“Collectively while the show’s topography appears as malleable as the super continent it originally references. Through the looking glass ‘Pangaea: New Art from Africa and Latin American’ is less about continents and more handpicked countries, with works by artists that are visually inventive. Offering alternative narratives to the ideologies and interests we already have carved into our psyche.”
Rajesh Punj about ‘Pangaea’ in the Saatchi Gallery in London.
“Yet perhaps even more impactful than the biennale’s official exhibitions are the more than 250 unofficial OFF events, exhibitions and happenings that their occasion engenders, providing a more accurate look into the city’s ever-growing contemporary art scene. Independently organized and funded, the OFF led local art enthusiasts and visitors like me on a scavenger hunt across the city, aided by blue banners posted along the streets and a packet of no less than six maps detailing the locations of programs within Dakar and across other parts of Senegal, including Thiès, Lac Rose, Saint Louis and elsewhere.”
Perrin Lathrop is impressed by the OFF- program of Dak’Art.
Surinam is a remarkable country. Although it is located at the north east coast of Latin America – Brazil is the neighboring country – it is seldom considered as part of that continent. Because it is close to the Caribbean islands you would assume that it is seen as part of the Caribbean. It’s not.
This remarkable, isolated position has a big influence on art in Surinam. On the kind of art, on the way it develops or does not develop, on art practice, on the identity of it, on the quality of it, on the way Surinamese art is positioned in the international art world and the art market.
Rob Perrée points out that Suriname is lost in the Caribbean.
“His work is of significance to the history of art not simply within the context of the artist’s particular geographical and historical location. His work (and its history) opens up questions about experimental art practices; and the dialogues that take place between generations of artists (working across geography and historical time).”
Yvette Greslé on Issa Samb.
“The resonance of traumatic historical events in my personal and cultural memory is at the very core of my work. I see the work as the result of my investigation of the tension that exists in spaces that are at once sites of trauma and sites of healing. I am intrigued by concept of the “re-memory” (renewed or remembered memory), memory as a trigger and a means for exploring the dismembering of the histories, cultures, traditions, families, and personal memories of my community/self. My work seeks to articulate an historical and cultural injury in a way that tries to avoid and subvert images of suffering and victim-hood that have been used as visual hot buttons in the past. I am interested in seducing the eye by using the scenic aspects of landscape and the potential for the betrayal that can come from closer examination of these seemingly “innocent” and “untouched” places/bodies.” – Deborah Jack.