With that the fashion festival was caught in the same struggle; on the one hand organizing an event that made people from all over the world come to Niger and thus get to know this ‘forgotten’ country, but on the other not adhering to the strict Islamic rules imposed by insurgents.
An essay without words. A review without text.
Renzo de Pablo photographed ‘ALL YOU CAN ART’, a large exhibition in De Kunsthal in Rotterdam to celebrate the 10th anniversary of Instituto Buena Bista (IBB), the pre-academy for young, talented, potential artists on Curacao, founded by the artists David Bade and Tirzo Martha.
The proliferation of many new spaces for art’s distribution particularly those of art-centres, provides liberation from commercial motives which can extend aesthetic freedom offered to artists and their practice. The networks that these multiple spaces create, and the environment of continuous questioning of ‘what is the purpose of art’ and ‘what can art achieve’ has been constructive for artists to continuously push boundaries. Additionally these new spaces create a platform for wider audiences to encounter art.
Beyond capturing the ultra stylish hipness of his post-colonial cohorts, Sidibé joyfully affirms the lives, identities and aspirations of a generation reaching for freedom and asserting their modernity into the world. Beyond that, his photographic images have become part of a visual lexicon that resonates and extends to communities worldwide.
After all colonization was essentially based on the art of seeing – of seeing the other through the perspective or gaze of the western world. Or fixing the observed other in a frame or lens like photographer or a hunter tracing a wild thing through the pistol’s lens.