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Arena for Contemporary African, African-American and Caribbean Art

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Young, Gifted and Black

Omar Victor Diop Omar Ibn Said 2015

And although ‘Young, Gifted and Black’ remains undoubtedly progressive and beautiful even, it seems apt to recall that white supremacy doesn’t retreat from violence by uncovering its ignorance or even jumpstarting its conscience by colorful cultural promptings. Maybe, this time, we need to stop seeking refuge in an anti-black world and sing about the revolution that seeks to end it, as Nina did. Perhaps that is where it really is at.

Athi Mongezeleli Joja on the exhibition the American artist Hank Willis Thomas curated in Johannesburg.
Omar Victor Diop, Omar Ibn Said, 2015.

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Ebony G. Patterson

EPCover

“There is a challenge being made about seeing and looking. The seeing is what happens on social media, but the looking is what I’m asking you to do. The looking requires thought, it requires engagement, it requires awareness, it requires inquiry, and it requires presence.”

Sasha Dees quotes Ebony G. Patterson
II Rosez (detail), 2014.

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Global Imaginations

GIPascaleMarthineTayouPlasticBags2001-2015

From June 27 until October 4 2015 Museum De Lakenhal in Leiden, The Netherlands, presented ‘Global Imaginations’.

Leading artists from all continents presented their vision of the globalising world.

Leon Wainwright looks back on this important exhibition.
Pascale Marthine Tayou, Plastic Bags, 2001-2015.

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Decolonization as Art Practice

africanahRhodes1PhotoSABC

“We can expand art to the extent that when we talk about art, we are speaking of a conscious, creative approach that is in response to images, and through response, creates its own images. Art thinking, art behaving, art conversing, art writing- these are activisms of art production that make use of our innate creativity in decolonizing and re-imagining our space.”

Thuli Gamedze on how art can function within activist spaces.
Statue of Cecil John Rhodes, Copyright photo: SABC.

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1: 54 Contemporary African Art Fair London

1 54 Contemporary African Art Fair Somerset House London 2

“Art is a fluent matter so let’s go beyond localization of ideas, because thoughts are global. Besides, Africa is not blackness and blackness is also not Africa, but global. Let’s look at the different narratives that exist in history.”

A quote of Koyo Kouoh, curator of the Contemporary African Art Fair 1: 54 in London.

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