesday on YouTube.
Is the future of African auteur cinema streaming?
Imagine if African films could enjoy shooting and editing on the continent, uninhibited by national and international politics.
Upsetting color and its representations
What is one particular place when represented photographically?
The weaponization of memory in Burundi
Prince Louis Rwagasore, also known as “Burundi’s Lumumba," has been reduced to a political tool by the country's elite, but artists are doing his legacy justice.
Painting personal histories
The painter Cassi Namoda situates herself squarely in the artistic history of Mozambique, especially its rich tradition of anticolonial photography, as she turns outwards to the world.
What comes after art repatriation
We all want to see Africa's heritage repatriated to the continent. But what happens after it returns?
How to curate a pandemic
Three prominent curators on how they are (re-)situating their respective curatorial practices in relation to the political moment.
Lumumba’s iconography in the arts
On anniversary of the birthday of Patrice Lumumba, the first prime minister of an independent Congo, we ask, "What iconography arose around him, and why is that iconography so diverse?"
Artists help us leap into the unknown
When the usual rules no longer hold, like in a pandemic, we might find inspiration in the collectivities and working principles of artists.
Art and the politicization of African bodies
The painter Thenjiwe Niki Nkosi speaks to Drew Thompson about the evolution of her practice and how she locates herself in contemporary African art.
Invitation diplomacy
Onejoon Che's film about North Korea’s relationship to African countries suggests a unique transcontinental relationship that resists easy classification.
Painting Kenya’s power dynamics
The painter talks about how the distance between Nairobi and London allows him to take on topics at the heart of Kenya’s body politic.