‘The art itself is ever so important. You have to understand, we are not going to exhibit just any art because it is made by a female artist, or an African artist for that matter. It’s all about the art itself. I especially value art that is, in one way or the other, an expression of a particular critical stance, may it be against sexism or racism, or art that addresses the relationship between art and economy. ‘
Machteld Leij interviews Mirjam Westen about non-western art.
“Yes, one could quite easily argue that Meschac Gaba uses money as a means to discuss colonialism. The banknotes and coins that he transforms are late witnesses of that era, the language in which they are coined still being French. But years after that determined opening statement in his own book (“I use money because I refuse to use the word colonialism.” ed.), he still insisted: “Colonialism is en vogue in Europe, not in Africa”. And: “It is dangerous to write too much about it. In Africa we think about development. Let’s imagine a world without colonialism.” 4
An intriguing quote out of the essay of Daphne Pappers on the work Meschac Gaba, an artist from Benin, living and working in Rotterdam and Benin.
“I found myself with 15 years of Western painting and art history studies under my belt, but suddenly realized that my own autobiography was more important to me than the 400 years of Western painting history that I had learned. I urgently wanted to figure out a way to abandon that conceptual sphere and to find something concrete that mattered to me.”
Alexandra Giniger interviews Jacolby Satterwhite.
“In my early teens, my mother didn’t allow me to wear makeup. Her way of negotiating that was to allow me to wear nail polish. The nail polish was more than an accessory, it was a creative outlet and it became an expression of my identity. In 2002 when I realized that I was still in possession of a bottle of nail polish that I had since I was 15 years old, I started to think about the ways in which women use cosmetics as a means of personal codification. I originally made paintings in which I used and arranged the nail polish colors into a map legend of sorts and called it ‘The Sensation Code’. The code would imply further possible narrative directions in the work. I was plaing with language, with the viewer’s expectation for familiar canons – Awai spreads her fingers wide open looking at her transparent flesh/pinky colored polished nails – and sometimes a nail polish name would start off an idea for a work or, when seeing a name on a bottle, one of the ideas that I am working on would come to mind and it would become part of it.”
Sasha Dees in conversation with Trini-American Nicole Awai.
American artist Nick Cave shows his ‘Sound Suits’ in the ICA in Boston. Is his exhibition proving that fashion is entering the art world more and more or is it showing the work of an artist who wants to surprise his audience by crossing the borders between art, fashion and kitsch?