AFRICAN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY AT AUCTIONS

CONFIDENCE IN THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET REACHES AN ALL-TIME HIGH

CAPE TOWN ART FAIR’S RISING PROFILE ART 14 LONDON, SETTING NEW HEIGHTS

HASSAN HAJJAJ DAVID GOLDBLATT SIMON OTTENBERG JOACHIM MELCHERS UGOCHUKWU - SMOOTH C. NZEWI PAUL SIKA JOHN FLEETWOOD ARTUR WALTHER

THE PHOTOGRAPHY ISSUE II

OMENKA MAGAZINE 2 3 4 6 7 0 8 8 1 0 0 0 0 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 Ben (Benedict Chukwukadibia) Contact Enwonwu, M.B.E +44 (0) 20 7468 8355 (Nigerian, 1917 - 1994) [email protected] ‘Snake Dance’ carved wood 141 x 20 x 20cm (55 1/2 x 7 7/8 x 7 7/8in) (including base) £50,000 - 80,000 US$83,000 - 133,000

Africa Now New Bond Street

bonhams.com/africanow 2014

Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg 22-24 August

To submit your application, please visit www.artlogic.co.za/fairs The deadline for applications is the 28th of February 2014. Decoration or Asset?

The Art Exchange’s Products and Services include... Advisory Services Acquisition Financing Custodian & Insurance Services

www.theartexchangelimited.com [email protected] +234 706 590 4800 VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3

118 99 FEATURES Spot Lighting The Sanlam Food Wine Design Fair 2013 100 John Fleetwood: The Market Photo Workshop 106 Peer Conversation 114 Jude Anogwih and Adejoke Tugbiyele Art 14 London, Setting New Heights 118 Cape Town Art Fair’s Rising Profile 124

5 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 COLUMNS 81 ArtTactic 82 Confidence in the International Photography Market Reaches an All-time High Ask the Curator 84 Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi Letter to the Editor 87

100

DEPARTMENTS

ANTENNAE 18 NEWS, EVENTS Art14 London, The Capital’s 18 Global Art Fair Returns to Olympia Grand Hall Gabrielle Alberts, This is Where 18 I leave You 28 Tian Wei, October Gallery 19 Cameron Platter, I Saw This 19 Zanele Muholi, Stevenson Gallery 20 Wim Botha, Stevenson Gallery 20 Haim Steinbach, Once Again the 21 World is Flat

6 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS 23 INTERVIEWS, PROFILES Hassan Hajjaj 24 David Goldblatt 28 Paul Sika: My Work is a Work of Love 40

MARKET FILE 47 COLLECTOR, AUCTIONS, GALLERY Bomi Odufunade in Conversation with 48 Simon Ottenberg The Walther Collection 54 Highlights of Bonhams South African Sales in 60 2013 Auctions African Contemporary Photography at 62 Auctions Portrait of a Gallery: Joachim Melchers, 66 Gallery Owner and Publisher 40 70 LIFESTYLE Zegna: The Art of Clothing 70 Destination Lagos 74 Nectar of the Gods 79

REPORTS 91 REVIEWS Frieze, Frieze Masters, 1:54, Art Basel Miami, 92 FIAC and Outsider Artfair Choices, 11th Edition of Frieze Art Fair 96 93 London

7 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 2003 - 2013

The Foundation was established in 2003 in honour of celebrated Nigerian artist, Prof. Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu MBE, NNOM (1917-94).

Through exhibitions, education and public debate, our mission is to increase the global perception and appreciation of modern and contemporary African art LONDON’S Featuring over 180 modern and contemporary GLOBAL ART FAIR galleries from 40 countries

GALLERIES Art on 56th, Lebanon \\ the A·lift, Hong Kong \\ Advanced Graphics London, UK \\ Aki Gallery, Taiwan \\ Aktis Gallery, UK \\ Albemarle Gallery, UK \\ Alif Gallery, UAE \\ All Visual Arts, UK \\ Andipa Gallery, UK \\ Arario Gallery, South Korea / China \\ Art Sawa, UAE \\ ArtChowk, Pakistan \\ ArtCo Gallery, Germany \\ Arthouse – The Space, Nigeria \\ Artspace, UAE / UK \\ Athr Gallery, Saudi Arabia \\ Atlas Gallery, UK \\ Beaux Arts, UK \\ Beers Contemporary, UK \\ Jack Bell Gallery, UK \\ bo.lee, UK \\ CCA Galleries, UK \\ Circle Culture Gallery, Germany \\ Coates and Scarry, UK \\ Contemporary Indonesian Art, Indonesia \\ Crane Kalman Brighton, UK \\ Cynthia-Reeves, USA \\ Dam Gallery Berlin | Frankfurt, Germany \\ Dark Matter Studio, UK \\ Delhi Art Gallery, India \\ Dillon Gallery, USA \\ Galerie Robert Drees, Germany \\ Eleven, UK \\ The Empire Project, Turkey \\ EOA.Projects, UK \\ Faur Zsófi Gallery, Hungary \\ Fehily Contemporary, Australia \\ FeldbuschWiesner, 2003 - 2013 Germany \\ Galerie Les Filles du Calvaire, France \\ The Fine Art Society Contemporary, UK \\ Flowers Gallery, UK / USA \\ Fabien Fryns Fine Art, China \\ Jill George Gallery, UK \\ Michael Goedhuis, UK \\ Taymour Grahne Gallery, USA \\ Galerie Grand Siècle, Taiwan \\ Dominic Guerrini, UK \\ Galleria H., Taiwan \\ Habana, Cuba \\ Galerie Mark Hachem, USA / France / Lebanon \\ HackelBury Fine Arts, UK \\ Hakgojae Gallery, South Korea \\ Catherine Hammond Gallery, Ireland \\ Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, Switzerland / UK \\ Tristan Hoare Gallery, UK \\ Rebecca Hossack Art Gallery, UK / USA \\ HUA Gallery, UK \\ Jamm, UAE \\ galerie pascal janssens, Belgium \\ Jealous, UK \\ Ivo Kamm, Switzerland \\ Robin Katz Fine Art, UK \\ Kleinschmidt Fine Photographs, Germany \\ Gallery K.O.N.G., South Korea \\ Galerie Kornfeld, Germany \\ Pearl Lam Galleries, China / Hong Kong / Singapore \\ LAMB Arts, UK \\ Lazarides, UK \\ Leehwaik Gallery, South Korea \\ Liang Gallery, Taiwan \\ Lin & Lin Gallery, Taiwan \\ Long & Ryle, UK \\ Louise Alexander Gallery, Italy \\ Diana Lowenstein Gallery, USA \\ Galerie Maria Lund, France \\ Maddox Arts, UK \ \ maerzgalerie, Germany \\ James Makin Gallery, Australia \\ Kálmán Makláry Fine Arts, Hungary \\ Primo Marella Gallery, Italy / China \\ Laura Mars grp, Germany \\ John Martin Gallery, UK \\ mc2gallery, Italy \\ Gallery Meno Parkas, Lithuania \\ Meshkati Fine Art & Austin/Desmond Fine Art, UK \\ Millennium, UK \\ Galerie du Monde, Hong Kong \\ Mummery + Schnelle, UK \\ NK Gallery, Belgium \\ Anna Nova Art Gallery, Russia \\ Alexander Ochs Galleries Berlin | Beijing, Germany / China \ \ October Gallery, UK \ \ Omenka Gallery, Nigeria \ \ One East Asia, Singapore \ \ Other Criteria, UK \\ The Outsiders, UK \\ Paci Contemporary, Italy \\ Julian Page, UK \\ Frank Pages, Germany / Switzerland \\ Claudine Papillon Galerie, France \\ Paragon, UK \\ Galerie Paris-Beijing, France / Belgium / China \\ The Park Gallery, UK \\ Paupers Press, UK \\ Pertwee, Anderson and Gold, UK \\ ph-projects, Germany \\ Piano Nobile, UK \\ PIFO Gallery, China \\ Podbielski Contemporary, Germany \\ Praxis International Art, Argentina / USA \ \ Priveekollektie Contemporary Art | Design, The Netherlands \\ Purdy Hicks Gallery, UK \\ Quadro, Romania \\ Janet Rady Fine Art, UK \\ Riflemaker, UK \\ Petra Rinck Galerie, Germany \\ Ronchini Gallery, UK \\ Rooke and van Wyk, South Africa \\ Rossi & Rossi, UK / Hong Kong \\ Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Lebanon \\ Galerie RX, France \\ Galerie Vincenz Sala, France / Germany \ \ Richard Saltoun, UK \\ Karsten Schubert, UK \\ Mimmo Scognamiglio Artecontemporanea, Italy \\ Scream, UK \\ Alon Segev Gallery, Israel \\ Shine Artists London, UK \\ Shirin Art Gallery, Iran / USA \ \ Galerie Simpson, UK \\ Sims Reed Gallery, UK \\ Paul Stolper Gallery, UK \\ Sullivan+Strumpf, Australia \\ Gallery Sumukha, India \\ TAG Fine Arts, UK \\ Sundaram Tagore Gallery, USA / Singapore / Hong Kong \\ Tang Contemporary Art, China / Thailand / Hong Kong \\ Galerie Tanit, Germany / Lebanon \\ Tasneem Gallery, Spain \\ Ermanno Tedeschi Gallery, Israel / Italy \\ Tezukayama Gallery, Japan \\ Triumph Gallery, Russia \\ UDG / Bon Abattoir, UK \\ Vanguard Gallery, China \ \ Vigo, UK \ \ Galerie Olivier Waltman, France / USA \ \ X-ist, Turkey \ \ Zipper Galeria, Brazil \ \ Jerome Zodo Contemporary, Italy

The Gallery Apart, Italy \\ Bearspace, UK \\ C-Space, China \\ Galerie Dukan, France / Germany \\ Edel Assanti, UK \\ Gallery EM, South Korea \\ Fiumano Projects, UK \\ FOLD Gallery, UK \\ Hada Contemporary, UK \\ Hanmi Gallery | London • Seoul, UK / South Korea \\ Galeria El Museo, Colombia \\ Gallery Nosco, UK \\ Son Espace, Spain / Norway \\ Gallery SoSo, South The Foundation was established in 2003 in honour of celebrated Korea \\ Galerie Wolkonsky, Germany \\ Gallery Yang, China Nigerian artist, Prof. Benedict Chukwukadibia Enwonwu MBE, NNOM (1917-94). 401contemporary, Germany \\ 43 Inverness Street, UK \\ Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Spain \\ Anonymous Gallery, USA / Mexico \\ Black Ship, USA \\ Choi & Lager, Germany \\ Art Factum Gallery, Lebanon \\ Fitzroy Knox, USA \\ Patricia Fleming Projects, UK Through exhibitions, education and public debate, our mission is to increase \\ FQ Projects, China \\ Christophe Guye Galerie, Switzerland \\ Jhaveri Contemporary, India \\ Standing Pine, Japan \\ Star the global perception and appreciation of modern and contemporary African art Gallery & 劳动分工, China / UK \\ T.H.E.O. Art Projects, Singapore \\ Tiwani Contemporary, UK

NOT-FOR-PROFIT Daegu Art Museum, South Korea \\ Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre, Latvia \\ Delfina Foundation, UK \\ Dundee Contemporary Arts, UK \\ Ikon Gallery, UK \\ Iniva, UK \\ Modern Art Oxford, UK \\ Parasol unit foundation for contemporary art, UK \\ Royal Academy of Arts, UK \\ Shanghai Jing’an International Sculpture Project, China \\ University of the Arts London, UK \\ Whitechapel Gallery, UK \\ Zabludowicz Collection, UK / Finland / USA

Subject to change

artfairslondon.com

OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2

CONTRIBUTORS

Bomi Odufunade Anders Petterson Nana Ocran

Bomi Odufunade is Anders Petterson is Nana Ocran is a the London and New a leading authority London-based writer York Editor for Omenka on the art market, and editor specialising magazine, She is also a with a particular focus in contemporary African writer and consultant at on the modern and culture. She was Editor-in- Dash & Rallo Art Advisory, contemporary emerging Chief for the Time Out a bespoke international consultancy specialising art markets. He is the founder and Managing Group’s series of guides to Lagos and Abuja, and mainly in contemporary art from Africa and its Director of ArtTactic Ltd, a London-based art has consulted on, and established publications diaspora. She advises on all aspects of establishing market research and advisory company set-up in on West African culture for the Danish Film and building art collections and providing art 2001. He previously worked at JP Morgan in the Institute, the Arts Council England and the consulting services for private art collectors and investment banking division, responsible for debt Institute of International Visual Arts. She was a corporations. Her writings on art and the art capital market and structured products for banks nominee for CNN’s African Journalist of the Year market have appeared in a variety of publications, and corporates. He worked as an independent (2011), and Curatorial Advisor for the Afrofuture including Arise, Huffington Post, Contemporary and research and evaluation consultant for Arts & programme at La Rinascente during Milan Design New African. She previously worked at Thames Business in London between 2002 and 2007, and Week 2013. Nana Ocran is a regular features & Hudson, Tate Modern and Haunch of Venison has been involved in a number of large research writer for Arik Airline’s in-flight magazine, gallery in London. She is based between London, and evaluation projects in the cultural sector. Wings, in which she writes about art, lifestyle, Lagos, and New York. Petterson is lecturing on the topic Art as an Asset innovation and cultural trends relating to Arik’s 33 Class for CASS Business School and Sotheby’s destinations. She has been a jury member for Film Institute in London. He is a Board Member of Africa London and the Festival del Cinema Africano, Professional Advisors to the International Art d’Asia e America Latina, Milan. She currently blogs Market (PAIAM), and a founding member of the about Lagos for Virgin Atlantic. Art Investment Council (AIC).

Inês Valle Heidi Erdmann

Inês Valle is a curator at Omenka Gallery and Heidi Erdmann was born and grew up in holds a Degree in Visual Arts from the Fine Art Swakopmund, Namibia. She graduated from University of Lisbon and a postgraduate certificate the University of Stellenbosch in 1987 with a BA in Curatorial Studies from the same institution in Degree, majoring in Psychology. Erdmann curated collaboration with the Caloustre Gulbenkian Foundation. a multi-media group exhibition in 1993, featuring the She is working on her thesis for the Master in Curatorial Studies, which work of 33 South African artists amongst them, Brett Murray, Barend de focuses on conflict territories in artistic practice. Valle started her career Wet, Kate Gottgens and Elizabeth Gunter. In 1994, she joined the South by collaborating and developing art projects with the shadow curator, African National Gallery in Cape Town as the assistant to the Director. Nuno Sacramento. She also curated Post-Human and Hot Fast, exhibitions Erdmann was appointed the curator of AREA Gallery in 1997. While of the work of Portuguese artist, Aldo Peixinho, the first exhibition under Erdmann’s management, AREA, a gallery dedicated to photography, program of the 0.1 Art Residency at Casa Dell Art, titled Good Morning in received a BASA nomination. In 1999, she was invited to the Centro Torba starts at 2:53am in Portugal, in Turkey. She has also collaborated with de la Imagen in Mexico to present a workshop on African and South several Portuguese art Institutions namely Centro Cultural de Belém and African photography. Erdmann opened the Photographers Gallery za in Carpe Diem Arte Pesquisa, and writes critical articles for the Portuguese 2001 to focus her energies on contemporary South African photography. contemporary art magazine, Arte Capital. Recently, she conducted an The gallery participated in Photo San Francisco 2005 and Photo LA 2006. internship as a curatorial assistant at Canberra Contemporary Art Space Her gallery also participated in Artseasons 2007. Heidi Erdmann and in Australia, through a scholarship sponsored by the Portuguese Ministry Jacob Lebeko are the co-curators of the exhibition, Construct: Beyond of Culture as part of its program, INOV-Art. Beyond the scope of this the Documentary Photograph, which has travelled to several museums internship, she also took the opportunity to research about some of the throughout South Africa, including Durban Art Gallery and Nelson conflicts that emerge in Australia including the contemporary indigenous art Mandela Metropolitan Art Museum in Port Elizabeth. Over the years, the practices and the relations between political power and art practice. Erdmann galleries have carved a niche for their particular ethos and style.

11 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 Art Dubai 2014 • Contemporary: 313 Art Project, Seoul • Agial Art Gallery, Beirut • Sabrina Amrani Gallery, Madrid • Art Factum Gallery, Beirut • L’Atelier 21, Casablanca • Athr Gallery, Jeddah • Ayyam Gallery, Dubai/ London/Beirut/Jeddah/Damascus • Baró Galeria, São Paulo • Bolsa de Arte, Porto Alegre • The Breeder, Athens/Monaco • Laura Bulian Gallery, Milan • Carbon 12, Dubai • Carroll / Fletcher, London • Chatterjee and Lal, Mumbai • Chemould Prescott Road, Mumbai • Galleria Continua, San Gimignano/Beijing/Le Moulin • Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris • D Gallerie, Jakarta • Experimenter, Kolkata • Gallery Isabelle van den Eynde, Dubai • Galerie Imane Farès, Paris • Selma Feriani, London/Tunis • Galleria Marie-Laure Fleisch, Rome • GAG Projects, Adelaide/Berlin • Galerist, Istanbul • Giacomo Guidi Arte Contemporanea, Rome • Gladstone Gallery, New York/Brussels • Marian Goodman Gallery, New York/Paris/London • Alexander Gray Associates, New York • Green Art Gallery, Dubai • Grey Noise, Dubai • Hales Gallery, London • Leila Heller Gallery, New York • Kashya Hildebrand Gallery, London/Zurich • Hussenot, Paris • In Situ / Fabienne Leclerc, Paris • Rose Issa Projects, London • Galerie Jaeger Bucher, Paris • Galerie Rodolphe Janssen, Brussels • Kalfayan Galleries, Athens/Thessaloniki • Galerie Krinzinger, Vienna • Lombard Freid Gallery, New York • Lumen Travo, Amsterdam • Elmarsa, Tunis/Dubai • Galerie Greta Meert, Brussels • Victoria Miro, London • Marisa Newman Projects, New York • Galleria Franco Noero, Turin • Gallery Wendi Norris, San Francisco • Galerie Nathalie Obadia, Paris/Brussels • Omenka Gallery, Lagos • Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo/Singapore • Paradise Row, London • Pechersky Gallery, Moscow • Pi Artworks, Istanbul/London • Pilar Corrias, London • Galerie Polaris, Paris • Tyler Rollins Fine Art, New York • Schleicher/Lange, Berlin • Sfeir-Semler Gallery, Hamburg/Beirut • Gallery Ske, Bangalore/New Delhi • Tashkeel, Dubai • Tasveer, Bangalore • Galerie Daniel Templon, Paris/Brussels • The Third Line, Dubai • Galerie Tanja Wagner, Berlin • Yavuz Fine Art, Singapore •M odern: Agial Art Gallery, Beirut • Aicon Gallery, New York/London • Albareh Art Gallery, Manama • Artchowk, Karachi • Elmarsa, Tunis/ Dubai • Karim Francis, Cairo • Grosvenor Gallery, London • Jhaveri Contemporary, Mumbai • Lawrie Shabibi, Dubai • Galerie Janine Rubeiz, Beirut • Shirin Gallery, Tehran/New York •M arker: ArtEast, Bishkek • Asia Art, Almaty • North Caucasus Branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Art (NCCA), Vladikavkaz • Popiashvili Gvaberidze Window Project, Tbilisi • Yarat Contemporary Art Space, Baku.ww w.artdubai.ae

12 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1 CONTRIBUTORS

Daniela Roth Jude Anogwih Romina Provenzi

Daniela Roth, D.phil. Jude Anogwih is a Romina Provenzi is the Munich Editor multimedia artist is a London-based for Omenka magazine. and curator living art journalist and a She was born 1970 in and working in Lagos, writer. She specializes Aalen and completed Nigeria. Anogwih has in contemporary art studies in Art History, participated in several and art market reporting. Sociology, Comparative Literature and law curatorial and artistic residencies. One of which Provenzi is a specialist of the Cuban art at the universities of Würzburg, Bonn and was an exchange initiated by Tate Modern in market and of the London art scene. München. Her doctoral thesis is on the collaboration with Gasworks and supported Her articles have appeared in several art work of artist Romuald Hazoumè from the by the World Collections Programme. His art magazines including Arts Hub, Artinvestor, Republic of Benin, West Africa. Roth is a interrogates the concept of field dynamics, Hart International, and Art Info and can specialist with extensive knowledge of the mobility and migration. They take the form of be found online at www.rominaprovenzi. art history of the African continent. She has experimental photo-painting/drawing, video, blogspot.co.uk travelled widely acquiring profound insights installation and map production. Anogwih was a into movements within contemporary Goethe-Institut Fellow at the dOCUMENTA (13), African art. Roth has carried out numerous Kassel, Germany. He is a founding member and research projects and published extensively Co-coordinator of Video Art Network, Lagos. on art, cultural developments and pop culture and globalization phenomena. Daniela Roth also contributes regularly to the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on cultural issues in Africa.

Belinda Otas Ijeoma Loren Uche-Okeke

Belinda Otas is a versatile journalist, writer, Ijeoma Loren Uche-Okeke, Omenka magazine’s cultural critic, and an independent blogger. She Johannesburg Editor. She worked for over 3 has a passionate interest in Africa: politics, social years as the arts projects manager at Gallery development, arts and culture, business, gender and MOMO in Johannesburg, and has over ten years the African diaspora. Currently working as a freelance of professional experience in the arts and culture journalist with various publications aimed at the international sector as an administrator, curator and facilitator. Uche- community, she has contributed to: Al Jazeera, CNN, BBC News Online, Okeke has also worked actively as an arts and culture manager in both the Africa Report, Selamta, New African, Wings and Under the Influence the creative and performing arts sectors in Nigeria, and more recently in magazines, Think Africa Press and This is Africa, both online platforms, South Africa. She has a BA (Hons) in Fine and Applied Arts, a PGD in Arts among others. For these various publications, she covers politics, social and Culture Management, an MA in Heritage Studies and postgraduate development, gender, health and education stories, business, fashion and certificate in Environmental Policy from the universities of Nigeria, Nsukka, the arts and culture. An award-winning journalist, Otas is the Assistant the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Bard College in the United States. Editor of the New African Woman magazine and is a news and social She currently serves on the Board of the Dance Forum, the initiators and commentator on African affairs on Monocle Radio’s, The Globalist. She has organizers of the Dance Umbrella Festival, and is the Regional Network also appeared on the BBC World Service NewsDay programme. Belinda Development Manager of the Visual Arts Network South Africa (VANSA) Otas is one of ‘50 Remarkable Women’ connected by Nokia, a celebration Steering Committee. of 50 women who are true ‘Unfollowers.’

13 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 OMENKA GALLERY + 234 8184553331 OMENKAGALLERY.COM

28 February – 2 March, 2014

‘Okhai Ojeikere and Gary Stephens Networks and Voids: Modern Interpretations of Nigerian Hairstyles and Headdresses

Art14 London Booth F9 Olympia Grand Hall, London

27 February - 2 March, 2014 19 - 22 March, 2014 10 - 13 April, 2014

Gary Stephens Nnenna Okore and Tchif Cologne Paper Art Matter as Metaphor Vulka-Hulle Lichtstraße 43, 50825 Köln Cape Town Art Fair Booth G18 Art Dubai V&A Waterfront, Cape Town Booth J17 Madinat Jumeirah, Dubai

Background image: Adejoke Tugbiyele, Mosquito Net Entrapment 2. Still 004

June 05 - 07, 2014 August 22-24, 2014 October 14 - 19, 2014

AdejokeTugbiyele Joburg Art Fair 1.54 Contemporary Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg African Art Fair, London LOOP 2014 Somerset House, London Hotel Catalonia Ramblas, Barcelona OMENKA LAGOS 2014

We are delighted to announce the inaugural edition of Omenka Lagos, which coincides with Nigeria's centenary celebrations. Designed by leading architect, Kunlé Adeyemi, the fair will position Africa as the hub of an increasingly globalized world and offers an opportunity to engage with emerging trends in contemporary September 25 -28, 2014 visual culture while cultivating taste in an atmosphere of the finest External Ballroom African cuisine and wine. Omenka Lagos will also feature an Federal Palace Hotel ambitious programme of talks including a well-tailored seminar on art as an alternative asset class, aimed at financial institutions, Victoria Island wealth managers and Africa's burgeoning and affluent collectors. Lagos, Nigeria

TO APPLY, PLEASE VISIT WWW.OMENKALAGOS.COM

R E V I L O EDITORIAL We’ve started off to an exciting new year at Omenka with a great deal of optimism and expectations. In only our third edition and ‘Omenka? is an Onitsha Ibo term? ome - is maker, traditional launch mid-last year, we’ve firmly established maker of; the maker of nka, who carves, who creates, who ourselves as the premium art, business and communicates through the making, or the making, or nka, being the attribute of his making through creative action... luxury-lifestyle brand in Nigeria! Omenka is usually a genius type...Omenka means greatness, a man of valour...’ -Ben Enwonwu, January 1967 As part of our innovations this year, Omenka PUBLISHER AND EDITOR-IN-CHIEF is proud to announce the addition of an OLIVER ENWONWU online digital platform and an ipad application [email protected] that supports our global readership through DEPUTY EDITOR high-resolution and interactive content, OMOLADUN OGIDAN [email protected] slideshows, videos and more. In addition, we have increased the number of pages to 132 in our print version. LONDON, NEW YORK EDITOR BOMI ODUFUNADE [email protected] Omenka continues to keep abreast of the latest news on contemporary African visual culture around the globe, through our expert team of JOHANNESBURG EDITOR IJEOMA UCHE-OKEKE contributors and international editors in major cities in the world. [email protected] We welcome Daniela Roth and Ijeoma Uche-Okeke, our Munich and

MUNICH EDITOR Johannesburg editors, who expand our scope and perspective by offering DANIELA ROTH diverse viewpoints. [email protected]

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR Our third issue, Photography II, includes profiles of renowned art collectors; LUCIANO UZUEGBU Artur Walther and Simon Ottenberg by Daniela Roth, and London and

ART DIRECTOR New York Editor, Bomi Odufunade respectively. Leading market authority YUSUF ARIYO and Omenka columnist, Anders Petterson of ArtTactic surveys the international modern and contemporary photography market in the last DESIGNERS VICTORY JAMES 6 months, while specialist in contemporary African art, Romina Provenzi SEUN ADEMEFUN reviews contemporary photography from the continent at 2013 auctions.

PHOTOGRAPHERS This issue also includes in-depth interviews on renowned photographers, MICHAEL SOSSOU David Goldblatt and Hassan Hajjaj by Ijeoma Uche-Okeke and Nana Ocran, ANDREW INEGBESE nominee for CNN’s African Journalist of the Year (2011). MARKETING AND PROMOTIONS MARY OMINUTA Omenka looks forward to another remarkable chapter of the Art Dubai, LILLIAN EREBOR Art 14, Cape Town Art Fair, Joburg Art Fair, and 1:54 Contemporary African Art CIRCULATION Fair as media partners. Furthermore, we have the pleasure of meeting the JAMES OJE OBIAJULUM NWABUNIKE duo behind the fast-rising Cape Town Art Fair, while Stephanie Dieckvoss, director of the already acclaimed Art 14, London, talks about new art trends to look out for at this year’s edition in February.

Finally, in our Market File, we review Bonhams’ The South African Sale of March and October, and round off with Joachim Melchers, publisher

Cover and Director of ARTCO Gallery in Germany. This issue is by no means Hassan Hajjaj, Hindiii, 2011/1432 Courtesy: Rose Issa Projects, London a comprehensive survey on the topic of photography, but a means of celebrating the new ideas and achievements, as well as the potential for To subscribe, please call +234 809 802 7583 or go online at www.omenkamagazine.com photography in Africa. To advertise, please call + 234 813 553 2154, 808 493 8545

Omenka is published quarterly by On behalf of Omenka, I would like to thank our subscribers, sponsors and media partners for all their support and continuing patronage. I also encourage our readers to leave comments for our contributors and editors Revilo Company Ltd on our website. 24, Ikoyi Crescent, Ikoyi, Lagos T: + 234 818 455 3331 www.reviloco.com

Reproduction in whole or part is forbidden save with express permission in writing of the publishers. All material is compiled from sources believed to be reliable, but published without Here’s wishing all our readers a Happy New Year! responsibility for errors or omissions. Revilo accepts advertisements from advertisers believed to be of good repute, but cannot guarantee the authenticity or quality or objects or services advertised in its pages. Omenka does not assume responsibility for unsolicited manuscripts, photographs or illustrations. Copyright worldwide of all editorial content is held by the publishers, Revilo Company Ltd. The name, Omenka is a registered trademark owned by Revilo Company Ltd. and cannot be used without its express written consent. Oliver Enwonwu @omenkamagazine omenka magazine

17 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 INTERIOR ARCHITECTURE, INTERIOR/PRODUCT DESIGN EXHIBITION Gida Uno Ile Design Exhibition MAY 9TH AND MAY 10TH 2014 Eko Hotel V/I Lagos Nigeria

ROOTS building our design community for steady growth

For more information Kenny Onakoya: +234 703 723 179 [email protected] www.theguide.com.ng ANTENNAE NEWS, EVENTS

The Earth is Art, The Photographer is only a Witness.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand

19 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 ANTENNAE - NEWS, EVENTS

ART14 LONDON, THE CAPITAL’S GLOBAL ART FAIR, RETURNS TO OLYMPIA GRAND HALL London’s ‘refreshingly different’ approach.

Over 170 galleries from 39 countries will exhibit painting, sculpture, photography, drawing, video, editions and digital art at the 2014 fair.

Collectors, curators, buyers and visitors will have the opportunity to enjoy and acquire modern and contemporary art from regions such as Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Art14 London also presents two specially selected sections - ‘London First’ and ‘Emerge’ - providing the opportunity to discover new artists and new work.

According to Stephanie Dieckvoss, Art14 London Fair Director, “We are delighted to increase the geographical spread of countries represented. The fair is growing organically, so visitors and collectors will have a more comprehensive experience in discovering exciting works from around the globe. We continue to have a strong London’s global art fair, Art14 London sponsored by Citi Private presence from Asia with leading and new galleries from across the Bank, returns in 2014 from Friday 28 February to Sunday 2 March continent. We are also excited to welcome newcomers from all four 2014 at Olympia Grand Hall. The launch edition of the fair in 2013 corners of the world, including Lagos, Berlin, Beijing, Dubai, Buenos was attended by 25,000 visitors and was a success with critics, Aires, Osaka, Mumbai, and São Paulo.” galleries, collectors and art lovers alike. Wallpaper praised the fair’s ‘impressive scope’, while the Financial Times reported on Art13 www.artfairslondon.com

GABRIELLE ALBERTS THIS IS WHERE I LEAVE YOU 6 February - 13 March, 2014

BRUNDYN+ is proud to present This is Where I leave You, Gabrielle Alberts’ first solo exhibition since completing her Masters in Fine Art at Michaelis School of Fine Art.

The miniature installations in the exhibition investigate the spectacle of, and fascination with crime scenes through its representation in media, literature and television series. The ability to visualise or imagine a crime narrative from an inanimate object is central to Albert’s work. The work focuses on creating perceptions (of crime) by not portraying crime in action but rather the insinuation thereof. Gabrielle Alberts, Heartbreak Hotel, 2012, painted ceramics, 15 x 20 cm The miniatures create an immersive reality for the viewer. Through the road. The ethics of this curiosity, often sparked by catharsis, is a method of suggestion, the viewer questions their tendency to questioned. assume that a crime of sorts has been committed. The spaces depicted are familiar, ordinary and domestic. Through Audience participation is crucial to the construction of this the viewer’s recognition of these spaces, the artist intends to alternate, fictional reality. One not only becomes a spectator of lure the viewer in and subsequently disrupt that which is familiar the work, but one is rather forced to look and engage with the into something ‘out of place’ or uncanny. For it is only through work in participatory manner. The spectator takes on the role of the establishment of the familiar that the uncanny can exist. The a detective, and meticulously searches for clues in the apparent or placement of something uncanny in the works determines an perhaps expected crime scene. The artist plays with our curiosity ambiguity, creating a sense of doubt in what has been presented. of crime scenes, whether it is our desire to watch American crime scene investigation television shows, such as CSI and Law and Order, or whether we slow down at any sign of police lights at the side of www.brundyngonsalves.com

20 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 ANTENNAE - NEWS, EVENTS

TIAN WEI OCTOBER GALLERY 6 February - 29 March, 2014 October Gallery is proud to present an exhibition of new works by the Chinese artist, Tian Wei. This will be his premiere solo exhibition in the United Kingdom.

Both theoretically and formally, Tian Wei’s work constructs a bridge between things that appear as dyadic opposites, binary poles or complementary pairs. This perspective of Yin and Yang is deeply embedded in Chinese thinking, and the artist’s frequent reference Tian Wei (China), Sex, 2010, acrylic on canvas, 177 x 298 cm to Classic texts such as the I Ching (The Book of Changes) and Tao The separation between English and Chinese aesthetics deepens into Te Ching, appear as quotations in minute script patterning the hermeneutics which quickly spirals out to include much larger universal background upon which larger semi-abstract cursive shapes are questions about reality, Life: Death, Being: Absence and so on. To the drawn. On trying to read these lines as Chinese characters, however, Chinese way of thinking, this inevitably returns us to the concept of anyone familiar with Chinese poetry, painting or philosophy is bound Tai Chi– the Great Universal level that includes both Yin and Yang and to be frustrated, since the conundrum of interpreting the meaning indeed contains everything that exists. In talking about his work Tian of the flowing shapes can only be resolved in English. The lines, in Wei has described the perspective of looking at two sides of a coin at fact, spell out simple English nouns, adjectives and phrases such as the same time. “What fascinates me most is that there can always be a ‘Myth’,‘Red’ and ‘Money Makes the World Go Round.’ These carefully switching – perhaps even a continuity - between both sides”. chosen words give the viewer access to the artist’s lived experience of both Eastern and Western spheres. In one of these large-scale Tian Wei’s artistic vision is not one that divides or separates the East works, the word ‘Sex’ stands out as bright red gestural daubs, on a from the West but one that integrates both, and for this reason it is canvas of the same colour, its thick impasto brush strokes layering both timely and timeless. the surface with tiny shadows. Drawn with great freedom, the brush strokes are sharp, yet sinuous and though enigmatic, the lettering is ultimately comprehensible to any viewer who reads English. www.octobergallery.uk

CAMERON PLATTER I SAW THIS ‘ 12 February - 29 March, 2014

Cameron Platter’s interdisciplinary practice examines consumption, excess, detritus, discord and conflict within a fragmented South African identity. Through engagement with transitory sources, Platter’s work acts as a locus, documenting a dysfunctional contemporary reality. I SAW THIS, Platter’s current exhibition is an installation of new sculptures, drawings, ceramics, and tapestries.

He makes stories, pictures, and objects that are documents of Cameron Platter, Arcadia III, 2013, pencil crayon on paper, 181 x 236 cm contemporary morality; exploring a reality stranger than fiction, through fantasy, satire and subculture, using themes appropriated His work appears in the permanent collection of; MoMA, New York; from the universal concerns of sex, love, violence, beauty, The FRAC Centre, Orleans, France; and the Iziko South African advertising, food, battle scenes, pornography, writing, politics, religion, National Gallery. His work has also been highlighted in The New crime, dancing, lust, greed, things falling apart, and spaceships. York Times, Vice Magazine, NKA Journal of Contemporary African Art, Artforum, and Art South Africa. Platter fills the ordinary and marginal, with incendiary new meaning. Working from everyday experience with subjects overlooked or He lives and works in KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. considered delinquent, sordid and lowbrow, he reconnoiters notions and concepts on the outside fringes of South Africa’s popular culture. www.whatiftheworldgallery.co

21 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 ANTENNAE - NEWS, EVENTS

ZANELE MUHOLI STEVENSON GALLERY 14 February - 4 April, 2014

Zanele Muholi won the fine prize for an emerging artist at the 2013 Carnegie International, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is being honoured with a prestigious Prince Claus Award, to be presented in Amsterdam on 11 December, and was recently made Honorary Professor of the University of the Arts/ Hochschule für Künste Bremen. In 2013, she also won the Index on Censorship - Freedom of Expression Art Award in London and was named as one of Foreign Policy’s Global Thinkers of 2013. Her Faces and Phases series was included on the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale, Imaginary Fact: South African Art and the Archive. Her group exhibitions include Distance and Desire: Encounters with the African Archive at the Walther Collection in Ulm, Germany (8 June through to 2015); SubRosa: The Language of Resistance at the University of South Florida Contemporary Art Museum in Tampa, Florida (26 August - 7 December); Glyphs: Photography, Video and the Politics of Inscription at Pitzer College Art Galleries, California (19 September - 5 December); and the 2013 Carnegie International Survey of Contemporary Art (5 October - 16 March). www.stevenson.info

Zanele Muholi, Lebo Ntladi, Newtown, Johannesburg, 2011 Silver gelatin print, 76.5 x 50.5cm, edition of 8 + 2AP

WIM BOTHA STEVENSON GALLERY 27 February - 5 April, 2014

Wim Botha has won the Helgaard Steyn Prize for sculpture, awarded every four years, for his 2010 public artwork, Blastwaveat at the Nedbank headquarters in Johannesburg. Botha’s third solo exhibition with Galerie Jette Rudolph in Berlin, Predicates, took place from 14 September to 12 October, followed by a solo show at Kunstraum Innsbruck, Austria, from 9 November to 11 January. Botha was included in the 55th Venice Biennale, Imaginary Fact: South African Art and the Archive, the South African Pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (1 June - 24 November). An outdoor sculpture by Botha is presently on view at the Zeitz MOCAA Pavilion at the V&A Waterfront, Cape Town.

www.stevenson.info

Wim Botha, Prism 8 (detail) 2013, bronze, wood, neon tubes, 237 x 160 x 155cm, edition of 1 + 1AP

22 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 ANTENNAE - NEWS, EVENTS

HAIM STEINBACH: ONCE AGAIN THE WORLD IS FLAT 5 MARCH - 21 APRIL, 2014

Once Again the World is Flat is an expansive exhibition by American artist, Haim Steinbach, including key works from his impressive forty year career. The exhibition comprises a number of Steinbach’s grid-based paintings from the early 1970s, a series of reconfigured historical installations, as well as major new works created with a selection of objects drawn from public and private collections in the United Kingdom.

Following his historic exhibition at Artists Space in 1979, Steinbach has exhibited internationally at institutions including Witte de With Centre for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Castello di Rivoli, Turin; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; CAPC musée d’art contemporain, Bordeaux and Haus der Kunst, Munich. His work was included in Documenta IX and the Sydney Biennale in 1992, the 1993 and 1997 Venice Biennales, the 2000 Biennale de Lyon, and La Triennale, Paris 2012.

Once Again the World is Flat will be presented at the Hessel Museum of Art at Bard College in New York alongside works from their collection. Following the London presentation, the exhibition will travel to the Kunsthalle Zürich.

Haim Steinbach, Basics, 1986 www.serpentinegalleries.org

art southafrica

Art South Africa is a contemporary art publication that is on the move, experimental, provocative, intelligent; Art South Africa today sees itself as a vehicle that celebrates Africa’s future-present.

Available in print and digital: iPad, iPhone, and all Android devices.

to subscribe to Art South Africa print publication visit www.artsouthafrica.com

download the Art South Africa app to purchase the monthly digital edition, visit Apple or Google Play store

ART SOUTH AFRICA MAGAZINE 89A Bree Street, Cape Town, 8001, South Africa / Tel +27 (0)21 465 9108 Fax +27 (0)86 656 5931

23 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 - FOCUS PROFILES, INTERVIEWS

I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn. Pablo Picasso

25 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Courtesy of Camille Zakharia

26 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - PROFILE

HASSAN

HAJJAJWORDS NANA OCRAN

Award-winning photographer, designer, furniture maker, boutique owner… Hassan Hajjaj is an individual who neatly fits all of these titles. A London-based artist, and a creative multi-tasker he moves around a lot, so pinning him down to a Skype conversation while he was working on a couple of film projects in Marrakech felt like quite a coup.

27 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - PROFILE

“I’ve been working on a personal project with some Gnawa musician masters” he explains, “I’m trying to document them, but I’ve also been editing another film called,Karima: A Day in the Life of a Henna Girl.”

This second project is one that features a young woman, who has appeared in a number of Hajjaj’s photographs over the last 15 years. Perhaps his best known shot of her is one in which she dexterously balances on the seat of a pristine white scooter, her feet resting on the handlebars, while wearing a polka - dotted djellaba and matching niqab, leather babouche slippers and funky 1950s-style shades.

It is a theatrical piece in as much as the background and the subject are equally as important as each other, and the riot of colours – from pastel to primary, speak volumes about Hajjaj’s North African aesthetic influences. These combinations of visual, cultural and sensory influences are what drive his arguably most famous work to date – the My Rock Stars portrait series. An ongoing project, Hajjaj holistically documents the people he knows and admires – from musicians and artists, to designers, dancers, writers and relatives – all of them dressed in clothes he has designed, with each sitter playfully positioned in spaces he covers in vibrant pop colours. His models’ images are then set in his signature frames, which are uniformly studded with mini soda cans with Arab script, or edged with brightly coloured raffia. The nod to recycling and the homage to African studio photography is clear.

“I want to continue this project” Hajjaj explains. “The first time I showed it was in Dubai in 2012 but I first started shooting the series Hassan Hajjaj, José James, 2009/1430, courtesy of Third Line Gallery, Dubai in 1999. The idea of the studio shoot is nothing new because you’ve got Malick Sidibé, Seydou Keïta … you know, the masters, but my influence was also from when I was a kid”. Although there is a strong fashion element to Hajjaj’s Rock Stars This was during the early 1960s in Larache, a small Moroccan fishing images, this is not the element that drives him. He is definitely far port, where he and his siblings had their pictures taken in a studio more taken by subjects, who he considers to be unintentional because there were no cameras. “Up to the age of 16, there were models. People who inspire him, for their own specific reasons. only around three pictures of me – one on a horse with a cowboy hat, another time with my mum and my sisters. My dad was in “If I had an offer to take a picture of Jay-Z for example, it’s the kind London so we’d have our pictures taken to send to him. That was of thing I wouldn’t want to do because he’s already mainstream. my first influence of photography. Since then, I’ve always wanted to My work is much more about people around me, who I admire. extend this to a new generation because Sidibé and all the masters People who live by their own code.” People who may or may not were photographers, who took pictures of local people.” be completely at ease in front of the lens. It is therefore crucial that Hajjaj’s skills don’t just lie in clicking the camera button. Any Hajjaj’s memories of the colours of Morocco are key to his style of bashfulness has to be overcome so that the ability to play, blends into photography. Living and working between London and the North the whole experience. African country has had a strong influence. “I usually do one or two sessions with people. Sometimes three” “My work in fact goes beyond being a studio shoot. It’s about docu- says Hajjaj. “Some people do feel out of their comfort zone but then menting people and also showing clothes that I’ve designed” he says. they start to like it when they can step out of their world. It’s like “I try to get all the stuff that I use from the medina. They may be a theatrical experience where I try to make sure they have a nice things that have been bought cheaply, but I make them look grand.” memorable day at the same time”. I’ve been working on a personal project with some Gnawa musician masters’ he explains. ‘I’m trying to document them, but I’ve also been editing another film called, Karima: A Day in the Life of a Henna Girl.

28 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - PROFILE

Hassan Hajjaj, Caravane, 2011/1432, courtesy of Rose Issa Projects, London Hassan Hajjaj, Man Bellydancer, 2012/1433, courtesy of Third Line Gallery, Dubai

Strangely, the same type of showmanship doesn’t extend to himself, West Africa was at the Bamako Photo Biennial in 2009, while some although this might be something of a photographer’s prerogative. of his other work features album cover designs for artists including There is a distinct note of modesty at the suggestion that he himself modern jazz and hip hopper, José James and Franco-Moroccan singer, should step in front of the camera. “It is uncomfortable for me” Hindi Zahra. Awards include one for the interior design of the Andy he admits. “If I ask a subject to get in front of the camera, it is because Wahloo Bar in Paris, and there was also a 2009 nomination for the they’ve got something about them, so for me they deserve to be there”. international Jameel Prize for contemporary art and design inspired by Islamic tradition. It’s an eclectic mix of activity that’s earned Hajjaj It is a humble, but also endearing admission, particularly when set an undeniably international following that’s persistently growing. alongside his personal experience of being culturally and spiritually With much of his time spent between London and Marrakech, what out of sync with elements of his world during his adolescence. about the photography scene in Morocco? Arriving in the UK from Morocco in his teens meant struggling with English – both spoken and written – for years. This is an experience “It is getting there” he says, which pretty much means that the North that has influenced his choice of rock star subjects, many of whom African mindset in terms of seeing photography as art is changing – hail from similar backgrounds, or who at least have some link with but slowly. the immigrant experience. “If you’re talking about collectors, it is new for them” says Hajjaj. Hajjaj’s discomfort at being the subject of a photograph has nevertheless found a perfect outlet in the visual language that he “Normally, people would buy a painting, but there is a vibe going confidently speaks. on with the new generation. There is a whole new breed of photographers, a lot of new talent, but it is still hard because there He is no slouch either when it comes to promoting his work. Since needs to be a lot more education about photography here.” 2003, his solo and group exhibitions have been featured at both the Victoria and Albert, and British Museum in London, Gallery Within this visual world, Hajjaj is happy to admit that he himself 44 in Toronto, Museu da Cicade in Lisbon, the National Museum is still learning. Self taught, he says that “Technically I’m not good,” of Damascus, Musée du Quai Branly in Paris and most recently at and happily takes advice from friends, who have generously helped 1:54, London’s first contemporary African art fair, which featured when more intricate uses of the camera are needed. But still, it is the 73 artists representing North, East, South and West Africa. These capturing of a good image that is important to Hajjaj and in this, the are just a handful of showcases. His one personal appearance in quality of his aesthetic eye and judgement for a strong image is clear.

29 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 DAVID GOLDBLATT WORDS IJEOMA LOREN UCHE-OKEKE

Art does not lie in the medium, it lies in the work itself. You can express yourself in whatever medium you like. The medium carries the work and that’s how it should be judged. –David Goldblatt

FOCUS - INTERVIEW

The history of contemporary photography in South Africa cannot be written or told without David Goldblatt. His professional career spans several decades and he has exhibited extensively around the world, with his work in notable collections locally and internationally. A considerable number of David Goldblatt’s works have been sold in major auctions by the Swann Auction Galleries and Phillips in New York and Strauss and Co, and Stephan Weltz both in South Africa. Works sold include 8 Works: Selected Images from the Transported of KwaNdebele, sold at Phillips New York’s auction, Photographs for $52,500. Some of the works from his Blue Asbestos series were auctioned at Bonhams Africa Now sale in March of 2010. He has also contributed significantly to the development and training of young photographers and the field of photography in general through the establishment of the Market Photo Workshop. He has won several awards for his work including the recent the Lifetime Achievement Award by the International Centre of Photography (ICP) in New York. Following the sombre mood of mourning accompanying the death of Dr Nelson Mandela on the 5th of December, Ijeoma Loren Uche-Okeke, Omenka’s Johannesburg Editor had a very interesting conversation with David Goldblatt about his early influences, inspiration, new projects, his views on contemporary photography and his relationship with the Goodman Gallery.

OM: What were the major decisions, events or people that to take photographs to improve my technique. Photography is a influenced your decision to pursue photography as a career? skill than you can acquire without any formal education. It doesn’t In the 1940s when I was in high school, I collected stamps and began require a PhD, you just need practice and dedication. I continued to photograph my collection in order to document them. I borrowed managing the family business but it became clear to me that to work cameras from family members, my mother and brothers. The images as a magazine photographer, I needed to be free to pursue that were poor in quality but they served my purpose. Around 1947, I dream. In 1962, after my father passed, I sold the business, and the became interested in photographs as things in themselves. At the proceeds from the sale allowed me the freedom to set-up and work time television was not in existence; in Europe people were still towards being a magazine photographer. At this stage, I was married using magazines as their windows to the world. The most prominent with children. I sent work to a number of magazines but particularly magazines were Life and Look, and Picture Post from London, that to one that was established in England called Town. It was a highly covered remarkable things, did remarkable work and had the best sophisticated magazine that published work by excellent writers and images. After I left school, aspiring to be a magazine photographer, I had very strong visuals; the content and design were of high quality. spent about a year trying to work on my own to break into the field. It was a reputable magazine and I was fortunate that they were My technique at that stage was amateurish and I found that I didn’t interested in my work. They commissioned me to do some work really grasp what it was that editors wanted and this proved to be on the Anglo American Corporation, which they published. It was a quite challenging. At that point, there was no one in South Africa major step for me professionally. who had the professional capacity to teach me. I continued to take photographs but not with any strong sense of purpose. Another significant break in my professional career as a magazine photographer was the appointment of Sally Angwin as the Editor for It became obvious to me that to gain the right skills and technique, the South African version of Town, known as the Tatler. Angwin was I needed to be in the magazine world. After a year of trying on my South African and the Assistant Editor of the popular Town magazine own without much progress, I decided to shelve photography for before her appointment. The publisher’s brief to her was to turn a while and get involved in the family business. This was meant to the Tatler into a local version of Queen, which was the women’s be an interim arrangement. My father ran a men’s outfitting store. equivalent of Town. Sally Angwin commissioned me to do a lot of Unfortunately, he became ill with cancer and I became responsible work and it was a major shift for me because up until then, I had not for the business and managed it for 12 years. In that time, I continued photographed any human subjects directly. I was also exposed to

32 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Here, high on drugs, Cinto White and a friend robbed a man after Cinto had shot him. Signal Hill, Cape Town, 31 May 2010 (4_A620), silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper Image size: approx. 49.5 x 62cm, framed: approx. 90 x 85.5cm

33 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Khulelwa Pali at the house in Cape Town that she burgled in 2008. Site B, Khayelitsha, Cape Town, 23 August 2010 (A_4489111), silver gelatin print on fibre-based paper Image size: approx. 49.5 x 62cm, framed: approx. 90 x 85.5cm, edition of 10

a variety of subjects like fashion, furniture there’s a qualifying clause to that. At that I wanted to publish in a book but had no and so forth. It was almost like force-feeding stage, that kind of photography was not idea how to achieve my objectives. It was because in a short while, I became adequate available in South Africa, and was virtually at this point I was introduced to Haskins at least in these kinds of photography. I unknown until the publication, Drum. Drum and his wife Alida, who were Afrikaaners. worked with Angwin for a while. She used came about 1951 or 1952, I can’t remember. Haskins referred to himself and his wife as other photographers but for me, working It was like an injection of adrenaline to “excommunicated Afrikaners”. He was a with her was a significant step-up. She was me; it was very exciting to see that kind of particularly remarkable photographer and a highly competent magazine editor, took amazing work. I never worked for Drum and was also an established and recognised no nonsense and was very critical. I learnt I never tried to work there as I didn’t think publisher. His publications were real a lot from her. Sally Angwin died in a freak I had sufficient skills at that stage to do so. I advances in book publishing because he accident and the Tatler rapidly came to an think they were adequately served by the was very adventurous with type and design. end. I became a freelance photographer highly skilled professionals they had at that His books were very influential in South specializing in magazine work rather than time, people like Jürgen Schadeburg, Ian Africa, Europe and America. He was also news work, and got commissions from Berry, Peter Magubane, Alf Kumalo and Bob very popular and influential with editors publications, and gradually developed a Gosane, They were very professional and and the best magazines in the late 60s. He professional practice. did very fine work. One particular individual offered to design my book and that was very that had a considerable influence on me in significant for me because I had no idea how OM: What were your sources of South Africa was Sam Haskins but this was to compile the photographs I had taken into inspiration and motivation, were there much later in the late 60s. At that time, I was book format. I gave him my rough proof and any particular individuals, professionals or very keen to publish a book on Afrikaaners. contact prints and he designed a marquette events that inspired you? Then they were the driving force of this and template, which he eventually sent to There were many individuals and society mainly through the National Party me. I was amazed at how the photographs professionals who inspired me. Most of and the Afrikaner Protestant Churches. I I had taken were by judicious placement them were not from South Africa, and had a collection of essays on Afrikaners, that and croppings, given a life of their own. Sam

34 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Shaftsinking: As an empty kibble is lowered to the bottom. the team pushes it toward a position where it will stand upright on the uneven rock. Men have been crushed under kibbles that tilted over. January 1970, Silver gelatin photograph on fibre-based paper, approx. 30 x 40cm, edition of 10

35 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Mother and child in their home after the destruction of its shelter by officials of the Western Cape Development Board Crossroads, Cape Town, 11 October 1986 (4_3614), 1986 Silver gelatin photograph on fibre-based paper approx. 30 x 40cm, edition of 10

Haskins was an incredibly generous man, didn’t speak in my voice. I then adopted career as a photographer in this country. he held nothing back and wasn’t territorial a completely different approach in the He also printed in a particular way and my about his contacts. He introduced me to his layout; putting a picture on the right, with a photographs for a time were printed in a publisher in England and I went to England caption on the left, and vice versa. I used a way not unlike his, with the high contrast. I with a dummy of my book. At that time if more conservative approach in my layout as had over time started to really understand you wanted a book published, you literally opposed to his very strong visual approach. what I was doing and had now developed had to do it yourself. I created a rhythm in the book developing my own way of printing. Other influences the layout to have specific relationships to at that time were literary. I developed an Around this time, I met Barney Simon and each other that were not apparent unless inclination to have the ability to translate into Manny Manim, who founded the Market you were prepared to spend time studying photographs, the kind of observations I found Theatre. Simon and I became good friends the book closely. I started to understand in literature about South Africa. I didn’t want and he became interested in my book. He that if my work was shown publicly, there a literal interpretation of what I had read in was very critical of the design and layout. I were certain dynamics in them that my photographs. What I wanted was to find was impressed by what Haskins had done required the viewer to have the patience to a way of photographing this country, in this in terms of design and layout. He had put look with particular attention. It’s not ‘quick- country, in a way that reflected the depth of two pictures together in a way that they look’ photography. Haskins had given me a understanding that you found in literature at spoke to each other, often dramatically. tremendous gift because the opportunity that time in South Africa. I refer to the works Eventually, I recognised that the predominant he provided to use his design as a basis for of notable writers like Nadine Gordimer- voice in my book was Sam Haskins and creating a layout that was more in keeping her earlier work in particular and stories by not me. I had taken these photographs not with my own philosophy, made me realise Herman Charles Bosman and J.M.Coetzee. with the intention of creating those kinds the importance of photographs in relation In the early days, those were the writers that of conversations between the pictures. to a book and in relation to each other. As inspired me. So I eventually discarded his layout and its I previously mentioned, Haskins exerted underlying philosophy because I realised it considerable influence on my professional OM: Were the images for your proposed

36 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

The swimming bath rules at the Recreation Club of the Cape Blue Asbestos Mine, Koegas, Northern Cape, 2002 digital prints on 100% cotton rag paper, edition of 6

book part of your collection from minefield because I would not accept work provocation in something outside of my own your commissions from magazines and that was in anyway supportive of the regime, inside. I need to be stimulated by what I see corporates? and quite often the brief was couched in to the point of taking photographs. It’s a very No they were not. It took me a long time to terms that didn’t directly say that one is in unsatisfactory way of putting it but that is the understand this but I eventually understood support of the regime. One also had to truth of it. For example, in 2001 had a strong that in work I did for a client, it was the understand the nature of what you were desire to take photographs that reflected the client’s imperatives I was attempting to put dealing with here in this country during new dispensation in this country but I had no into the photographs, while in the work I the apartheid era. Trying to define my own idea what I wanted to photograph. I knew did for myself it was my own imperatives imperatives was not easy and I had to decline that I wanted to be free of the constraints that were reflected in the photographs, and assignments quite frequently. I also had of my previous work so I began taking the two were not the same. Therefore, to problems with magazines overseas because colour photographs. I had used colour for successfully execute an assignment, I had to they tended to dramatize events or to couch my professional work almost from the time I understand what it was that the client really them in their own terms, which reflected started working as a full-time photographer. wanted. I found that clients working in big their views about the regime. And quite From about 1964, I’d done work in colour corporations and certainly at the magazines often that didn’t correspond with the views for magazines, corporations, and institutions didn’t always understand what they wanted. about those particular events. For them it but not for myself. During the apartheid Or rather, they knew what they wanted was black and white but for me it was many years, black and white for me was the only but it wasn’t easy to translate their requests shades of grey. appropriate medium, colour was too sweet. into photographs. The onus fell on me Now I wanted to take photographs in colour to try to grasp what clients wanted and OM: Is there an underlying philosophy that and I knew that I wanted to photograph deliver photographs that would meet those guides and informs your creativity? within South Africa. There was no question needs. More often than not, those needs You are asking a very broad question. about that but I was lacking what I had in the did not necessarily correspond with mine. I suppose what drives me to take apartheid years, which was a clear cut sense In this country particularly, it was a difficult photographs is an excitement and of direction in terms of certain types of

37 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Joe Maloney, Boiler-house Attendant, City Deep Gold Mine, 1966 (2_2846), 1966, silver gelatin photograph on fibre-based paper, approx. 40 x 30cm, edition of 10

38 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW subjects. So I decided to photograph intersections of whole degrees I need hardly tell you. It has affected my wife and I personally. I of longitude and latitude in this country. was curious about people who’ve committed crime. I wanted to meet ex-offenders, who had either been released on parole or So if there was something at 25 degrees latitude and 33 degrees had served time. I realised from the beginning that it would be a longitude, I wanted to go where they intersected. There were 122 difficult thing to do, to ask someone who had been in jail to go back intersections in South Africa, one or two were in the sea within to the place where he or she had committed that crime. Therefore, territorial waters. I allowed myself a margin of 500 metres around I have paid these people, even though I recognise that it goes against each intersection. At that time GPS devices were hardly known. journalistic codes. On the other hand, I undertook that if there was I started travelling to points of longitude and latitude around the any income from this work, I would give the proceeds from my country. For a while it was quite stimulating because I didn’t know share to organisations dealing with offenders. For a number of years, what I would find at these points but eventually I realised that I’ve been photographing ex-offenders and paying them to allow me working like this was completely foreign to me. I was working to record their story. I felt the story was important as a context to a formula that was completely alien to my way of doing things the photograph. I conducted very extensive interviews with these and I didn’t like it. I wanted to find subjects that were particularly individuals. The project ground to a halt recently because I wanted provocative to me and these were not necessarily at these points to meet a particular profile of ex-offender; white women. So far, I of intersection. I didn’t find any stimulation at some of these points, haven’t been able to photograph or meet any. I was recently invited so I gave up that idea. I had also found two complicating factors, to England to do a similar project by a community arts project in many of the intersections I wanted to photograph were on private Birmingham. In 2012, I spent a month living there and going out with land, mostly farms. Eventually, I discovered that there was a man on someone from the area to meet and photograph ex-offenders. I’ll the east coast of the United Sates that had set-up a website inviting be going back in March 2014 to continue with the project and I’m people to go to their nearest point of intersection of longitude and still waiting to meet white female ex-offenders over here so I can latitude and photograph it. So this kind of deflated that idea. continue the project in South Africa too.

I was then motivated to do what I should have done initially. As I was Another project I’m working on is titled, Structures. Over the years, travelling to the various points of intersection, I would see things I’ve become increasingly interested in structures of all kinds. Much of interest along the way but because I had a specific objective, I of our ethos has been nakedly expressed in our structures. Now couldn’t linger at those places of interest. But I liked the whole idea new structures are beginning to emerge that are representative of of intersections; the idea corresponded with my own way of thinking. the ideas of the new dispensation, the sports stadia being one, in I was interested in going to the points of intersections of values, of particular. Then there is public art of various kinds, for instance, in politics, of shared ideas much about the way the land should be. Doornfontein, Johannesburg a semi-industrial area, there is a herd of For several years, I put colour film in my camera and went around cattle in a taxi rank, perhaps expressive of their value in traditional photographing whatever interested me and out of that came a book African society, beautifully rendered lying on the ground. Another titled, Intersections. I will be travelling to Germany next month in place of interest is Eastern Beach in East London, reserved for whites January to print another book titled, Regarding Intersections, around only, until one day some 25,000 people invaded Eastern Beach and this idea of intersections, which was a very engaging idea that created destroyed beach apartheid forever. To commemorate that event, a sense of freedom. a sculpture was commissioned of a little black boy with a yacht on his lap sitting on a bench. A day after it was placed there, its head OM: What do you consider to be defining moments in your was smashed with a beer bottle by an unidentified individual and professional practice if any? the sculpture has since been removed and was recently found in There are no particular defining moments in my career. There someone’s garden in East London. I hope to photograph it. were defining moments in the history of this country; moments that completely changed things but they have not been effectively OM: Your commentary about how the new dispensation has represented in my work. For instance, I think Marikana is a very allowed for a multiplicity of cultural voices to emerge, resonates important event in our country, which has not really percolated in with a conversation I recently had with John Fleetwood, Head of the work I’m doing. I am sure it will eventually register but not yet. the Market Photo Workshop. I understand you were instrumental So my defining moments can be viewed as little bumps in the graph in setting up the Photo Workshop; did you have any idea that it but mostly a straight line graph. I’ve developed a particular way of would be as important and significant as it is today? thinking and it’s difficult for me to change track at this stage in my No, we had absolutely no idea. The Market Photo Workshop professional career though it is not impossible to achieve. In the has evolved quite magically, and there have been a number of history of photography, there are photographers who have been able remarkable photographers who have emerged from the school. to completely overturn their way of thinking and go in a completely I ascribe the school’s success largely to a number of significant different direction but I am not built that way. individuals that have directed it. I think there is a particular spirit that has been developed and sustained, which has resulted in some OM: Are you working on any new projects currently? truly amazing work. I am convinced that spirit would have emerged Strictly speaking they are not new projects; they’ve been going anyway with some of the people like Zanele Muholi for instance, the on for a number of years but there is a new complexion to them. lesbian activist. I think she’s too powerful a person in her own right One of these projects involves photographing ex-offenders at the not to have done something like this on her own. But I think it’s true scene of crime. We have a very high rate of crime in this country, to say that the workshop has been a trigger to many people who

39 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Stairway to a storeroom, Meerlust wine farm. Near Stellenbosch, Cape. 24 November 1990 (4_6904), 1990, silver gelatin photograph on fibre-based paper approx. 30 x 40cm, edition of 10

have a talent that may otherwise have remained underdeveloped, have ground to a halt from lack of funding. So we took it day by day. to go on developing those talents. So in my view, it’s been an There was a remarkable amount of freedom at the Market during extraordinary phenomenon. I’ve never taught there and I have the apartheid era. very little to do with the operations of the Photo Workshop. John Fleetwood, who is the Head, is an incredible guy and he runs it. I can OM: How did you transition from being an independent only say that he has done so, very successfully. professional photographer to being represented by the Goodman Gallery? The Photo Workshop was initially set-up as a place that would be My relationship with the Goodman Gallery brought a major shift a mix of, and an encountering of different cultures and ideas about in my life and my career prospects. In 1999, I was showing work in the world and about photography. I particularly dislike the word one of those night clubs in Newtown. Linda Givon, the then owner documentary photography. In my view, all photographs are forensic of the Goodman Gallery visited the exhibition, paid for some prints documents, whether it’s high art or photographs that come out of and became interested in showing some of my work at her gallery. I a roadside camera, they all become documents and it’s very difficult realised I would have to do this if I wanted to put bread on the table to make distinctions that are valid between them. However, to use because the market for photography had changed fundamentally the common term, the people that have worked there and the and there were few magazines commissioning work of the kind that people that have come out of the workshop have tended toward I did at that time. Also with the emergence of the digital revolution, documentary photography. To answer your question, we had no idea work that I would have previously been commissioned to do was that it would prosper or that there would be this energy that would now done in-house. Whatever the case, it was impacting on my sustain it for this long. We’d hoped that would be the case but one practice, which was disappearing rapidly. So Givon came along at a cannot be certain, given the fact that in South Africa, many NGOs very opportune moment. On the other hand, the digital revolution

40 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

‘San Raphael’ townhouse complex under construction, Fourways, Johannesburg. , 2002, digital prints on 100% cotton rag paper, edition of 6

had changed my life and these things happened simultaneously. My I think it’s entirely up to the viewer how they choose to regard my experience working with magazines had taught me about digital work, whether as forensic documentation or as art. The history of reproduction and this had a significant impact on my photography. art is not something I am particularly interested in. I am interested The digital production company I worked with was based in Cape in the work itself, what does it say? Does it reflect the intention of Town, so I flew down there for a few days every month or two to the artist? You are free to call yourself what you like as a creative work on digital scans and prints. The prints were indistinguishable person. Art does not lie in the medium, it lies in the work itself. from my dark room work. I also met Michael Stevenson on my trips You can express yourself in whatever medium you like. The to Cape Town. I liked him very much and he began to sell my work medium carries the work and that’s how it should be judged. So over there. Eventually, it was necessary for me to choose whether whether photography is art or not, is to me kind of a nonsensical to work with Michael Stevenson or Goodman Gallery as I couldn’t question. work with both galleries. So I chose the Goodman Gallery and that’s where I am. They represent me in all aspects and deal with all the OM: Have you actively sought to put your work in major auctions logistics of getting my work to international clients and markets here in South Africa or overseas? through art fairs. They have a good profile internationally and work Generally galleries are not particularly keen to put their artist’s works hard to maintain it. into auctions. I sympathise with my gallery. That’s where I make my living. If they tell me they don’t want to put my work in an auction, OM: What is your view on contemporary photography and I don’t argue with them. I don’t deliberately put my work into what are your thoughts on the various debates on whether auctions. Once in a while if someone comes to me and requests my photography can be considered an artistic form of expression as work for a specific charitable cause, I will donate occasionally and the opposed to being documentary? Goodman Gallery deals with all the details.

41 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW PAUL SIKA: MY WORK IS A WORK OF LOVE WORDS BELINDA OTAS

His colourful creations have intrigued critics and audiences alike, and Paul Sika has been described by the New York Times as a multi-media prodigy. But the Ivorian photographer, 29, prefers to call his work the art of “Photomaking” because his photographs are a combination of digital photography and the art of filmmaking (for they are created the same way a motion picture is made with attention paid to in-depth storytelling). Sika came to the UK to study software engineering but what started as a cathartic moment in London after he saw the trailer for the movie, The Matrix Reloaded 2, would change his life’s path. A self-taught cineaste and photographer, Sika’s passion for “photomaking” stems from his passion for storytelling, with monochrome, illustration and photomaking forming the multi-facet strands of his photography. He tells Omenka why his work is “A work of love rather than a work of reason.”

OM: What inspires your art and the images you create? filmMAKING, reflecting my appropriation of the techniques of My photography has quickly evolved from doing a lot of movie making and applying them to the medium of photography. monochrome in the beginning to an enormous amount of photo This includes the three major stages of preproduction, production illustration to finally settle in a personal style, which is known as and postproduction, which encapsulate steps such as story “Photomaking.” “Photomaking” can be reminiscent of cinema, imagination, writing, sequencing, casting, rehearsing, the principal day painting and even drawing at times, and puts a strong emphasis on of photography, image manipulation and digital painting. Photomaking storytelling and staged actions. What truly inspires me is known as is very effective in the sense that it allows me to produce and tell Paisley - “Paisley is that which is the most beautiful in the world. a story in much less time and investment. It also lends itself to an Paisley is when you have the right amount of all things.” This is aesthetic expression that can only be rendered as a static image, evident in Lillian’s Appeal, my latest work. In this collection of photos in the same manner that only a book can capture descriptions and and stories, there is a twofold description of Paisley shared over emotions. My vision and oeuvre is in reality, a multimedia experience. generations. This is what inspires me and my work. I don’t know if This explains the reason I have released the book, At the Heart of Me. it sounds cliché but my imagination also inspires me. It is basically In the long run, well I see video games and films adaptations of my bending and distorting reality, this is what I think attracts me most to stories, which will also capture the intricacies of the different media. it. The fact that I can see it and put it on a screen. You know, being My passions are both in art and technology, therefore, do not be able to distort reality and turn it into something that is beautiful. I surprised when something which is out of this world comes out. think this is something that inspires me the most. OM: Colour plays a big role in your “photomaking” creations, OM: Why do you call the work that you create “Photomaking?” especially the unusual way in which you make use of it. Tell us Explain the process to us and what photomaking is all about and about your fascination with the various colour components, why you believe this is the best medium for you to tell the stories which are very vivid, that go into your creations, and how you go that you want. about the process of these different blends of bright colours to Photomaking is a word I coined from PHOTOgraphy and create the final work that we see?

42 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

43 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Gloglo Gospel 1 from At The Heart of Me series

Truth is, my work is a work of love, rather than a work of reason; Studio photography was for a long time a big part of photography my colouring happens to be what speaks to my heart. Thus, I follow in Africa but you have moved away from that and are now part of a what my heart likes. new generation who focus on the external world around them rather than create it in a closed environment. What excites you about the From the point of conception to actualisation, what role does new generation of photographers on the continent and are there imagination, your environment and the vision of what you want particular photographers, whose work you admire, follow and why? to create, shape the process of the work you come up with? What excites me about the new generation of photographers is the Environment in the sense of perceived information is the amount of discovery we do. We have very different perspectives, springboard upon which imagination will jump to reach, to follow which all together work to show Africa in its legendary vibrant vision. Once this loop is entered, the three elements feed each other. aspect. The frames that will fill the minds from now on will leave

44 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

of Photomaker. The more work I produce and the more evident it becomes–I’m simply creative. I believe the time will come, the best way to describe me is to simply say “This is Paul Sika”. The boundaries I wish to push are those of beauty. Beauty here goes beyond just visuals, it is about harmony that materialises in many ways and demonstrates the essential pattern and fabric of life.

Can you tell us about the technical process involved in creating your images, including the technical aspects, and ways in which you have evolved and enhanced this process since you first started? I’m becoming colour blind. This has become very evident while working on Lilian’s Appeal. There is a series of photos entitled “Puneu Puneu” in which the colour scheme is different from the other series. While I was working on the photos, I could see how different they were becoming from the others but there was such a subtle yet strong voice in me telling me to continue. By heeding it, I grew in appreciation and started to see beyond just what my eyes could see in front of me. This is what I mean by becoming colour blind and being able to visualise the bigger picture of an image and the impact it can have on the eyes and mind viewing it.

How would you describe the current contemporary art scene in Ivory Coast, in particular the reception of photographic artistic work, and in what ways does this influence your work? While photography is getting more and more to the expected art forms, the scene is still embryonic. However, with the right efforts, I am certain we can have in this generation the type of growth Ivorian soccer has known with the generation of Didier Drogba and Kolo Touré. My country, my environment provides me with a visual language, which is unique because of its unique realities. In a way it is as if I had come into contact with a new alphabet, opened a new dictionary – and what a beautiful book!

What excites you about the current position contemporary African art occupies on the global art scene? What excites me about the current standing of contemporary African art is that it is going through an evolution. I believe African art as a whole will attain a status of nobility that will only be a benefit to the whole world.

In what ways would you like to see this sustained? It is important that artists keep working hard, focusing on being artists and according the essential and pure meaning of it, for as the journey will be truthfully experienced, so will follow the promised greatness. African artists should find their own identities like the diver goes and finds a pearl at the bottom of the sea. I am sure the right aspirations will attract the right conditions of success. beautiful souvenirs; and beautiful souvenirs will bring beautiful In addition to sustainability, why do you think it is important relationships and beautiful relationships will foster a more united for Africans (those who can afford the work that you and your humanity. In the end, this generation of photographers are contemporaries produce) to invest in contemporary African art, contributing to a better world. and contribute to the narrative of value and ownership of African contemporary art by Africans? That said, which word appeals to you more to describe your Your question is interesting in the sense that you’ve had to put work, “photomaker” or photographer and what are the in brackets “Those who can afford the work that you and your boundaries you want to push when it comes to the creation of contemporaries produce”. Indeed, many times it has looked as if images using photography? Africans were not interested in the arts but the reality is otherwise Photomaker is an aspect of me and photographer is an aspect and at least twofold:

45 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Asita, from At The Heart of Me series

-Art as in gallery art is still for the financially privileged. This book will serve Africa and its lovers, its thinkers, its tourists, its -Many Africans understand the relation between art and usefulness, visionaries, its dreamers, its builders, its explorers and its questioners. therefore they will not accept anything that does not stand. You have had two recent exhibitions in London and Switzerland, These are the two great barriers to exponential art consumption. what has the experience of taking your work outside Ivory Coast I hereby say that it is upon artists and their companions to find the been like for you and what has the response been like to date? solutions to give their art to the masses. When will this be properly On a personal level, it was great to be in London exhibiting with carried out? There is a balance of happiness and wealth that will also Galerie Cécile Fakhoury at the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair be struck on both sides. as London is the city where my will to become an artist rose and crystallised. The feedback and response in London was great and it In your book, At the Heart of Me, you talk about how your desire was the same experience in Switzerland. to tell a different story about Africa fuels the images that you create. What is that bigger story that you want to tell about What are you exploring about Ivorian society and what kind of Africa and the people represented in your work? conversation/s do you hope it evokes in art lovers and those who There are as many Africans as there are people perceiving that thing come in contact with your work? called Africa. At the Heart of Me is the visual and written first witness Ivorian society and especially its visual context, is providing me with account of a young man who aspires to attain the African Dream. a new vocabulary to tell universal stories. Indeed, whether it is from Japan, United States, Africa or France, those who have participated And what is the African Dream? in guided visits loved it. Regarding what I hope it generates, I would The African Dream is the African version of the Human Dream. At say that at first I want people to be entertained. Then, I would The Heart of Me can be considered the logbook of a contemporary love the art to help them in their lives one way or the other. For voyager, as he sails through the days and nights in attainment of the example, a young French woman visited Ivory Coast and came to the dream of dreams. There are two interwoven books within At the exhibition of my latest collection, Lilian’s Appeal at Cécile Fakhoury’s Heart of Me. One is a collection of colourful photo series, painting Gallery. As I gave her and others a guided tour of the exhibition, she the portrait of a vibrant world and the other is an ensemble of was attentive and silent. Later on Facebook she sent me a message anecdotes and insights experienced over the distance travelled. saying that she had been very touched by the world developed and Together, they constitute the trail left behind by a joyful journeyman. shown in Lilian’s Appeal and that she found herself receiving answers

46 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FOCUS - INTERVIEW

Dandelia, from Lililian’s Appeal series, 2012 to existential questions she had. I’m working on the sequel to Lilian’s Appeal, which will be ready later in the year. I will have early viewers this time, which will be the first What are you currently working on and what can be expected time I do so. For the next 5 to 10 years, I simply hope that much from you in the next 5 to 10 years? more of the vision would have been realised if not better.

47 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MODERN AND CONTEMPORARY ART

ArtHouse Contemporary holds the highest sales records for modern and contemporary art in Nigeria and Sub Saharan Africa.

Ben Enwonwu, Anyanwu, 1956, bronze, 142.2 cm Sold for N30,800,000 ($ 192,500) November 21, 2011

Ben Enwonwu, Fulani Girl, 1957, fibre glass, 78cm Sold for N17,050,000 ($ 106,563) November 18, 2013

Ben Enwonwu, The Drummer, 1957, fibre, 89cm Sold for N14,300,000 ($89,375) November 18, 2013

El Anatsui, Ends and Means Committee, 2013, wood and aluminum, 106 x 217cm Sold for N13,200,000 ($82,500) November 18, 2013

www.arthouse-ng.com MARKET FILE COLLECTOR, AUCTIONS, GALLERY

When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.

Ansel Adams

49 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

BOMI ODUFUNADE IN CONVERSATION WITH SIMON OTTENBERG

Installation view: The Art of Translation

What begun as a research trip to Nigeria in the 1950s, resulted in what is now regarded as one of the most important collections of the arts of Africa in the world. In over 50 years, Dr. Simon Ottenberg, professor emeritus at the University of Washington in Seattle built a renowned and historic art collection, acquiring works of painting, sculpture and prints throughout Africa, as well as assembling a compelling collection of carvings, masks, household tools and ceremonial objects. The collection’s strength lies in its historical richness, documenting the varying traditions of artists producing work on the continent from 1950 to 1991 amidst the Pre- and Post-independence period. It is a testament to Ottenberg’s occupation as a cultural anthropologist, wherein, he collected works for pleasure and for research interests, never seeing Wthem as investments. In 2012, he gifted 145 major works of modern and contemporary African art from his personal collection to the Newark Museum in New Jersey, where a selection of works are now on view in the exhibition, The Art of Translation. Presenting a historical overview of modern and contemporary Nigerian art, the show features 24 works spanning the 1940s to 2000, by artists including Bruce Onobrakpeya, Jacob Afolabi, Obiora Udechukwu, Ada Udechukwu, Chinwe Uwatse, Olu Oguibe, Chika Okeke-Agulu and Marcia Kure. The noted scholar says, “I collected West African objects until the mid-1980s for pleasure. By then, good affordable African pieces became hard to find and I stopped. But between 1992 and 1997, I did research on contemporary Nigerian art, curated an exhibition, and wrote a book, for which I purchased works from Nigerian artists.”

The Art of Translation is a powerful survey, both in its scale and focused presentation. It openly illustrates the story of a nation grappling with cultural and social evolution within the geopolitical landscape of Pre- and Post colonialism. Grouped in chronological order, the works, all on paper, reveal the aesthetics, and cultural contexts of art in African society. The show comprises of many captivating gems including works by one of the pioneers and masters of modern art, Akinola Lasekan. This early watercolour of a famous Yoruba king, Ajaka of Owo or Ajaka Owa (ca. 1944) painted while Nigeria

50 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

Uche Okeke, The Unknown Brute, 1959, lithograph of an ink drawing on paper, 30 x 20cm The Simon Ottenberg Collection, gift to the Newark Museum, 2012, copyright the artist

was still a British colony; the Cubist Abstract work, Njikoka Series (1982) by E. Okechukwu Odita, revitalises the tired traditions of Western art challenging conventional forms of representation; and a suite of ink drawings from the Oja Suite (1962) by Uche Okeke. In 1960, Okeke declared in the Zaria Art Society Manifesto, “Our new society calls for a synthesis of old and new, of functional art and art for its sake.” He formed a rebel arts group with fellow artist, Bruce Onobrakpeya and others adopting new styles within the artistic process. The drawings highlight the process of their construction, making evident the diligence with which they were made. Embracing a new visual language from uli, an Igbo painting tradition, this group of works demonstrates that the drawings remain contemporary and relevant, continuing to engage.

51 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

Akinola Lasekan, Ajaka of Owo or Ajaka Owa, ca. 1944, watercolour and gouache on paper, 60 x 50cm The Simon Ottenberg Collection, gift to the Newark Museum, 2012

52 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

Chika Okeke-Agulu, Knotty Affair, 1993, watercolour on paper, 37.5 x 55cm The Simon Ottenberg Collection, gift to the Newark Museum, 2012, copyright the artist

“We are thrilled to be the home for this important collection,” adds Dr. Christa Clarke, the museum’s Senior Curator, Arts of Africa. “With Dr. Ottenberg’s transformative gift, the museum can present more comprehensively, the creative contributions of Africa’s artists over the past century, and in doing so, contribute to an expanded understanding of art movements across the globe.”

Omenka’s London and New York editor, Bomi Odufunade speaks to the enigmatic scholar about Africa, collecting and his legacy.

OM:You started collecting over 50 years ago. What specifically and printmakers, employing European art techniques (which they led you to collecting the arts of Africa? sometimes modified in Nigeria) and African scenes, both traditional I studied Anthropology at Northwestern University from 1949 to and modern. I was intrigued by this new art and collected some 1953, the first major African Studies program in the United States. works in Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Europe and the United States and Our two major professors (Melville J. Herskovits and William R. continued to do so until almost recently. In the 1960s, there were Bascom) had both collected African art and were enthusiastic over maybe twenty Nigerian modern artists in the country. By the time it. Then I went to Nigeria in the early 1950s to study Afikpo social I studied a group of artists from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka organization, kinship and local level politics. There I discovered in the 1970s, there were several hundred of them, many trained in these wonderful traditional-style masquerades, some with over fifty Nigerian universities, technical colleges and schools of education. I masqueraders and so I studied that too. This resulted in an article collected many works from Nsukka, which forms the heart of my in a book, Humorous Masks and Serious Politics at Afikpo, and a book, modern African collection, now at the Newark Museum. Masked Ritual of Afikpo: The Context of an African Art. I used to pass through Lagos and sometimes visited Ibadan. In both places, and in OM: What other works do you have in your personal collection? galleries, I came upon the interesting work of painters, sculptors I am a collector at heart and have also collected several hundred

53 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

Northwest Coast Native American and Canadian First peoples’ silkscreen works. This grew out of living since 1954, in the Pacific Northwest, where, as in Africa, I watched the development of ethnic consciousness and the related arts in local Native American communities. I have donated some three hundred of these silk screen works to two Seattle museums.

OM: What was your first purchase? I do not remember what my first purchase was. Perhaps it was a work by Kevin Echeruo, a young, not yet well-trained Igbo artist, who had a show in Enugu in 1960. It was a village scene, a genre work. Unfortunately, he died of illness at the time of the Biafran war. When I bought these modern works in the early days, I knew virtually nothing about them or their artists. They were low in price and I had a little money in my pocket. I just liked them; sculpture, painting and prints.

OM: Many works in the collection demonstrate artists engaging in their countries’ cultural and aesthetic traditions such as in Nigerian artist, Uche Okeke’s The Unknown Brute (1959) and drawings from the Oja Suite (1962) where the artist is evoking a new visual language derived from uli, a traditional Igbo design. Would you say your selection of works is a reflection of your anthropological background when choosing and acquiring pieces for your collection? As an anthropologist, I tend to focus on the social lives of artists and how this influenced their art. I am not trained in art history and have difficulty describing art works in art historical terms. I was never trained to see. An art historian can look at a work of art and tell how it was built up, and is more conscious of contrasts in planes and in colours than I am. I am interested in the lives of artists.

OM: Your personal collection is remarkable for its number of iconic Pre-and Post independence period works by Nigerian artists. Included in the selection of paintings gifted to Newark Museum are various notable works such as, Ajaka of Owo or Ajaka Owa (1944 ) by one of the pioneers of art in Nigeria, the late Akinola Lasekan and E. Okechukwu Odita’s Njikoka Series (1982), father of renowned artist Odili Donald Odita. Why is Nigeria so significant and important to your collection? Because Nigeria is where I did much of my research and because it is rich in artists, formerly traditional ones, and now modern ones. There are now over several thousand practicing modern artists in Nigeria, numerous galleries in Lagos, some in Abuja and Ibadan, and a Lagos art auction house.

OM: You have also acquired works by artists from South Africa, Sierra Leone and Ghana. Are there any other artists from other countries on the continent that particularly interest you but have yet to purchase? Yes, there are other artists, but living in Seattle and not travelling widely, I am not as aware of them, as I otherwise might be. I would have liked to collect Ibrahim El-Salahi, a Sudanese artist, and the South African artist, Gavin Jantjes.

OM: The growth of technology on the continent has led to E. Okechukwu Odita, Panel 4-Njikoka Series, 1982, screenprint on paper, 87.5 x 44cm experimentation of digital photography and video among artists. The Simon Ottenberg Collection, gift to the Newark Museum, 2012, copyright the artist What are your interests, if any, in say new media?

54 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

Marcia Kure, Emerging from the Whirlwinds - for Chika, 1997, watercolor and pencil on paper, 75 x 55cm The Simon Ottenberg Collection, gift to the Newark Museum, 2012, copyright the artist

I have not followed new media. Though I like the video work been twenty five mannequins, fully dressed in masquerade costumes, of William Kentridge, the South African artist, and I found his representing two masquerade forms at Afikpo in the African section recent Metropolitan Opera direction of Shostakovich’s The Nose, of the Seattle Art Museum. I would also like to see some exhibitions fascinating. I would like to collect some of his art. of work by Muslim traditional and modern artists from the Western Sudan area, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Mali, Senegal, and so on. Their art, OM: What is the last work of art you recently purchased? while rarely representative, has been neglected. I do not remember the last work I obtained. It was a few years ago. OM: What will happen to the remaining works in the Simon OM: In 1997, you were instrumental in conceiving the seminal Ottenberg collection? exhibition, The Poetics of Line: Seven Artists of the Nsukka Group, The remaining works in my modern African collection will go to the at the National Museum of African Art (Smithsonian) in Newark Museum, my Native American works to the Seattle Art Washington. Are there any other exhibitions you would like to Museum and The Burke Museum at the University of Washington. see or initiate? I was involved in an exhibition which you may not know of, at the Seattle Art Museum. I donated a fairly complete range of masks from Afikpo, the Igbo group. Pam McClusky, the Curator of African Art at Seattle Art Museum, suggested that I go back and collect The Art of Translation: The Simon Ottenberg Gift of Modern and Contemporary Nigerian dresses and costumes, that she would include a masquerade of Art is on view at Newark Museum, 49 Washington Street, New Jersey through to 26 mannequins for the exhibition. For the past five years, there have January 2014, or visit www.newarkmuseum.org.

55 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURE

Copyright Orla Conolly

56 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 THE WALTHER COLLECTION WORDS DANIELA ROTH, TRANSLATION GRETA DUNN

57 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

Sammy Baloji, Untitled 7, from “Memories,” 2006

Okwui Enwezor, Director of the Haus der and the fourth houses the administration The founder, Artur Walther was born in Kunst in Munich and designated Director and library. It is located in a quiet residential Neu-Ulm Burlafingen, studied at Harvard, of the 56th Biennale in Venice (2015), area, and care has been taken to scale the was a successful banker in New York, and curated the first exhibition of the Walther architecture to the surrounding buildings. after renouncing his banker profession, Collection, Events of the Self: Portraiture and The only new building is the main exhibition turned to photography via a friendship Social Identity in Neu-Ulm. He also edited the house, the “Weiße Haus” (White House), with Bernd and Hilla Becher, concentrating accompanying exhibition catalogue. Events a cube containing a large exhibition area entirely on the aesthetics. Today, his of the Self was the beginning of a series on the ground floor. The other buildings collection comprises an internationally of exhibitions covering several years of were originally local residences. One house important stock of contemporary African African photography and video art from the belongs to Artur Walther’s mother, today it and Asian photography. For him, it is the Walther Collection. is called the “Schwarze Haus” (Black House) social relevance of the exhibits that is of the collection and has an exhibition area most important in all his exhibitions. Every This international private collection is divided into three galleries. The “Grüne year or two, there is a new exhibition in concentrated on the discovery, collection, Haus” (Green House) is a residential house Burlafingen. This means new purchases can exhibition and publishing of modern and from the 1950s, typical of the area. The be made to fine-tune the exhibition profile contemporary photography and video interior is made up of cabinet-like rooms, and to enlarge the collection. art, and is sponsored by the non-profit which are suitable for exhibiting works in Walther Family Foundation. The main site a small format. The exterior is covered The first exhibition,Events of the Self: of the collection is in Neu-Ulm Burlafingen, with ivy, hence the name. The museum in Portraiture and Social Identity presented Germany. Neu-Ulm Burlafingen was opened in June, three generations of African photographers 2010. Since April 2011, there has been a from the 1940s until today. The main The exhibition location is comprised of second location in New York – the Walther emphasis was on the development of four buildings; three are exhibition rooms Collection Project Space. portrait photography and posed the

58 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

question as to how artists can make social Appropriated Landscapes curated by Corinne them, allegorizing their dependence on change visible via portrait photography, Diserens comprises 200 photo and video their environment. Works from the 1950s while at the same time expressing their ideas works by 14 contemporary artists. The up until the 1990s were exhibited; black- of status, gender, sexuality and ethnicity. beauty of the landscape in southern Africa and-white silver-gelatin prints, architectural Enwezor juxtaposed African discoveries such stands in contrast to the aftermath of “structures”, high-rise buildings and as Seydou Keïta, the classic works of August apartheid. Numerous photographs have “Bantustans” – homelands, separate Sander and the Hairstyles by J. D. ‘Okhai brought the inhuman rituals of the regime residential areas of the black population. Ojeikere with the industrial photographs of into plain view for the world public. This Both geographic and ideological structures. Bernd and Hilla Becher – based solely on South African photography draws its formal comparisons. Enwezor collected the significance from the political dimension. Photo essays by Santu Mofokeng from the basis of the entire “African photography” The exhibition does not link the empathy 1980s when he lived in Soweto are also for Artur Walther. Portrait art and social of a landscape solely with the historical shown; daily life in the township and on the change; typologies and taxonomies; as well concepts of what is picturesque or sublime, farms, religious rituals and the landscape. as figuration and theatricality are the subject but regards landscape “as a prism of Beyond stereotyped news images of violence areas that interest Enwezor intellectually. He experience, as a reflection of ideology and poverty in Soweto, they make up an shows eroticism and identity by means of and a manifestation of memory”. The “authentic archive” of rural life, as well as of works by Rotimi Fani-Kayode and presents great chronicler, David Goldblatt gives the self-conception and the family histories of self-display and performance to advantage viewer insight into the social conditions of black South Africans. The famous picture, with Oladélé Ajiboyé Bamgboyé, Yto Barrada, South Africa – an almost unsurpassable, Winter in Tembisia from 1991(Tembisia Theo Eshetu and Samuel Fosso. heterogeneous picture. His photographic was founded as a township in 1957), an vision often penetrates the depths of the OMO commercial set in a mist-shrouded The second exhibition shows landscape space and encloses the human figures landscape, was hung resplendent in the photography, mainly from southern Africa. within the city or landscapes surrounding stairwell. The Billboards show photographs

59 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

Pieter Hugo, Yasser Booley, Cape Town,, from “There’s a Place in Hell for Me & My Friends”, 2011

60 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - COLLECTOR

of an artificial world of goods in the midst of bleak township-street landscapes. Mofokeng states that the Billboards served as “instruments of power” during apartheid, promulgating laws and prohibitions. Today, they appear to float – over-large advertising billboards aimed solely at the automobile traffic, seemingly completely divorced from the real life below and on their own level of meaning and image.

The South African photographer, Jo Ractliffe presents the series, As Terras do Fim do Mundo (Land at the End of the World), a discussion with the war-torn landscapes of Angola (works from 2007 to 2010). The photographs are analytical while at the same symbolic; the eerily still, rural views are revealed at closer sight as nameless monuments, anonymous mass graves or minefields.

Pictures of South African and Mozambican landscapes, architecture, social rituals and migration – these are referenced, for instance, by Guy Tillim: one is Grand Hotel Mozambique from 2008, an enormous, decaying concrete palace. Tillim gathers architecture from the decolonization period in Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Mozambique in his series, Avenue Patrice Lumumba, thereby commemorating the first head of state of Samuel Fosso, La femme americaine liberee des annees 70, 1997 independent Congo, murdered by the Allies. Sabelo Mlangeni’s, series At Home shows the themes of portrait and landscape, impart the understanding of an archive as a a village world marked by its own specific this exhibition offers the concluding view stillness and breadth. With Country Girls repository and ideal representation. In the of the early history of photography in from 2009, the South African photographer contemporary section, a “contra archive” Africa. Distance and Desire gathers portrait achieves an intimate portrait of the life of by Santu Mofokeng is shown; ethnographic photographs, cartes de visite, postcards, homosexuals in the country, taken almost photographs worked into large-format album pages and books from the southern for granted there. Juxtaposed to this, Zanele collages – by Sammy Baloji, Sue Williamson Muholi, a young South African activist and and eastern regions of Africa, from the late and Candice Breitz, for instance, as well photographer, thematizes the discrimination nineteenth to the early twentieth centuries. against lesbian women as Bodyscapes. A It includes historic photographs from as staged portraits by Samuel Fosso and video film by Penny Siopis,Obscure White unknown photographers, as well as from C.J. Kudzanai Chiurai. Zwelethu Mthethwa Messenger, 2010, shows poetic images from Aldham, Samuel Baylis and Barnard Barnett and Zanele Muholi examine the relation & Co. to W.D. Young. These are set against memory – an inner landscape indeed. between sexuality, modern dress and ritual. contemporary photographs and videos from In 2015, the collection will dedicate itself The third exhibition, Distance and Desire, Philip Kwame Apagya, Jodie Bieber, Sammy Encounters with the African Archive, curated Baloji, Kudzanai Chiurai, Samuel Fosso, Jo to a series of exhibitions that will present by the photo-historian, Tamar Garb, is the Ractliffe and Sue Williamson. The carefully the photographic concepts of typology, first exhibition in the Walther Collection curated presentation includes individual taxonomy and seriality in cross-cultural that focuses on historic photographs, and portraits of warriors, women with beautiful studies (how related form languages appear is the third and last part of the exhibition hair arrangements and curiously decorated in different parts of the world). Works by cycle dedicated to the African section of the children. It shows group portraits, as well as artists and photographers from Africa, Asia, Walther Collection. It is to be seen until May ethnographic photographs that owe their 17, 2015. (Thursday to Sunday, viewing by provenance to the stereotyped view and the United States and Germany will be appointment and with a guide.) Following curiosity of the colonial rulers, and today placed in a common context.

61 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - AUCTIONS HIGHLIGHTS OF BONHAMS SOUTH AFRICAN SALES IN 2013 WORDS IJEOMA LOREN UCHE-OKEKE

Gerard Sekoto (1913-1993), Girl with Guitar, 1949, oil on canvas, 79 x 98cm. Sold £86,500, courtesy of Bonhams

In the past few years, at local and international auctions, work by South African artists have fetched record prices. Works that sold were mostly by artists considered to be South African “masters”, such as Irma Stern, Walter Battiss, J.H. Pierneef, Alexis Preller and Gerard Sekoto. Leading contemporary artists like William Kentridge and Brett Murray also continue to fetch record prices. These auctions are led by the 2 main auction houses, Strauss & Co and Stephan Welz & Co, closely followed by Pretoria’s Bernardi Auctioneers, that have organised major sales in South Africa in recent years.

The two Bonhams South African auctions in March and October of 2013 recorded good sales. The March 2013 sale, A Focus on Kentridge, was dedicated to the work of the contemporary South African artist. Responsible Hedonism by Kentridge was sold for £115,250

62 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - AUCTIONS

(R1,958,946), while Head (Green) went for £73, 250 (R1, 245, 056). Vladimir Griegovich Tretchikoff’sChinese Girl achieved a record sale of £1m. Other works sold at the March auction are Pieter Hugo Naudé’s Garden of Remembrance, Worcester for £3,125 and Anton van Wouw’s sculpture, The Hammer Worker for £15,000. Irma Stern’s Malay Bride also sold at a record price of £1.2 million. Bonhams next The South African Sale comes up on 19 March and 1 October, 2014.

Giles Peppiatt heads the South African Department at Bonhams and is considered one of the top experts on South African art. Bonhams is currently the leading auction house in this field. However, it could in the very near future be facing competition from Sotheby’s, another player that is expanding its African department and market. There is also Artnet Auctions, an online auctioneer that is fairly new but making positive strides in the industry.

Top 5 at Bonhams South African Sales, October 2013

Artist Title and Date Sold £

Irma Stern The Malay Bride within original £1,202,500 (South African, 1894-1966) Zanzibar frame,1942

Irma Stern Still Life with Amaryllis (South African, 1894-1966) 1940 £326,500

Irma Stern Malay Girl with Fruit in carved wood (South African, 1894-1966) Zanzibar-style frame £182,500 1949

Jacob Hendrik Pierneef Wheatfields near Stellenbosch £86,500 (South African, 1886-1957)

Gerard Sekoto Girl with Guitar £86,500 (South African, 1913-1993) 1949

63 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - AUCTIONS AFRICAN CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY AT AUCTIONS WORDS ROMINA PROVENZI

Research and acquisitions of contemporary African art are the new Malick Sidibé, Gideon Mendel, and Okhai Ojeikere who are well trend in the international contemporary art scene. Museums, fairs established and whose works are highly valued. The second level is and galleries are all strengthening capacity in this art niche. London represented by artists whose profiles are maturing and prices are has become an art hub for this market and shows of African art are on the rise, like Raphael Leonce Agbodjelou, and Mario Macilau. now abundant: in October 2013 the new fair, 1:54 Contemporary Finally, the third tier is represented by other young, dynamic artists African Art Fair was launched, and contemporary African artists that are not so established but show potential, such as Uche James- are included in numerous museum shows. In February 2013, Iroha and Francois-Xavier Gbre’ to mention a few names. Often, the Tate Modern, the leading museum of contemporary art in even members of the low-end of the market often have works London, presented two exhibitions of major contemporary African exposed in international exhibitions and their profiles are on the rise. artists: the Ibrahim El Salahi: a Visionary Modernist and a series of Meshac Gaba’s installations grouped under the title, The Museum of Buying photography at auctions can be involving and novel players Contemporary African Art. African contemporary art is also well sold at need to know well the rules of the game to be successful. The auction houses and private galleries. bidding process is not straightforward, it has specific rules and costs, and it involves finding out the exact place and time of the offerings. In the vast production of contemporary African art, photography Bidding can be done in person in the sales room after registration is the section of the market that received substantial attention or on the phone through an auction house representative. An from collectors and dealers. According to Ed Cross, an African art increasing number of sales are held online as well and simply specialist from The Auction Room, it provides an accessible way require online registration before the bidding starts. In the bidding to connect to African art and it is of immediate understanding room, bids start low, and the auctioneer subsequently calls out to a broad audience. The market has also other explanations higher prices. When the item is hammered down, it means that no for the success of photography over other forms of art: African bidders are willing to offer a higher price and the final purchasing photography can be affordable, is probably undervalued, but can price had been reached. However, if the bidding does not reach the also be very exclusive. Works of young and mid-career African secret reserve price agreed between the auction house and the artists are still relatively cheap and therefore worthwhile to arts seller, the work will remain unsold. Consequently, the work might enthusiasts and investors. However, works of well-established be taken off the market or auctioned again at a later date. For African photographers can be pricey and their value has held on every auction, a pre-sale catalogue is published with information well throughout the years. Compared to other contemporary on each work coming up for sale as the title, the artist, the size of art markets, the African art market is segmented across three the work, and the low and the high pre-sale price estimate. The main tiers. The first tier is represented by top-end artists such as estimate price doesn’t include the buyers’ premium, which consists

64 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - AUCTIONS

Lot 156, Malick Sidibé, (b. 1935), Les Vrais Lycéennes, Bal Fin d’Année, Lycée de Filles, 1966 Selections from The Baio Collection of Photography, New York, Rockefeller Plaza, April 15, 2010, Sale 2407

65 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - AUCTIONS

Mário Macilau, (b. Mozambique, 1984 ), A Young Girl With Toy, 2011

of an additional fee generally twenty percent of the hammer price £2,000. Other significant results were reached for the work entitled, excluding VAT. Therefore, it is very sensible that the buyer have clear Hercule Africain (1970) by Malick Sidibé from Mali that sold for ideas on which works he intends to acquire and how much higher he £2,233 and had an estimate of £ 2,000; however, his work entitled intends to bid before entering the auction. One important aspect of Boxeurs en demonstration (1965) sold for £1,880 despite having an the market of contemporary photography is that once a project is initial sale estimate of £2,000. Finally the work, A Young Girl With Toy completed, the printed photographs should be numbered. In general (2011) by Mario Macilau from Mozambique sold for £1,310 and had practice, photographs are issued on a limited number and in different an estimate of £1,000. The Auction Room will be holding an auction sizes. The smaller the number, the better the value. of African Contemporary Photography on 28 May, 2014.

At present, works of contemporary African photographers are Confirmation of the rising prices of contemporary African art usually included in large sales of photography or contemporary sales are from other market players. For instance, 8Paddle, a newly African art. It is still relatively rare to find a specific sale dedicated founded online auction house based in New York, included two to African contemporary photography, exceptions include the works by Malick Sidibé entitled, Portrait Studio and Dansez le twist in newly founded, ‘The Auction Room’, an online auction house the online auction, House Sale on 31 October, 2013. They were sold based in London. The Auction Room also devotes one auction per within minutes of the bidding. Finally, contemporary African art also year to contemporary African artworks, and it is typically offered attracts non-profit auctions, as the one entitled,Articulate organized in October, which is the prominent month for contemporary art by the charity, Dramatic Need at the Victoria Miro gallery in London in London due to the numerous fairs, auctions and openings of in November 2013. At the auction, a work by Mario Macilau entitled, important museum exhibitions. Sales from their latest auction in Taking a Shower (2012) received the highest number of bids, another October were impressive and virtually all the photographs were sold clear sign on how African art appeals to a broad audience of art approximately 20% above their initial estimates. For example, the enthusiasts. artwork entitled, A woman recovers building materials from her shack that had been burnt down the previous day (1986) by Gideon Mendel Christie’s, the well-established British auction house also offers from South Africa was sold for £2,350 and had an estimate of works by the top African photographers as part of larger sales. In

66 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - AUCTIONS

Gideon Mendel, (b. South Africa, 1959), A woman recovers building materials from her shack that had been burnt down the previous day, 1986 Est: £2,000 - £3,000

October 2012, Christie’s Paris held the sale, Rendez-vous Interieurs some African artists working with photography are still wary of contemporains that included work by well-established African artist, having their works sold at auctions, but things are fast changing and Malick Sidibé entitled, Le deux amis (1971) that sold for €3,250 and audacious collectors are snatching very good works at reasonable had a starting estimate of € 2,500. Another interesting sale was the prices, benefitting from a market that is still easily accessible. Selections from the Baio Collection of Photography held at Christie’s New York in April 2010, which included a Malick Sidibé work entitled, Les Vrais Lyceennes, Bal Fin d’Annee, Lycee de Filles (1966) that sold for $2,500 and had an estimate of $2,000. The success of African art at international auctions is relatively recent. In November 2002, Christie’s Paris included Les Nouveaux Circoncis by Malick Sidibé It is still relatively rare to in the sale, Photographies and sold for €1,880 despite having an initial estimate of €2,000. Finally, Bonhams holds in May every year a sale find a specific sale dedicated called, Africa Now, which did include some photography works that sold well above the initial estimate. Regional auction houses are to African contemporary art, also operating directly on the territory as in the case of Arthouse Contemporary in Nigeria. exceptions include the newly Not all the auction houses are engaged with contemporary African founded ‘The Auction Room’, art. For instance, Sotheby’s is among those auction houses that are not offering works of contemporary photography art yet, but we an online auction house based shouldn’t be surprised if they will catch up with it in the near future. Despite its upward trend and favourable market estimates, African in London. contemporary art is still a niche market that is not able to fetch the prices of other contemporary artworks in photography. Apparently

67 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - GALLERY PORTRAIT OF A GALLERY: JOACHIM MELCHERS, GALLERY OWNER AND PUBLISHER WORDS DANIELA ROTH, TRANSLATION GRETA DUNN

Joachim Melchers receives his visitors in the new gallery premises in Ankomah from Ghana who lives in Bremen and works with symbols downtown Aachen. Art at ARTCO is presented in spacious, multi- from his homeland and from Europe. “This is where two worlds faceted, airy and light surroundings: painting, sculpture, installation collide”, says Melchers. Godfried Donkor, also from Ghana, and art, photography. Melchers is known far beyond Germany’s borders living in London, reflects the historic connections between Africa as a gallery owner specializing in contemporary African art – and and Europe in his art. Manuela Sambo, an artist with Angolan roots contemporary African art is booming. living in Berlin, spans the arc between the old European masters and African masks; she uses models from the history of European art. Melchers becomes specific; his main emphasis is on contemporary African art, but he does not represent any “Africa labels”. His artists Joachim Melchers manages the gallery together with his wife, Jutta represent international contemporary art from India to Holland. and colleague, Arthur Ewert. Melchers had his beginnings in the These artists come mainly from the diaspora. This is what is so music industry. He worked for an international music company special about this gallery– the scope of its content. before setting up for himself in 1984, when he founded printing companies, which he sold to an American media company several “How do the artists deal with being caught between two stools?” is years ago. In the print shops, there were exhibition areas for art a question that interests Joachim Melchers. This is because he has where Melchers showed EL Loko, for instance. “He infected me observed that it is not until they are in Europe that the artists really with the Africa virus twenty-five years ago”, says Melchers. “He take a look at Africa, and really enter into an exchange with both was the first artist I bought works from. That was when I began areas of life. “Due to this marked clash, the works – the expression to collect: I caught the art virus and the Africa virus and fell in love of the pictures – is strong, an expression that moves me. They don’t with the continent itself.” Melchers has supported various projects, have to be pretty, but they show strength and depict the struggle among them the European-African Inspiration, collecting funds that the artist continually engages in.” through customers and suppliers. In 2003, he decided to turn his “hobby” into a profession. Together with Jutta, who is a successful art A “struggle”, a confrontation, a connection or a mixture of diverse photographer, he founded ARTCO – an art agency which managed cultural influences runs like a scarlet thread through all these artists’ the artists, then developed into an art gallery. Melchers, his wife works whether sculpture, painting or installation. Traditional African and Arthur Ewert, who has been with the company for the last art follows a particular design – as does European art. The pre- four years, are the decision makers. In addition, he hires freelance eminent question is: Is something happening here or not? This is the help for the administration. Joachim Melchers manages the “three primary criterion for the selection for the gallery’s programme. In a pillars”; exhibitions in the gallery; collaboration with other galleries, cumulative effect, Joachim Melchers has often met “West to West” art associations and museums; and art fairs. Arthur Ewert’s area artists through others. Most of them have their origins in West of responsibility is the set-up of the exhibitions; that of Jutta, the Africa and have travelled to the “West”; as did EL Loko who studied photography, international photography exhibitions and the design with Joseph Beuys. With an African-Togolese background, he is the of the books, which is another important area. Supplemental to the most famous African-German artist. Another example is Owusu- gallery, ARTCO publishes art books and artists’ monographs, roughly

68 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - GALLERY

Joachim Melchers, copyright Jutta Melchers

69 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - GALLERY

The market is there – and it is not only made up of large collectors. It is the gallery owner’s task to continue to develop these markets, to tap them. I have a product and I have to ensure it is sold.

showing works by EL Loko, Ransome Stanley, Owusu-Ankomah, Manuela Sambo and Godfried Donkor.

In Germany, there are not very many large-scale collectors of contemporary art and therefore, not many collectors of contemporary African art. However, there are a considerable number of collectors of ancient African art. This group is just beginning to develop an interest in enlarging their collections with contemporary art. “The market is there – and it is not only made up of large collectors. It is the gallery owner’s task to continue to develop these markets, to tap them. I have a product and I have to ensure it is sold. The artists expect me to put butter on their bread.” This, in Melchers’ view, is how artists are established: via good galleries, good museums, good exhibitions, and good auction results. “The gallery owner has to have a good network in place, with contacts to the institutions”.

There was a time when it was important to show African artists in an African context – the message of the exhibition, Africa Remix in 2004. Was, there is such a thing as contemporary African art? In Germany, African art was for many years regarded as inseparable Jutta Melchers, copyright Marco Rosse from the context of the society as a whole – art shown together with cooking pots and woven carpets. “This was due to lack of knowledge” says Melchers. Today, the artists have arrived; namely in six to eight a year. Among them also, publications on artists who are the art museums, institutions, biennials or the dOCUMENTA. “This not represented in the gallery. “That is, pure publishing work in order is thanks to the efforts of the artists and dealers or gallery owners. to promote art. We do not only bring out exhibition catalogues, but The gallery owners undertook the constructive work and artists in the monographs on the artists, we show specific phases of work. such as EL Loko have always struggled for their emancipation, even This can, of course, be concurrent with an exhibition.” The books at times refusing to exhibit. This happened elsewhere, for instance, therefore, are a documentary of the work of the artists; they serve in the United States. In France and England, it was easier due to to embed them in the context of art and are lively and easy to read. the historic and economic context. In Belgium also, Africa is not as After all, art is to be shared and sold. exotic as it is for the Germans, who are acquainted with her briefly from their holidays in Kenya with the Robinson Club. Now we have Currently ARTCO has two premises: Herzogenrath and – since reached the point where Africans are losing their Africa label. But September 2013, Aachen. Both in the border triangle of Germany, they are not losing their identity! The label has an external effect, Belgium and Holland, where Brussels, Liège and Paris, Maastricht and now the individual artists are at the forefront. The cultural and London are just around the corner, as are Cologne and Frankfurt. In geographical context is becoming less important as the artists assert Aachen, Melchers has already motivated two or three collectors to themselves on the international, global scene.” buy “Africans”. As with Africa also, “Art is always the main subject”. Altogether there are eight to ten of their own exhibitions, plus – in The emancipation of the artists also takes place from the viewers’ 2014 – between two and three art fairs a year. Joachim Melchers perspective. Good art has an effect. It is only at the second step one describes his collaboration with other galleries and exhibitions in asks after the artist. Who made this? other venues as extraordinary: “We pull out all the stops.” Having Travelled Far took place in 2013 at the Omenka Gallery in Lagos, Joachim Melchers doesn’t think much of the “curator” as a

70 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 MARKET FILE - GALLERY

ARTCO Gallery space, Aachen, copyright Jutta Melchers

profession. “At a fair everyone is a curator. This doesn’t mean a He was the first artist I thing. There are half-a-dozen good African curators. The main thing is to know good art and to know the artists.” In this collaboration bought works from. That was between artists, gallery owners and museums – purchases by museums are extremely important! – works of contemporary when I began to collect: I African art must be established in the realms of art history. Melchers has supplied works to the Bremer Städtischen Galerie, to Dak’Art in caught the art virus and the Senegal, the biennial in Dakar and the fairs in South Africa such as the Jo’burg Art Fair and the fair in Cape Town, which is taking place Africa virus and fell in love for the second time. “Ultimately, we are bringing the artists back, via our international activities, back to Africa.” with the continent itself.

71 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 ZEGNA: THE ART OF CLOTHING

Courtesy of Zegna LIFESTYLELIFESTYLE

ZEGNA: THE ART OF CLOTHING WORDS NANA OCRAN

‘If you build it, they will come’. This well-worn phrase can pretty much apply to any kind of edifice or physical landscape, but in the context of luxury boutiques, the new Ermenegildo Zegna outlet in Nigeria is the focal point.

The luxury Italian menswear brand launched its first West African flagship store in Victoria Island, Lagos, at the tail end of 2013. This opening saw a requisite red carpet celebration, with guests from Zegna’s Milan HQ rubbing shoulders with elite invitees including; socialite and Globe Motors Executive, Nkiru Anumudu, fashionista, Bola Balogun, media doyenne, Mo Abudu and airline guru, Richard Akerele.

It was a sterling occasion, and a pioneering one in terms of creating a landmark affair to highlight the fact that Nigeria, or Lagos at least, is on its way to becoming a luxury hotspot. Zegna isn’t alone in offering elite merchandise on West African soil. Regarding fashion items, available brands include Versace, Dolce & Gabbana, Polo, Cartier and Rolex; all heavyweight acquisitions that can be found in multi-brand outlets within the country – but as far as having a stand alone shop – Zegna is the first. LIFESTYLE

Courtesy of Zegna Courtesy of Zegna

The Akin Adesola Street store joins Zegna’s international stable of then, the expansion of venues has developed in line with a growth boutiques, with venue numbers now hovering somewhere around of products that includes textiles, ties, shirts, knitwear, accessories, the 560 mark in a global map that includes Europe, Asia and the fragrances and sportswear. Although there’s also a concessionary United States. With the Zegna group’s top of the range Couture suit Agnona line of womenswear, the Zegna brand falls very much into collection featuring complete pieces in the undeniably upscale region the classic world of impeccable men’s tailoring. Even this whistle stop of US$2,300-US$6,500, there’s a clear indication of the type of quality history points to the fact that the pioneering founder was something and the market segment that the Zegna brand is aimed at. However, of a maestro; an artistic conductor, orchestrating an enterprising aside from the potential feel good factor of acquiring high-end and movement in stylish men’s fashion that has forged twenty-first exquisitely structured garment pieces, there’s something else that’s century partnerships with equally high-end labels – Gucci, Tom Ford tied to the heritage aspect of the Zegna name that’s far deeper and and Yves Saint Laurent, whose suits have all been manufactured by far more aesthetically tuned. It’s the company’s quintessential fusion of Zegna. Also, a 2011 licensing agreement with the US Estée Lauder Italian style and classic fashion philosophy that the sartorial Lagosian is Companies Inc., gives the world famous skin and personal care giant, ultimately buying into when he or she enters a Zegna boutique. exclusive global rights to market fragrances and to develop new cosmetics under the Ermenegildo Zegna group’s brands. For a fuller picture, it’s worth taking a retrospective stroll through the company’s early history. It was back in 1910 that the founder, That’s not a bad union for Zegna, which started life by offering good Ermenegildo Zegna first made his name as a producer of high quality quality, but general wool production from a factory base in Trivero – wool for suits. By 1968, his sons Aldo and Angelo had transformed a commune in northern Italy. Although, even at the Zegna company’s this family business into one that included made-to-measure pieces. early twentieth century inception, there was a strongly held Factories in Italy, Spain and Switzerland were the main hubs of philosophy of identifying and sticking to specific ideals of enterprise, activity, but it wasn’t until 1980 that a boutique store was eventually these being long-term goals, control by the family (to keep their opened in Paris, just before another was established in Milan. Since goals in place) and the employment of rigorous governance. The last

74 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 LIFESTYLE

founder of The Sartorialist magazine, Scott Schuman. He chose Los Angeles as an ideal backdrop for a video and fashion shoot that showcases seven Spring/Summer Zegna portraits for 2014.

The history and ‘look’ of Zegna merchandise begs the question, who exactly is the ‘Zegna’ man? It’s an interesting thought as the majority of the group’s advertising campaigns feature the familiarly bearded, lounge-like, slimline male models familiar to any Euro catwalk or magazine spread. Even a decade ago, the idiosyncratically featured, Oscar-winning character actor, Adrian Brody was the face of Zegna for two seasons. Each global region will have its campaign vibe, so it would be interesting to see if and how the preppy-cum-hipster Zegna image will translate to Victoria Island shoppers.

But, the Zegna man could be pretty much any individual who’s taken by refined, made-to-measure tailoring, whereby an existing Zegna pattern will be modified to fit the wearer. Similar, but different to the British bespoke tradition, in which a brand new and specifically cut pattern will be created and sculpted to fit the nuanced body shape of one individual, with different stages of suit fittings sometimes numbering upwards of five visits, along with multi selections from the ‘library’ of fabrics on offer.

Still, bespoke can often be a catch-all word for hand crafted suits made from high quality fabrics – although there are limits to the choice of buttons, linings and pocket style or lapel widths in the made-to-measure palette. Alternatively, a bespoke clothier who cuts the cloth and does the needlework will usually allow for limitless options. In either case, treading a line between made-to-measure and bespoke is obviously enticing for those who have the type of finances to comfortably match the quality of the product, without wincing.

Bearing these factors in mind, the multi layers of creative design Courtesy of Zegna activity, business savvy and social responsibility are key to the Zegna brand identity, and the company’s artistic side is obvious. In 2008, the specifically visual arts-based, All’Aperto (Outdoors) project was launched as part of the Zegna Foundation series. Curated by family element surely has links with the Zegna group’s specific ethics around member, Andrea Zegna and Milan-based writer and curator, Barbara wool production. The bond between farm and fashion was further Casavecchia, the vision is to make contemporary art and its values realised by the 2002 launch of the Ermenegildo Zegna Vellus Aureum accessible to a broad audience and to consistently support site-specific, Trophy for wool that’s 13.9 micron and finer, which to the uninitiated permanent artwork that’s significantly been created in the Trivero area means that the textile is of the high quality standard of the ultra-fine where the Zegna company first started. By working with established merino fleece that Zegna is famed for using in its clothing. international artists, the project’s mission is to address issues that directly relate to the community, the town and its inhabitants. Still, these measures are very much a part of the company’s laws and processes. Another dimension to the art of clothing is surely the All this may seem like a labyrinthine, or off-tangent way at looking more salubrious element of what could be referred to as the men’s at the arrival of Zegna on West African soil, but it’s interesting to movement in fashion. Even the Zegna website takes a playful look at consider the stories behind this particular heritage brand when it this phenomenon, with links to style-oriented blogs that detail the comes to its ability to move through different markets. Yes, the prices ways in which the Zegna world of muted grey or darker suits, check may seem steep for off-the-hanger or made-to-measure suits – shirts, tricolour patterned sweaters, rubber-soled lace-up shoes and despite the workmanship or calibre of fabric that may have gone into leather attaché cases can or should be stylishly worn. “Go tieless (or) them. Similar views could also be levelled at the company’s high-end take a leaf from David Lynch’s book and keep the top button of your fragrances or accessories that may, to some, seem indistinguishable shirt done up” is one sage piece of ensemble advice, as is the fact from, or just as stylish as that of many other brands. However, more that “patterned suiting is very of the moment, and looks just as good than simply buying into a well-known Italian name, it’s the added worn head to toe, or broken up with more casual elements.” Zegna’s factor of having a back story of culture, family integrity and artfully aesthetic credentials are taken a step further with another section symphonic business strategies that most likely make the experience of the website that features a selection of beautifully interpretative of browsing the shelves of a Lagos-located (or any other) Zegna images of its Couture collection by blogger, photographer and boutique that little bit more seductive.

75 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 DESTINATION

LAGOSWORDS NANA OCRAN

A total city, tailor made for adventure. –Odia Ofeimun

Courtesy of Kelechi Amadi-Obi

76 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 A total city, tailor made for adventure. –Odia Ofeimun

77 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 LIFESTYLE

The scribe and social commentator, Odia Ofeimun has said a lot of other things too, but there’s no arguing with his description of West Africa’s most vibrant metropolis. Many others have had even more romantic notions of the city, whether their opinions are based on being there, or perceptions of Lagos from afar. “Hard where you expect it to be soft, soft and graceful where you thought it was all hardness” comes from writer Teju Cole, while “ … a megacity of ten million people and more, who are busy taking over the world” was part of the introductory narrative from the BBC’s provocative Welcome to Lagos documentary, which aired back in 2010. A potent city, Lagos constantly courts a strong reaction from anyone who experiences it, and this is generally down to the dynamic vibe and rhythm that’s created by its art, culture, and even its social politics. The last few years have seen an upscale in international interest in Africa’s urban areas, and Lagos has lately become a buzzword for Installation view: LagosPhoto luxury in a way that’s set to grow. A so-called ‘hotspot’ for elite international brands, this former Nigerian capital is set to develop as a shopping destination for well-heeled Nigerians (and non- something for those travelling to Lagos’ various areas, from the Nigerians) who may, over the next few years, start to turn their Island to the Mainland or to the commercial hub of Victoria Island or gaze away from Europe and the United States when it comes to residential Ikoyi. some of their shopping habits. It’s a changing landscape in which this city is taking small bites of what some might view as the more Art and Culture extravagant approach to consumerism. This attitude also extends We trust with such a strong history of art, literature and various levels of invention and innovation, Lagos (and in fact, Nigeria in to accommodation. The options of where to stay in Lagos have general), should have far more art-related spaces. Lagos is the blossomed over the last few years, with multi-starred hotel choices undeniable nerve centre of creative expression and in terms of gaining more and more ground. This destination guide provides an contemporary visual art, the city is leading the way in terms of overview. A few selections of the best of the city’s arts, culture, key galleries that are worth visiting. In Ikoyi, the Nimbus Gallery lifestyle, shopping and leisure options are highlighted to provide is located above its partner venue, the Bogobiri Guest House on Maitama Sule Street, behind Falomo Shopping Centre. The gallery has artworks from Nigerian and other African artists on sale, or simply available to view – and the space also offers art valuation, advisory and auctioneering services. Down the street, the African Artists’ Foundation on Raymond Njoku Street, Ikoyi has a labyrinth of art rooms festooned with the works of Pan-African and other international artists. AAF is also the Head Quarters of the month- long, LagosPhoto Festival, which takes place every October. The National Art Competition is also an annual AAF initiative. With numerous strings to its bow, the Omenka Gallery on Ikoyi Crescent in Ikoyi hosts exhibitions in fine art and photography, and importantly, has a permanent collection of work by the late artist, Ben Enwonwu. A dedicated foundation uses education and public debate to increase the global perception and appreciation of contemporary African art. Terra Kulture in Victoria Island is a gallery space, a theatre venue and a sometime auction house. Contemporary African art and culture is at the heart of its numerous programmes, which also include Nigerian language workshops. On the Mainland in Yaba, the Centre for Contemporary Art on McEwen Street, highlights the work of national and international artists, often exhibiting experimental work through diverse themes. The Video Art Network (VAN Lagos) is also housed here, and is a dynamic project that showcases sound art

78 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 LIFESTYLE

Courtesy of Gian Maria Soglia

and moving image from a range of artists. There’s also talk of Prada coming to Lagos life may not have a full Miami-style kick to in 2014, having already entered Africa via a it, but the shorelines beyond the city can Shopping store in Angola and two in Morocco – one be good out of town getaways. Kamp Ikare Although the number of malls in Lagos can’t for men and one for women. Polo Luxury is an enticing resort on a stretch of Lagos compete with those in other megacities, in Victoria Island is another exclusive store coast near Ikare village. Only accessible by mall culture tends to rule when it comes to that has a second Lagos-based boutique boat, it has a main communal beach house mass, or one-stop shopping habits. It’s fair inside The Palms, as well as an outlet in and six duplex cabins located around a pool, to say that not everyone has the inclination Ghana. Offering multi brands including a few metres from the sea. La Campagne (or finances) to go for the high-end Cartier, Rolex, Gucci, Jimmy Choo and Dolce Tropicana is a 65-acre resort with multiple shopping centre option, but in the context & Gabbana, it’s an enterprise that’s really bars, a freshwater lake, a mangrove forest of specifically discerning travellers to Lagos, leading the way in offering high-end products and an expansive stretch of sandy beach. we’re looking at the exclusive end of things, at home in West Africa. A big thumbs up Ibeshe Beach has a spa, tennis and volleyball in line with much of the international column also goes for the MAC Cosmetics store that courts. There’s a children’s corner and inches that are being devoted to the city’s opened in Ikeja City Mall in February 2013. gorgeous views of Lagos Lagoon. Lekki and modest, but growing potential as a luxury Also, Temple Muse in Victoria Island is a Alpha Beaches along Lekki-Epe Expressway, shopping destination. Hugo Boss launched its pioneering favourite that has consistently reasonably close to the city centre. Both flagship store in early 2013. It joins Puma and championed luxury homeware, gifts, fashion beaches have palm frond shelters for hire. Lacoste amongst many other commercial and accessories produced by Nigerian and They are peaceful retreats that can be venues at The Palms in Lekki. Italian luxury international designers. wonderfully isolated at certain times of fashion house, Ermenegildo Zegna (See the year. For relaxing indoors, the Clear feature p.72 ), on Akin Adesola Street in Outdoors and Leisure Essence California Spa and Wellness Resort Victoria Island opened a boutique store, a For a general respite from the regular push on Alexander Road in Ikoyi have treatments short walk away from a Porsche dealership. and pull of the city, Lagos does have a decent for men and women, including hot or cold Could this activity be the early stages of number of indoor or outdoor spaces that facials and de-stressing massages. There are Lagos’ version of London’s Bond Street? offer an alternative type of rhythm. Beach private rooms for pampering sessions, and a

79 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 LIFESTYLE

Courtesy of Kelechi Amadi-Obi peaceful garden retreat, which is something that can be hard to find swanky terrace restaurant at the Radisson Blu Hotel on Ozumba in this bustling city. Mbadiwe Avenue in Victoria Island is a huge draw for many of the city’s visitors. It’s a well-chosen site for weddings and parties and And so, as a vibrant and energetic metropolis, Lagos with its aural the hotel itself is an undeniably big attraction with its 170 rooms and visual cacophony of sights and sounds will leave a memorable designed in ‘urban’ or ‘ocean’ styles. From standard to terrace and imprint long after a visit is over. Even though it’s a city that’s definitely presidential suites, Radisson does 5-star with aplomb. Over in Ikoyi, not built for the faint-hearted, it has its quiet retreats, it’s cultural high the Westfoster Harbour Hotel on Oyinkan Abayomi Drive in spots and a fine choice of high level and home from home options Ikoyi offers a certain kind of romance in its waterside residences. to entice all those who want to experience a taste of indulgence – High ceilings and Victorian era décor are typical of the hotel’s 15 West African style – when they spend time in the city. rooms, which are sized as studio or en suite one or two-bedroom apartments. An available butler service is a good indication of Hotels the high-end level of facilities on offer. Luxury and boutique also There’s been a surge in high-end accommodation choices in Lagos goes hand-in-hand at The Wheatbaker on Onitolo Road in Ikoyi, over the last few years. Starting with one of the newest venues, The a residentially-located venue, where facilities include a spa (which Intercontinental on Kofo Abayomi Street in Victoria Island has been should be up and running this year), the Saraya Deli, a grill room touted as Nigeria’s first 5-star, luxury hotel. It opened its doors in for prime steaks, free outdoor parking, a pool, and even an on call September 2013. Complete with bright and spacious deluxe rooms, doctor – although hopefully, this is a service that isn’t much used. a ‘Grand African ballroom’, 24/7 business areas and wonderful Located close to the Palms Shopping Mall, Kuramo Beach and Ikoyi panoramic views of the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean, Golf Club, The Wheatbaker’s a good spot for experiencing other it’s a welcome addition to the city’s accommodation options. The parts of Lagos.

80 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 LIFESTYLE NECTAR OF THE GODS

Tuscan and Piedmontese wines deservedly have disciples, but top Valpolicella is also drawing aficionados. – Anthony Barne

Italy has 4,000 native grape varieties and twice as many attitudes to being lost by the process. wine-making so, in this country of consummate individuality, clusters of well-managed, actively promoted vineyards are most likely to Amarone’s story starts with a sweet version, still produced, called capture international attention. Foremost among these is Piedmont Recioto. This wine has form, having been mentioned in a letter with its big-hitting Nebbiolo reds from Barolo and Barbaresco. Of written in the 5th century by, of all people, a civilized Goth. It wasn’t the producers here, Angelo Gaja could certainly claim to be the until 1936 that the wine began to be fermented out fully – possibly most recognisable name globally, not just because of critical acclaim, by mistake, in the first instance. Amarone has supplanted Recioto as but also due to his efforts in marketing his wines. However, rather the Veneto’s tribute to the gods and the wines of two of its greatest than promoting the names Barolo and Barbaresco, he is now labelling exponents, Romano Dal Forno and the late Giuseppe Quintarelli, are many of his wines as ‘Langhe’, the regional category for the area. offered at our sale, with Quintarelli 1993 estimated at £1,400-1,600 per dozen bottles and Romano 1996 at £600 for six. There is a good selection of Gaja and other Piedmontese wines in our sales along with big names from Tuscany, Italy’s other pre- eminent region. Here the focus is not so much on the DOCs Anthony Barne MW is UK Head of Wine. of Chianti, Brunello and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano but on ‘Super-Tuscan’ wines, brands that stand on their own merits on the international market. The stronghold of these is the coastal area of Below: Giuseppe Quintarelli Maremma and most take top-quality Cabernet Sauvignon as their Valpolicella Classico Superiore, Vigneto di Monte Cà Paletta 1995 inspiration, often in a Bordeaux-style blend with Merlot, although and Valpolicella Classico Superiore, Vigneto di Monte Cà Paletta 1994 some incorporate the traditional grape of Tuscany-Sangiovese. Sassicaia was the wine that first defined the concept of Super- Tuscans, and it is still one of the most sought-after, but Piero and Lodovico Antinori have had praise heaped on them from all corners of the globe for their Ornellaia, Solaia and Masseto.

Tuscany and Piedmont are really the business end of Italian wines at auction but there is a devoted following for top producers of Valpolicella, a red wine from the Veneto, west of Venice and on the edge of Lake Garda. The traditional style of this wine, made from Rondinella, Molinara and Corvina grapes, is a light, supple style of quaffing wine, although producers such as Allegrini have done much to change this image. The apotheosis of Valpolicella is an especially rich, dry wine with a raisiny flavour and velvety texture that comes in the form of Amarone della Valpolicella. This wine is produced by leaving selected bunches on the traditional Valpolicella vines until they reach a high degree of sugar ripeness in late October. These are then dried, either on straw mats in the traditional way or in drying rooms, which helps avert the onset of noble rot, prized in most sweet wines but unsuitable for an Amarone. The bunches are specially selected since the tannins and acidity of the grapes have to be in perfect harmony with the fruit, otherwise the concentration of components brought on by desiccation will highlight any discrepancies, something between 30-40 per cent of the volume

81 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3

COLUMNS

I always thought good photos were like good jokes. If you have to explain it, it just isn’t that good.

Anonymous

83 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 COLUMNS - ARTTACTIC CONFIDENCE IN THE INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY MARKET REACHES AN ALL-TIME HIGH WORDS ANDERS PETTERSON

ArtTactic® Modern & Contemporary Indicators vs Economic Indicator

100.0 90.0 ArtTactic*

80.0

70.0 60.0 50.0

40.0

30.0 Economy 20.0 Modern Photography 10.0 Contemporary Photography Mar 11 Oct 11 May 12 Oct 12 Apr 13 Dec 13

According to the latest ArtTactic Photography Market Confidence the Economic Indicator from 51 to 71 (signalling a much more bullish Survey published in December 2013, the overall confidence in the sentiment for the economy), and was the main driver behind the international Modern and Contemporary Photography market, recent increase in confidence for the Photography market. increased by 7% in the last 6 months. The Indicator currently stands at 75 (a reading above 50 implies that there is more positive market sentiment than negative). After a 38% jump in the Confidence Experts expect the market to continue to go up in Indicator between November 2011 and May 2012, the market the next 6 months confidence has risen by 9% in the last 12 months, signalling a In terms of market direction for Modern Photography, the outlook continued positive outlook among the experts in the international remains the same as 6 months ago. 57% of the experts believe the Modern and Contemporary Photography market. Modern Photography market will go up (versus 92% in November 2012), a further 43% think it will be flat or no change (versus 8% in A more positive outlook for the economy resulted in a 40% jump in November 2012). None of the experts believe the market will fall

84 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 COLUMNS - ARTTACTIC

in the next 6 months. For the Contemporary Photography market, the outlook has improved ® from April 2013, with 41% (up from 33%) of ArtTactic Photography Auction Sales (USD) 2006 - Nov 2013 (Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips) the experts expecting the market to go up in the next 6 months. $45 Photography Auction Sales up 36% $40 ArtTactic*

in 2013 Millions $35 The international Photography auction market $30 has gone from strength to strength since the downturn in 2009. The total auction sales of $25 photography for Phillips, Sotheby’s and Christie’s $20 came in at $50.7 million in 2013, up 36% from $15 2012. The increase in sales was largely driven $10 by the Modern Photography market, which saw sales increase by 22% from $18.7 million to $23 $5 million. The Vintage Photography market saw a $ - 125% increase from $7.3 million to $16.4 million in the same period. Contemporary Photography sales remained unchanged at $11.2 million 1st Half 2006 1st Half 2011 1st Half 2013 1st Half 2012 1st Half 2009 1st Half 2010 1st Half 2007 1st Half 2008 2nd Half 2011 2nd Half 2012 2nd Half 2013 2nd Half 2008 2nd Half 2009 2nd Half 2010 2nd Half 2006 between 2012 and 2013, and accounted for 22% 2nd Half 2007 of the overall sales of photography. Modern Contemporary Vintage

African Photography Outlook The positive market sentiment is also likely to benefit the African photography market, which is already gaining international curator and collector Modern Photography Market Confidence Ranking interest, especially as photographer Edson Chagas December 2013 from Angola won the prestigious Golden Lion Prize at the Venice Biennale in 2013. Malick Rank Artist Name Confidence Sidibé, a Malian photographer, who noted for his Dec 13 Indicator black-and-white studies of popular culture in the 1960s in Bamako, won the same prize in 2007. 1 William Egglosion 91.2

However, the auction prices for many of the top 2 Irvin Penn 90.9 African photographers are still low compared to many of its international peers. Photographs by 3 Edward Weston 90.2 Malick Sidibé, typically sell for less than $5,000 at 4 Richard Avedon 89.7 auction. Other artists such as the internationally renowned South-African photographer, David 5 Bill Brandt 89.3 Goldblatt recently sold Selected Images from the Transported of KwaNdebele (1983/84) – a set of 6 Henri Cartier Bresson 88.9 eight photographs for $42,000 through Phillips in New York, an auction record for the artist. 7 Josef Sudok 87.1

8 Man Ray 84.1 It is likely the price gap between the African and international photography market will narrow 9 Daine Arbus 83.3 on the back of the recent surge in interest and demand for African art both by domestic and 10 Paul Strand 81.3 international buyers.

Anders Petterson is a leading authority on art market research, with particular focus on the global contemporary art market. He is the founder and Managing Director of ArtTactic (www.arttactic.com) , a London-based art market research and advisory company set-up in 2001.

85 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 COLUMNS - ASK THE CURATOR

ASK THE CURATOR WORDS BOMI ODUFUNADE

This issue, Omenka commences a regular Q&A column checking in with the art world’s leading independent and museum curators around the world. We discover what they are up to, their favourite artists and what role the ‘curator’ plays in the artistic process.

Name: Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi. Occupation: Artist, Art Historian, and Curator of African Art at the Hood Museum of Art, Dartmouth College City: Hanover, United States.

OM: Complete the sentence. A curator... OM: Who’s your favourite living artist? Is a work of art that is constantly re-imagined. The Chinese artist, Xu Bing. OM: Describe a typical day in your life as a curator. OM: What under-appreciated artist do you think people should It is Tuesday, I wake up at 4 or 5 am; I do some writing and plan the know about? day while I take my morning coffee. I am at the office at 7:59am The Dominican artist, Tam Joseph. and I attend the staff meeting at 8:30am. I spend the rest of the day working through objects and curatorial ideas, responding to emails, OM: What art do you wish you owned? making phone calls, writing, and doing some reading. The not-so-recent painting series, a re-interpretation of uli motifs, by Nigerian artist, Joseph Eze. OM: What project are you working on now? Dak’Art Biennial and two exhibitions at the Hood Museum; The Art OM: Name your favourite 20th century artistic movement and why? of Weapons focusing on traditional African weapons and Feedback: The Black British Arts Movement in the 1980s. In addition to its Art and Africa in the 1980s, which will include works produced in the specific British politics, it reflected the long durée and breadth of 1980s and commissioned works by contemporary African artists. global Black cultural politics of visibility.

OM: The five items you need to curate a show? OM: Create your own ‘manifesto’ in one sentence. A strong idea, critically-engaging artworks or artists, a deserving I do not want to change the world. It smacks of arrogance and may space, a committed team, and resources. be an illusion to think that way. I want to perform my perfunctory

86 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 COLUMNS - ASK THE CURATOR

Portrait of Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi, copyright Caleb Kenna 2013

87 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 COLUMNS - ASK THE CURATOR

Evolving Perspectives: Highlights from the African Art Collection ongoing in the Hood’s Gutman Gallery

function as an actor on the world stage, but to also claim the agency Studies from the University of Western Cape, South Africa, and a in performing that function to better understand myself so that I can PhD in Art History from Emory University, Atlanta, United States. understand my neighbour better. He is a recipient of several academic fellowships, scholarships, and artists’ awards, including the Smithsonian Institution’s Pre-Doctoral OM: What exhibition or biennale, past or present, would you like Fellowship and the Robert Sterling Clark Foundation Fellowship. to have curated? He has curated exhibitions in Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa and the The European Manifesta is an interesting proposition. I have some United States. ideas on how to rethink Europe in relation to the rest of the world.

Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi trained as a sculptor at the University Dak’Art Biennale runs from 9 May to 8 June 2014 in Senegal and of Nigeria, Nsukka, and earned a B.A. in Fine and Applied Arts. Feedback: Art and Africa in the 1980s will commence in the Fall of He received a postgraduate diploma in Museum and Heritage 2015 at Hood Museum, Dartmouth College.

88 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 COLUMNS - LETTER TO THE EDITOR LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Dear Oliver,

I have been busy since we met at the Jo’burg Art Fair. I may have mentioned that I had participated in two photography festivals in China this year. My most urgent, post-art fair priority was to consolidate these trips. I needed to follow up on all my correspondence and do my festival post mortem. I find these sessions quite useful - I list all the pros and the cons of each festival I attend. Being an owner-run gallery, I use these notes to guide me when I need to consider similar invitations. The notes also keep my dream alive of hosting a photography festival in Cape Town. By the way, Roger Ballen’s first exhibition in China opened atPingyao International Photography Festival in September. I was the associate curator, Lian Zhiping took care of the finer curatorial details, and Roger delivered a great illustrated lecture. It was good to spend time with him, I seldom have that opportunity as he lives in Johannesburg and I live in Cape Town.

A month after the Jo’burg Art Fair, my gallery participated in the Installation view: Karlien de viller inaugural Cape Town Art Fair. Boy, oh boy I am not spilling the beans on this one. Oliver, if you have not been to Cape Town yet, then you can catch the second edition of this art fair, along with the contact, and N’Gone’s name always pops up in conversations about now world famous Design Indaba and all the celebrations around Africa (like now). Do you know this beautifully printed, tabloid Cape Town’s status as World Capital of Design, next February. I am size publication that I am talking about? Was it ever distributed in working on presenting my best ever group exhibition along with Nigeria? I cannot remember when, but Revue Noir ran into a spot every other gallery in Cape Town. Let me know if you are going to of financial trouble and the magazine was reduced in size, and the be here. I will need to make the restaurant reservations as soon as possible; and if you do not mind, please can we split these bills? All paper changed from luxuriously glossy to matt. I had a little panic dinners will be on me when I see you next in Jo’burg. attack, not because the magazine changed, but when I realised that the publication and its existence was dependent on whoever After we had started our correspondence, I realised that I know was in power in France. It also depended on how much these new nothing about the art scene in Lagos. In actual fact, I must confess incumbents were prepared to spend on culture, especially on a that I know very little about the art scene in Africa in general. I know publication featuring the art produced in the former colonies. I still about the African stereotype, I know about the bureaucratic hassles have all the music CD’s that were sold with each copy, but all my and the red tape. I also know about the artists, the agencies and the magazines were loaned to friends for research and never returned; it collectives trying to make Africa their base; to stop the commute was a great loss. between the America and Europe in search of fame and fortune. I also know about the institutionalized biennales and film festivals, Have I told you that my gallery is twelve years old this year! I am and each year, I eagerly read about new festivals taking place on the quite proud of that, actually. Just to give you some perspective, back continent. in 2001, there were only a hand full of galleries that hosted what one could honestly call critical exhibitions. The Goodman Gallery I discovered Africa in the pages of the French-produced magazine under the guidance of Linda Givon, Joao Ferreira and my own gallery, called Revue Noir. It was 1994 and I was working at the South African The Photographers Gallery za. I decided to open my own gallery National Gallery. The Director, Marilyn Martin often contributed in June 2001. I found the premises in July and was ready to move articles to the magazine. I did all her picture research. It was during in by September. Yes, September 2001, when we all thought the this time that I developed an interest in photography. My contact world was coming to an end. It seemed like a huge risk to open a at Revue Noir was N’gone Fall, and after exchanging emails for gallery at that time, but a year later, our currency dropped to as little many years, we finally met in Cape Town in 1999. We are still in as 19 Rands to the Pound. Cape Town was crowded with foreign

89 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 COLUMNS - LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Jan Smith, Dali 44, 2013, black and white photographic print

holidaymakers and they were ready to spend Tambo Airport, I remember those heady from a local primary school to come and their money on art. days of my early career, when I was filled visit the gallery whenever they feel like it. I with enthusiasm, drive and ambition – and have been doing it since 2006. The same kids I have hosted many exhibitions, all of naivety! I also sometimes wonder when sometimes bring me drawings, and towards which I have enjoyed, except for two. And and if those same curators ever kicked the end of each year, I frame the best ones then there are two exhibitions, which I themselves for not buying a Tillim when and send them back to the school for an remember with great fondness including his prices were low. Not everyone can see exhibition. Guy Tillim’s Child Soldiers Sierra Leone opened potential, I guess. in 2002; an exhibition of only ten black- I am sure that you agree that audience and-white photographs, hand-printed by My other favourite exhibition was by Nicola development is critical, and should be the Tillim and shown alongside pages from his Grobler entitled, The Enigma Machine, government’s primary concern. It is after all, diary. My gallery was barely one year old hosted in 2004 at my current premises at the key to building a sustainable industry. when I hosted this show. It was a brave Shortmarket Street. This was Grobler’s I sometimes get the impression that the decision, up until that moment it was graduation exhibition for her Master’s entire industry in South Africa is driven by not customary to show reportage in the Degree. She re-worked the function of the commercial gallery sector. It is a huge gallery environment. It was a powerful and ordinary kitchen utensils and appliances, crisis, as we need the museum infrastructure engaging exhibition, and it received critical and the gallery was filled with recognizable to carry out its mandate of preservation, success in the media. I was so excited that sounds and machines, all performing very conservation and education. I booked a ticket to Johannesburg – home different functions. Loads of people walked of the corporate art collection. I made into the gallery assuming it was a second- But this is entirely a different issue, which I appointments with all the curators at all the hand shop. Once inside they apologized will write you about next time. museums and corporations. One by one, when they discovered it was a gallery. Do they turned me down. The exhibition was you have the same issues in Lagos? Some Warm wishes from Cape Town, South a huge success in Cape Town, I sold sixteen visitors often feel totally uncomfortable Africa prints. But I could not sell a single print in when they walk into a gallery space. I am Johannesburg. Sometimes when I land at OR trying to change that by encouraging the kids Heidi Erdmann

90 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 A R T | B U S I N E S S | L I F E S T Y L E | A F R I C A

AFRICANAFRICAN CONTEMPORAR CONTEMPORARYY PHOTOGRAPHY AT AUCTIONS

CONFIDENCE IN IN THE THE INTERNA INTERNATIONALTIONAL MARKET REA REACHES ANAN ALL-TIME ALL-TIME HIGH HIGH

CAPE T TOWN ARTARTF FAIRAIR’S’S RISING PR PROFILE ART 14 LLONDON, SETTING NEW NEW HEIGHTS HEIGHTS

HASSANHASSAN HAJJA HAJJAYJ DAAVIDVID GOLDBLATTTT SIMON O OTTENBERTTENBERGG JO JOAACHIMCHIM MELCHERSCHERS UGOCHUKWU - SMOOTHTH C.. NZEWINZEWI PAPAULUL SIKA JOHN JOHN FLEETW FLEETWOODOOD ARARTURTUR WALALTHERTHER

TTHHEE PPHHOOTTOOGGRRAAPPHHYY ISISSSUUEE II

2 3 4 6 7 0 8 8 1 0 0 0 0 2 3 4 6 7 0 8 8 1 0 0 0 0 We celebrate over 10 years of building fine homes...

Estate / Property Development | Facilities Management | Real Estate Advisory Asphalt Road Surfacing and Repairs | Real Estate Business Plan and Evaluation

15B, Ojomu (formerly Ruxton) Road, Ikoyi, Lagos, Nigeria Tel: +234 1 2695829, 4615886 www.cmbnigeria.com REPORTS REVIEWS

A picture is a secret about a secret, the more it tells you, the less you know.

Diane Arbus

Estate / Property Development | Facilities Management | Real Estate Advisory Asphalt Road Surfacing and Repairs | Real Estate Business Plan and Evaluation

93 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS

FRIEZE, FRIEZE MASTERS, 1:54, ART BASEL MIAMI, FIAC AND OUTSIDER ART FAIR WORDS BOMI ODUFUNADE

Installation view: Derrick Adam & Omar Ba, Galerie Anne de Villepoix, FIAC 2013

The month of October is the beginning of the non-stop merry- the Chicago-based painter, Theaster Gates for $125,000, while the go-round of the international art fairs commencing with Frieze in Tate thanks to the Outset /Frieze Art Fair Fund acquired artist, Terry Regents Park in London. Described commonly as ‘Frieze Week’, Adkins’, Muffled Drums from Darkwater (2003) for its collection from for seven days, London is gripped by ‘art mania’ with more than a New York’s Salon 94. dozen museum and gallery openings; an over-saturation of satellite fairs: PAD (Pavilion of Art and Design), Moniker, Sunday, Multiplied, In contrast, Frieze Masters, now in its second year, stole all the charm Moving Image and 1:54, to name a few and not to mention the and uniqueness, once awarded to its older counterpart across the contemporary art auctions held by Christie’s, Sotheby’s and Phillips. park. With its small and exquisite selection of galleries offering Old Masters and Modern Classics, it attracted many new visitors and Now in its 11th year, the fair hosted some 152 exhibitors, collectors. South Africa’s Goodman Gallery presented intriguing representing 30 countries. With the ever-changing global market, works produced in the 1980s and 90s by artist, Willem Boshoff, Frieze has largely remained eurocentric, though for the first time, while Frittelli Arte Comtemporanea of Florence chose to display two South African galleries, Goodman and Stevenson took part. an ornamental installation by a Beninese artist, Georges Adéagbo That said, a number of African and African American artists being for its solo booth. The fair demonstrated the continued strength of shown at the fair enjoyed notable sales. Hauser & Wirth (London, Jean-Michel Basquiat’s market as Vedovi Gallery (Brussels) sold the New York and Zurich) placed Mark Bradford’s, A Woman With a wunderkid artist’s late word-accented canvas, Harlem Paper, from bit of Colour (2013) for $725,000. Algerian Adel Abdessemed’s 1987 in acrylic, oil stick, and paper collage for an asking price of gold-plated brass at David Zwirner (New York and London) found about $5 million. a home priced at $850,000. At White Cube, the London gallery sold the 2013 abstract Brown Roofing Exercise with High Road by The inaugural 1:54 fair focusing on contemporary African art

94 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS

quality show bringing together The Map Paintings from 1967-1971 by the eminent and under-recognised British-Guyanese artist, Frank Bowling OBE RA, while Mayfair’s Thomas Dane Gallery showed new works by British-Jamaican painter, Hurvin Anderson. Other notable exhibitions included Painting the Hot, a show of graphic style paintings by the talented Cameroonian, Boris Nzebo at Jack Bell Gallery and Tiwani Contemporary presented I Always Face You, Even When it Seems Otherwise, an exhibition of paintings, ceramics and film by two rising stars, New York-based, Nigerian artist, Njideka Akunyili and African American, Simone Leigh, which all sold out on opening week.

The following week saw collectors, gallerists, curators, critics and visitors head to the 40th edition of FIAC, the contemporary art fair in Paris, which takes place at Le Grand Palais with 184 galleries from 25 countries. On show was an ever-rolling cast of established artists and a new school of emerging talent. The fair’s only African gallery, Goodman (South Africa) showed a group of varying works by blue-chip artists, Kendell Geers, David Goldblatt and William Kentridge alongside younger talents with photographs by Mikhael Subotzky to Njideka Akunyili, Predecessors, 2013, copyright the artist paintings by Zimbabwean, Misheck Masamvu. A strong number of artists from Africa and opened early in the week, featuring 17 continent. Painting, photography and some the diaspora were represented. At Galerie exhibitors in Somerset House’s West Wing sculpture were well represented, but again, the Anne de Villepoix (Paris), corrugated and drawing together over 70 artists from fair failed to highlight many artists now engaging paper works by Senegalese artist, Omar across the continent and the African diaspora. in innovative contemporary and conceptual Ba were paired with Cubist-like collages by The event appealed to plenty of collectors, practices or experimenting with new media African American Derrick Adams. Barbara curators and museum directors; many booths and film. Only five galleries from Africa took Gladstone (New York) almost sold out of sold well from London-based, Jack Bell Gallery part and none from South Africa or the North a suite of ten new works priced at $45,000 placing 17 pieces priced from $1,800 to African countries of Tunisia, Morocco, Algeria by Kenyan artist, Wangechi Mutu, whose $16,000, ARtLabAfrica (Nairobi) sold out of and Egypt, all rich in talented and established retrospective, A Fantastic Journey recently a number of works on paper by Tripoli-based artists working locally and internationally. opened to critical acclaim at the Brooklyn Zimbabwean artist, Virginia Chihota and Museum. Galerie Daniel Templon (Paris) Brescia-based dealer, A Palazzo shifted more What Frieze and 1:54 fair lacked in showed a stately portrait, Abed Al Ashe and than 10 limited-edition photographs priced at amplitude, the city made up with a Chaled El Awari (2011) by African American $7,000 by Angola’s Edson Chagas, who won spectacular lineup of solo exhibitions by painter, Kehinde Wiley from his World Stage: the Golden Lion for his nation’s pavilion at a stellar ensemble of African, African Israel series. Two monumental paintings Venice Biennale in June. Galerie Mikael Andersen American and Caribbean artists taking by the artist were on view across the city (Berlin and Copenhagen) produced a refined place throughout the capital. Kehinde Wiley in the blockbuster exhibition, Masculine/ booth showing a display of exhilarating works in his first solo show in the UK continued Masculine: The Nude Male in Art from 1800 on paper and paintings by the late and revered his World Stage tour tackling Jamaica, and to the Present Day at the Musée d’Orsay. The South African artist, Ernest Mancoba. exhibited a number of aristocratic portraits best stand of the fair went to the enigmatic at Stephen Friedman Gallery; Mark Bradford dealer, Nathalie Obadia whose Paris-based The fair made a commendable effort in proved a delight with his second exhibition gallery displayed a series of elegant works addressing a growth market that has been with White Cube in Bermondsey and the by a star trio of African American female largely ignored by the major international illustrious Kara Walker confirmed her artists, Mickalene Thomas, Lorna Simpson art fairs but there was a shortage in the brilliance with a retrospective at Camden and Brenna Youngblood, all snapped up by breadth of artists working across the Arts Centre. Hales Gallery put on a museum various buyers.

95 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS

Elsewhere in the city, Galerie Michel Rein mounted a compelling contemporary art prize. duo show and debut solo exhibitions with conceptual artist, Abigail Deville and photographer, LaToya Ruby Frazier. Deville’s work Led by the success of James Brett’s roving eccentric Museum of entitled, Invisible Men: Beyond the Veil saw the artist construct a Everything, Massimiliano Gioni’s The Encyclopedic Palace at last year’s sprawling sculptural installation in the upstairs gallery space. Frazier’s Venice Biennale and The Alternative Guide to the Universe exhibition at sequence of black-and-white photographs and video work, The the Hayward Gallery in London, the growing international interest Notion of Family (2002-present) on the ground floor retraced her in Outsider Art continues. Under the new direction of noted dealer ongoing dialogue of using social documentary and portraiture of Andrew Edlin, New York’s Outsider Art Fair premiered in Paris for its herself and her family against the ever-changing sociological and inaugural show housed in Hotel Le A in the eighth arrondissement. economic landscape of the United States. The week rounded off Assembling 25 of the best galleries specialising in this market, the fair with Moroccan artist, Latifa Echakhch, known for her sculptural proved successful with its debut effort due to its eclectic offerings of installations, which explore themes of nationality, religion and history, works and affordable price range. Dealer, Karen Lennox (Chicago) winning the Prix Marcel Duchamp 2013, France’s most prestigious showed a rare and untitled work by ‘self-taught’ master, Bill Traylor

Misheck Masamvu, Democratic Arrow, 2013, courtesy of the artist and Goodman Gallery

96 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS priced at $95,000. The obscure paintings of Herve Bohnert were a particular highlight priced from $4,000 and displayed at J.P.Ritsch-Fisch Galerie (Strasbourg). The numerical scribblings of Melvin Way stole the show at Gallery at Hai (New York), with prices ranging from $3,000-$5,000.

The ‘art buying’ season ended with the king of all fairs, Art Basel Miami in December. Featuring 258 leading international galleries from across 31 countries, the show confirmed its positioning as the leading art fair of the Americas. The quality of works exhibited was matched with a vibrantly diverse line-up of artists from Africa and the diaspora. Stevenson Gallery (South Africa) sold two paintings, Endothelin (2013) and Thoba (2013) by Johannesburg-based artist, Nicholas Hlobo priced at $48,000 and Beninese artist, Meschac Gaba created an installation of military-style army caps covered in a variety of national flags to mark his joining the New York powerhouse gallery, Tanya Bonadkar. Jack Shainman gallery (New York) exhibited a strong display of paintings, sculpture and photography from renowned artists, among them, El Anatsui, Kerry James Marshall, Toyin Odutola, Hank Willis Thomas and including this year’s MacArthur award- winning, Carrie Mae Weems. In January 2014, the Guggenheim will present Three Decades of Photography and Video, Weem’s first major New York museum retrospective devoted to the socially motivated artist. For its booth, Alexander Gray Associates (New York) presented a magical display with Processing Abstraction, 1960–2013, an exhibition focusing on process and material- based abstraction, pairing historic and recent work by its gallery artists, Heidi Bucher, Melvin Edwards, Harmony Hammond, Hassan Sharif, including a rare painting Gamma Group I (1975) from the 1970s period by the formidable Jack Whitten.

For its second consecutive year, the satellite fair, Untitled proved the place to discover emerging and mid-career artists challenging the position once held by the NADA (New Ernest Mancoba, detail: Untitled, 1976-88, ink and oil pastel on paper, copyright the artist Art Dealers Alliance) art fair. Located on South Beach, the fair helmed by ingenious curator, Omar Lopez-Chahoud presented more than 90 galleries and not-for-profit unveiled his show-stopping installation, of Somalian artist, Ayan Farah, selling all the art spaces from 20 countries. Many For Those in Peril on the Sea, involving 70 works priced from $2,000 to $9,800, and booths reported steady sales and interests model ships suspended from the ceiling of Costa Rica’s De La Cruz projects did well throughout the week. Hales Gallery from a gallery, at the newly opened Pérez Art with a collection of ravishing abstract works London dedicated a solo booth of paintings Museum in Miami. Vigo Gallery (London) by New York-born, Dominican Republican to British-Guyanese, Hew Locke, who chose to showcase the minimalist paintings artist, Kenny Rivero with prices from $7,000.

97 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS CHOICES 11th Edition of Frieze Art Fair London 2013 WORDS INÊS VALLE

Nilbar Güres, Below Elsewhere’s Palmtrees, 2012, Gallery Rampa, Frieze London 2013. Copyright Inês Valle

According to recent reports, most £1m properties for sale in humanoid and 23 orange traffic cones – a perfect scenario to pose London’s city centre are being acquired by non-UK people, especially for a picture in the middle of those baffling cones; Jennifer Rubell’s from Russia or from the Commonwealth of Independent States Portrait of the Artist (2013), presented in the Gagosian Gallery, which (CIS)1, and the 11th edition of Frieze Art Fair may be seen as a reflex featured a giant white pregnant woman with an open womb that of this new fashionable upsurge in investment by foreign people could be penetrated by people for a quick photo, as long as they in the city of London. Walking through Frieze’s aisles, we perceive removed their shoes after waiting on the long queue; the huge spiral that the majority of its roaming people are not only excited to see plexiglas corridor by American artist, Dan Graham at the Lisson well-known international art and to do good business but also come Gallery; and the biggest price tag of them all, Jeff Koons’ balloon here to flaunt their new fortunes. The current world economic crisis sculptures guarded by security-guards that almost look like they is not perceptible in this environment; here capitalism is totally alight were part of the installation, a totally accidental satire of absurdity in and blooming. The exorbitant £50 entrance tickets were sold-out excess. right on the first day and the main attractions were the shallow, extravagant and overpriced artworks. Long queues formed around art objects that satisfied an immediate hedonism of delight, with colours, fun, joy or amusement – Some of the art works which people were inevitably drawn experiences that made people travel to the most fantastic world of to, interacted with, or totally attracted to as if they were in an pure emptiness. What does a colourful cat inside a sock or a huge amusement park, were Rob Pruitt’s Safety Cones (After Richard pregnant hollow woman truly contribute to our understanding of Serra) installation displayed at the main entrance with its fluorescent society? Is this not a satire of pure stupidity of this crazy, lazy and

98 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS

Meshac Gaba, Le Monde en Miniature et la Mode en Miniature, 2008; Meshac Gaba, Voyages 2012; Robin Rhode, Carry-on; Stevenson Gallery, Frieze London 2013 Copyright Inês Valle

empty vacuum that we live in? the transcontinental legacy of Rosa Luxemburg, whom this collective believes to be crucial to the understanding of the world. Art fairs might be considered all the same; bursting shiny things, that make us wonder why gallerists bothered to drag some of these In the Frame Frieze area, a section dedicated to solo artist things in the first place, but fortunately, within this luridness we always presentations and open to galleries with less than 8 years of find some new and refreshing substances emerging on the aisles! existence, the Japanese gallery, Aoyama Meguro Art Gallery presented the well-known artist, Koki Tanaka with project, Precarious This year, we found a bigger representation of non-Western Tasks #7: Try to keep conscious about a specific social issue, in this art, with highlights from Turkey and South Africa. Within the 30 case ‘anti-nuke,’ as long as possible, while you are wearing yellow colour participating countries, we also found galleries based in Brazil, (2013), which is a documental installation of a social art project China, Hungary, India, Korea and Mexico, widening an art market’s that the artist has developed with a group of people in Los Angeles perspective by displaying names usually outside the Western routine. about the anti-nuke protests that have been happening every Friday Nevertheless, the representation of non-Western galleries is still a in front of the Prime Minister’s residence in Tokyo since the 2011 minority. Interestingly, this minority also represents a majority if we nuclear disaster in Fukushima. take into consideration the fact that the general issues exposed by the artists brought by these galleries have a stronger socio-political The presence of artists from the Middle East was also noticeable. component than the ones from mainstream galleries. This isn’t a The Turkish, Gallery Rampa included in Frieze highlight galleries’ list, weird or unexpected fact. The art world is increasingly becoming brought artists, Nilbar Güres and Erinç Seymen, who have been more global and international and ‘the current political art, with its building a strong body of work over these past years. Güres belongs extensive attention to easily transferable concerns such as regional to a strong generation of women artists emerging within the Turkish conflict, consumer culture and environmental and labour politics, contemporary art scene, and reveals in her practice a strong feminist is the perfect form of a globally recognisable, exchangeable art discourse by exploring issues such as social gender inter-connected culture’.2 with female identity, the role of women in society and particularly the re-construction of the image of Muslim women in the Western From Asia, represented by Project 88, we have the projects of two world. On the other hand, Seymen is a young, Turkish artist already Indians art collectives; The Otolith Group with the video essay, known in Portugal with his participation in the exhibition An Atlas People to be Resembling (2012) that investigates the methodologies of Events, Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in 2007. At Frieze, he of the post-free jazz; and the Raqs Media Collective with the series, exhibited the project, Sketches for a Paradise: Fear No Evil (2013) Forthcoming Titles (2012) constituted by nine framed jacket cover that uses exotic images cut from an old encyclopaedia to reflect on designs and one empty black frame, which somehow investigates colonization, transforming and re-imagining the colonization process,

99 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS which can be seen as an attempt to demystify existing cultural (2012) both by the Beninese artist, Meschac Gaba that dominated assumptions. Stevenson’s gallery stand. The first was idealized to be part of a collective exhibition that eventually never took place and has the The London gallery, Anthony Reynolds also brought some Middle shape of a ‘shop display’ with children’s clothes made in Benin, Eastern artists such as the Palestinian, Emily Jacir and the Lebanese, in which disturbing phrases are embroidered - “zenophobie”, Walid Raad. Jacir’s work, Untitled (Fragment from Ex Libris) (2010- “violence” or “terrorist”. With this, Gaba points out the “quiet 2012) consists of photographs captured with her own mobile reminder of phenomena in our society that turns children into phone during regular visits to the Jewish National and University vulnerable victims”3 but also their value or role within global Library in Jerusalem. The images are of books looted in 1948 economies. The latter, Voyages, is an extension of the projects Gaba from Palestinian homes, libraries, and institutions, which were later started when he was invited to participate in the We Face Forward catalogued at the Jewish National Library under the designation ‘A.P.’ exhibition in Manchester last year, and can be seen as opposed to (Abandoned Property). This strong body of work raises questions Ensemble, presented in Manchester. On one hand, Ensemble presents about repatriation and restitution of Palestinian property that are a symbol of unity using a starburst flag made up of all West Africa’s still unanswered. Raad’s most important work shown at Frieze was flags along with the Union Jack. On the other,Voyages uses only flags Hostage: The Bachar Polaroids: Plates: (Cat. A) Bachar Photographs of countries or organizations that are a worldwide representation of 001-021 (2011), an installation constituted from twenty Polaroid influence, power and control, namely the European Union, United photographs about the ten-year captivity of Souheil Bachar in Nations, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), African Union Lebanon, in which his body and face were always erased. or even the Vatican. Each flag is individually wrapped into bundles and displayed as a pilgrim’s stick, which the artist metaphorically There were only two African-based art galleries in this Frieze considers “as the defensive object of the contemporary traveller – London; Goodman Gallery and Stevenson both from South Africa. the passport”.4 They represented an extensive and remarkable set of artists, African and non-African, such as Alfredo Jaar, David WQ, Ghada I can also make reference to the work, Silence Noise of Zimbabwean Amer, Kendell Geers, Mikhael Subotzky, Meschac Gaba, Nicholas artist, Kudzanai Chiurai, that approaches some of the most pertinent Hlobo, Robin Rhode, Sam Nhlengethwa, Viviane Sassen and William issues of Post-colonial Africa such as the violence that exists today, Kentridge. From these we can highlight the huge wall installation, the displacement of African people and black empowerment; Le Monde en Miniature et la Mode en Miniature (2008) and Voyages or even to the powerful image of Mikhael Subotzky, Tactical Unit

Rubell, Portrait of the Artist, 2013; Stephen Friedman Gallery, Frieze London 2013, copyright Inês Valle

100 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTS - REVIEWS

Rob Pruitt, Safety Cones (After Richard Serra), 2013. Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Frieze London 2013 Copyright Inês Valle

(2007) taken in Johannesburg that exposes the lifestyle of fear felt by objects as fashionable home-décor ornaments. most people in South Africa. A photograph mounted in a smashed glass, portraits an impacting and spontaneous moment revealing The interest and representation of contemporary African art have the vexed notion of security in this territory. This is one of the been increasing in these past years, not only in landmark world art persisting issues explored in Subotzky’s art practice since 2004, that events but also the emergence of African art related galleries, such has also been focusing themes such as crime, social marginalization as London-based Jack Bell Gallery, Tiwani Contemporary, October or even punishment institutions. In Alfredo Jaar’s video work, Kigali and GAFRART. Also, coinciding with Frieze Art Fair was the first we observe a couple’s grief while visiting Kigali Genocide Centre in African art fair in the UK, the 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair Rwanda. This centre is built on top of a burial place of more than presented at the Somerset House, which brought on these crazy 250,000 people and since its inauguration in 2004, has received more days, a refreshing and much more financially accessible range of than 100,000 visitors from people all over the world5. In this almost artworks to London. With the Pavilion of Angola’s win of the Golden three-minute video, a couple is filmed from a long distance and from Lion at the 2013 Venice Biennale, and more recently the appointment their backs, but we can still easily perceive their feelings, their respect of Okwui Enwezor as Director of the Visual Arts Sector of the 56th and their mutual support. It is undoubtedly a tremendous video that edition of this Biennale, there are no doubts about the increase in is an acknowledgement and a tribute to the genocide’s victims. visibility, recognition and relevance of African art and of its players on the global art market. Some Western art galleries have also chosen to present works from contemporary African artists or projects correlated with this continent; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery from New York presented Meshac Gaba’s works, La traversée et Le Capitaine (2010) and United Nations- Souvenir Palace (2010). The latter is an installation composed Notes of a child’s table painted with the UN logo along with six child’s 1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/houseprices/10363567/Half-of-central- chairs, each one painted with a distinct flag namely; Britain, France, Londons-1m-plus-homes-go-to-non-UK-buyers.html Germany, South Africa, Brazil and Egypt, in which the last three are 2 Charlesworth, J.J., Global vs Local, in Art Review - Power eats the soul, November 2013, part of a proposal for the next reformation of the UN Security volume 65, number 8. Council. Herald St. Gallery presented Made in Africa, Assembled 3 Meschac Gaba, Exhibition Catalogue Le Monde, Published by Stevenson, South Africa, 2013. in China (2013) by Yugoslavian artist, Djordje Ozbolt that may be 4 Idem. seen as a satire about globalization and the incongruence of African 5 www.kigalimemorialcentre.org/

101 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 SPOT LIGHTING THE SANLAM FOOD WINE DESIGN FAIR 2013 WORDS IJEOMA LOREN UCHE-OKEKE

Copyright Mike Turner

102 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 REPORTSFEATURES - EXHIBITION REVIEWS SPOT LIGHTING THE SANLAM FOOD WINE DESIGN FAIR 2013

103 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

The Sanlam FoodWineDesign Fair 2013 edition was held at its usual location on the roof top of the Hyde Park Corner an upmarket boutique mall in the Hyde Park suburb of Johannesburg, South Africa. Managed by Artlogic, the founders and organisers of the highly successful FNB Joburg Art Fair, the Sanlam FoodWineDesign Fair is in its 4th year and has become an important event on the Johannesburg calendar. According to the curator of the fair, Artlogic’s Roberta Cocci, what differentiates the fair from other similar offerings on the Joburg social calendar is that visitors can have a social and shopping experience. The fair has gained considerable followership over the years. Cocci notes that the roof top location constrains the number of exhibitors that can participate in the fair, therefore the selection process is very stringent and only the best art is showcased. Sanlam has been on board from inception, becoming naming rights sponsors in the second year. Sanlam promotes entrepreneurship and the fair gives budding South African brands and businesses a platform to showcase their products and services. The fair is exclusive in a good way; it’s a luxurious experience, good furniture, great views and great stuff.Omenka magazine spotlights two exhibitors, who are proudly South African brands dealing in very different products and services; the Johannesburg-based Malee Natural Science, a growing business that has exhibited at the fair since its inception and Genandal Hand Weavers, branded as the Kraal Gallery, a first time exhibitor from the Western Cape. Alexander Daniels (Managing Director, The Kraal Gallery) and Zeze Oriakhi-Sao (Founder/CEO, Malee Natural Science) speak passionately about the work they do and future aspirations for their businesses.

Copyright Mike Turner

I understand that Genadendal Hand Weavers Yes, the DTI spotted the export potential the DTI for the opportunity so we are not started as a community-based project? of the product and have assisted since the going to complain. I went through a series of initially selecting beginning of last year. They have sent us to candidates; the right people who were a couple of shows, the most important in What line of products do you stock? willing to take a step and branch out and Milan last December. We exhibited at the Rugs are our main product and focus learn something new, upgrade their skill and Beckman’s Handcrafted Show in Chicago in because people need rugs in their homes. empower themselves. And once we got the July, which raised our profile considerably. They serve a functional purpose. But we core weaving group right, we enlisted 72 We’ve been to Munich, Germany as well. took it beyond that as being in a creative ladies from the community of Genadendal in So they’ve assisted in getting us on that space; created other things. Our wild the Overberg, trained and encouraged them, platform. Our main requirement now baskets have been our best sellers but we’ve and within 12 months they were producing is producing, as currently the demand is developed new products like deck-chairs and export-marketable products – almost as outstripping the supply. We can train more iPad cases. The crème de la crème of what independent businesses. Genadendal Hand ladies. We want to train 250 in Genadendal we do are the tapestries, some of which Weavers trades as The Kraal Gallery. We but we obviously need the finance to do have been put in the London Museum of opened our flagship store in Stellenbosch that. We also want to teach them financial Art, and in offices in New York skyscrapers. and a main producing area in Somerset literacy, micro-finance and how to run an Each tapestry has a story behind it and a West, and then opened the working SME. Currently, we are looking for a big connection with its weaver, with the art gallery in Greyton to the public.We’ve been brother who can take us under their social of the craft of weaving behind it. Weaving exporting but this is the first time we’ve come to corporate development and support us with has been around for centuries but to keep Johannesburg. The response in Johannesburg so resources to allow us focus on what we are it updated and modern, requires a lot of far has been fantastic. doing right now. creative work and that’s what we try to do.

How did you get involved with the fair, What has the experience been like so far? And how have you achieved that, do you were you sponsored by the Department of Fantastic! The response from Johannesburg have design input from your weavers? Trade and Industry (DTI)? has been phenomenal. We are grateful to Yes, we have input from our weavers. Like

104 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

with our rugs range, we have the Pilani that’s a different kind of product. It depends the only two men in a woman’s world but range and it’s freestyle weaving. We give our on what people want. I think it balances itself out quite nicely. weavers free reign. But when clients have You have the women with their emotional particular requests, we have to tailor designs In terms of marketing your products, what ups and downs and then the men seem to to suit their specific needs. Sometimes in the platforms do you use? settle the dynamic; it’s really nice, we have tapestry line, we need to get more involved; We have our main shop points; we also a really great bunch of creative people that it would either be myself or my father. We have an online presence, though it doesn’t are their own bosses. I’m trying to generate have two artists, one is in-house and then seem to have as much impact as seeing the this concept to the point where people we have a part-time artist as well. We’ve products in their physicality. It’s because are free standing and their own bosses, also sometimes done some collaborations these are very tactile products. People also and trying to replicate that throughout with famous artists like, Catherine Paynter like to see how they are done, which is a the rural communities of South Africa and who lives in Greyton and Leon de Bliquy, on major draw card. They enjoy interacting sub-Saharan Africa for that matter. It is a one of his exhibitions, and translated 2 of with our weavers in-store. All our stores job-creation model that works and you his works into tapestry format. We would are working ‘studios’. For example, at our don’t necessarily have to use weaving, it really like to get more into the interior Stellenbosch store, we’ve got 8 ladies and could be woodwork or iron-mongering. design market, which is huge as the products about 25 ladies in Sommerset West, and out We use weaving because we come from a continue to evolve, clients sometimes lead in Greyton another 30. So people can come background of years of weaving. us to create new products. The market also in, meet the weavers, enjoy what is going on does that but sometimes you have a fresh and place their orders or purchase what is So your background is in weaving? idea straight off the bat. Like what you see on display. My earliest memory is at 6 years old running here at the fair, this is our cotton range. around on bales of wool with swords made We’ve turned into hand-woven rugs and Are your weavers predominantly female or out of warping sticks, chasing my brothers or baskets what would nornally have been a are there any male weavers? being chased by them! That was my earliest by-product. We also spin merino and wool – Yes. Though we have 2 men, they’re basically memory. My dad has always been in the

105 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

won the Premier’s Social Enterprise of the Oh my goodness!! I moved from London Year Award, presented by the Western to South Africa in 2009. It was during Cape Premier, Helen Zille. We were given the early days of the recession and recognition based on the work we are pretty much, no one was hiring. South doing in Greyton and the Genadendal Africa was not quite sure whether the Weavers. Alan Winde, Minister of Economic recession was hitting hard or not and I Development co-presented the award to was a foreigner who had two degrees us. He spots brands and companies that are and in quite a specialist area. My first export-marketable and that have products degree was in Informatics and a second that are unique, fresh and new – with a degree in International Business, so I vision of employment behind them. think it was quite restrictive. People didn’t really want to hire outside of their How did Malee get involved in the Sanlam comfort zone. I always had an idea and I FoodWineDesign Fair, I believe you are one thought, well it was taking me 3 months of the fair’s foundation exhibitors? to 4 months so in the meantime while I think I was approached by one of the I’m still job hunting, why don’t I give it a guys at Artlogic, who said they were doing try. So I literally started calling the South this fair and in its first year, they wanted African Cosmetology Society and saying small businesses in South Africa that were “Hi I’m thinking of starting a business, emerging as new talents. They asked if I can you put me in touch with the best would be keen. At the time I hadn’t really formulators in the country?” You know done a fair. I was quite fresh, so I thought you must be registered with the society Zeze Oriakhi-Sao (Founder/CEO Malee) I’ll give it a go. I did and it was manic. I think and the first woman I spoke to, thought I Courtesy of Malee Natural Science I had grossly underestimated what a fair was absolutely bonkers because she was was like so I just had myself a casual when like “Have you done this before?” I was I went out for lunch and stuff. I had the like no, but this is what I would like to do. most intense 4 days and at the end of it my You know you don’t realise how crazy textile field and he had a little weaving studio husband , Nana would come to help me. My people think you are till 2 years later. In on Loop Street in Cape Town called Cape sister came from Brisbane and she ended hindsight, I realised that I had no clue. I was Tapestry Weavers. That’s where we basically up working for the 4 days. I remember green but I was eager. I think everyone grew up, playing and falling in love with fabric screaming 1 wash, 1 hand cream!! It just who has known me from the beginning and cotton and wool and soft materials that got so crazy! I learned to make it a lot less of my career with Malee always says my got turned into wonderful rugs and tapestries. stressful, now I know to have 3 members enthusiasm for the business was infectious. of staff at the stand because when it does So I necessarily didn’t come up with the Will you be back for the Sanlam get busy, it gets quite busy. Yeah that’s how I best tools of knowing how the business FoodWineDesign Fair in 2014? started. works but I had enthusiasm for days. I was I would love to. And the way it’s going, yes!!! I passionate about it and knew exactly what I love the fact that there is a huge appreciation Malee has been exhibiting at the fair since wanted. I just needed to know how to do it. for the creativity of our group. That’s really inception and this is its 4th year now, how blossoming now, so I really love that. has it contributed to visibility? In terms of starting and running Malee I think what’s nice is that it gives businesses in South Africa, how do you find the What are the next steps for Genadendal like mine visibility outside of where we business environment? Hand Weavers and Kraal Gallery? operate normally. So it affords us the The South African business landscape We will definitely be at theDesign Indaba opportunity to forge long, lasting business is quite interesting in the sense that as a in Cape Town again next year. And another relationships with a diverse audience. foreigner in certain industries, you have thing we are working towards is the New For instance, I’ve met people in various to learn the lay of the land. Coming from York Gift Fair in 2014. industries and sectors, those who in design London and from a very professional, shops or stalls and people who work in the rigid environment– a more structured You have featured in design fairs in Europe hospitality industry and own or run spas environment like the United Kingdom. I and the United States, have you exhibited and luxury lodges, who say “Oh my God, never had a business there so you don’t or sold in the United Kingdom? I’ve been looking for products like yours!” know. I think the business landscape/ We haven’t done much there but we do I’ve met consumers or audiences who you structure in South Africa is mature for have a few individual clients and boutique wouldn’t have met otherwise, like people big conglomerates but not for small stores that will purchase products now from Pretoria. So I thoroughly enjoy it. I businesses like mine. So I literally had to and again but nothing really major in the think its 4 days of fun with lots of good food configure my structure the way I wanted UK. But I think we do very well in terms and amazing people. it, whether it’s sourcing my suppliers and of reviews from clients coming into our my production because there was no stores in the Western Cape. This year, we How did Malee get started? one to service small businesses like mine.

106 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Hand woven baskets, courtesy of The Kraal Gallery 2013

So yeah, but I think once you understand business up and learning about new markets, and creativity in talking about your it, and once you find your position in the partnering with people who know their products and how have they evolved since industry, you immediately start to draw the markets and bringing the brand to a wider inception? right kind of customers that you’d like. You audience. Currently, there is a tiny amount Well, the fragrances are blended from start to eventually draw in the right staff but of people doing what we are doing and I natural elements and they tell a uniquely like everything with a brand, you have to think it’s high time Africa gets representation African story– smells that as Africans we prove yourself for people to flock to you. in the cosmetic industry on a global scale. are used to being around but sometimes So it’s a lot of hard work in the beginning I am hoping that as Malee we are able to don’t take notice of. So when you move because I think the industry is so under- do that. We are hoping to have a launch in away from the motherland, so to speak, you serviced for smaller businesses. But again it’s Europe next year, and we’ll have a big push end up having nostalgic feelings about going a great platform where you can do business, around that and then follow with the United out into the bush, the smell of rain in the because you know structurally as a country States. I’m hoping that somewhere in the fields, or when it’s really hot, the smell of there’s electricity–things that are concerns mix, other African countries come into play. I your mother’s garden in the late afternoon. in other African countries, so you have to think in general, we are of a new generation So basically a lot of these flowers, a lot of create your own structures. now, where I’d like to think that we are those sensual oils create fragrances that tell appreciating what emanates from us and these stories. In a way, my expression of What are the next steps for Malee in that we are of value in the global context. the things I miss sensory-wise when I didn’t terms of growing your market? I also think we’ve moved from what was live on the continent. We use only natural, At the moment, there’s been a lot of interest defined for us as Africans to evolving our active ingredients in all our products like from the rest of Africa. I think I have a own authentic brands and creating brands mineral oils and silicones so it’s for all sensory strong, burning desire to have a presence that are unique, celebrate our diversity and skin types. For me, I guess I’m looking to in Nigeria, which is my home country and tell the African story. tell a sensory story that people can have a in the rest of the world. So I think the next connection to, whether you are African or steps for us are really focusing on scaling the You allude to qualities like innovation not. Yeah, just an African approach to life.

107 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES JOHN FLEETWOOD: THE MARKET PHOTO WORKSHOP WORDS IJEOMA LOREN UCHE-OKEKE

The Market Photo Workshop (MPW) was founded by reknowned photographer David Goldblatt in the late 80’s. As an institution, it has contributed significantly to positioning contemporary photography in South Africa. It continues to build a solid reputation that extends beyond the borders of South Africa to other parts of the African continent and internationally. John Fleetwood, the Head of the Market Photo Workshop shares with us an in depth insight into the key milestones that have shaped this small but very significant institution.

A lot has been written and verbalised about the history space to young photographers to express themselves freely in the of the Market Photo Workshop, I would like to focus context of historical restrictions around the freedom of speech, but on what you consider to be the key defining moments much more than that, it was the restrictions of culture that were that have shaped the direction of the school? hung over the heads of people. It was so important for us to break The history of the Photo Workshop is important and it gives an the self-censorship, people had accepted and with that create peer incredibly important overview and understanding of how the Photo understanding. It gave a lot of our photographers greater ease to Workshop comes to feed off itself. I think a lot of the time, people express themselves. So by looking at that trajectory, we are at a over emphasize the history as opposed to what we are currently very particular moment where again, there are questions around doing. The two are linked but have shifted. I mean you said it yourself freedom of speech, and how the state wants to govern and control when you asked what are the defining moments in contemporary information. It is like a circle in many ways for the photographers photography. Those are more interesting aspects to challenge. I think and also for the Photo Workshop as early as in 1989 when it was the history is probably known, it was set-up by David Goldblatt in set-up to protect issues around human rights and freedom of 1989 at the stage of the state of emergency in South Africa and expression. We can review the socio- economic conditions of people as a historical context that gives you an understanding of how the and again wonder what has shifted. I think that it’s quite alarming Photo Workshop or its essence has come together. But the state if you are a South African twenty years into a democracy and the of emergency was one thing, much more important perhaps was photographs we are dealing with remain in many ways very similar. the state of apartheid. Even though it was a heightened political stage, I think the infiltration of how we look at images, how they For me, personally there are plenty of defining moments but the are perceived, to whom they belong to, and whose got rights to first one came in 2003 when we did an exhibition titledUrban Life, photograph whom,were the much deeper questions that I think which involved 13 photographers. In that group was Nontsikelelo David Goldblatt had in mind when he set-up the Photo Workshop. ‘Lolo’ Veleko, Zanele Muholi, Oupa Nkosi, Musa Rapuleng, and It’s those questions that we are particularly interested in. Sipho Futshane. It was a group of people that had very particular ideas around who they were and how they saw themselves within Over the years, we’ve had such wonderful photographers that have society. A lot of them felt they belonged to a sub-culture, not to a come to the fore and brought those issues together, perhaps not heterogeneous or homogenous kind of society. It was Lolo who felt in a direct way but in an indirect one. It is interesting that in many very strongly about the way she wanted to express herself and talk ways, the Photo Workshop hasn’t got an official voice. Its voice about herself. She felt that there was almost no space for her to do consists of the many voices of our students that come to the fore that. The society saw young blacks as people who wanted to dress in and create this multiplicity of ideas. The Photo Workshop gave a colourful clothes and be authentic but didn’t understand the struggle

108 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Self portrait John Fleetwood, copyright Joe van Rooyen

109 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES and wanted to celebrate by breaking It gave people a kind of confidence and create photography as an employment something that was not linked to the reality trust in themselves that the work is shifted quite dramatically because people of the world. Lolo felt very strongly about valuable. That confidence is something were able to go into the industry with that and I think that she gave a lot of people that has been very critical and important. real knowledge and skills. So it was such the courage to understand that even though an incredible, important programme for your work might look more appealing, its There are several other defining moments. us but we realised very soon that the public value and the meaning can be as The next one is the set-up of the Photo- training and classroom and non-formal serious. I think a lot of people mistook her Journalism and Documentary Photography education that we offered at the Photo work perhaps for fashion pictures, when in course ‘PDP’ in 2005 with the help of Workshop had limitations and needed to be fact she was making commentary. That was Getty Images. It was really defining in the supported by a secondary layer of training. a very important exhibition; it was part of sense that it started a year course, when 13 solo shows of artists showing one after previously we were looking at shorter or The secondary layer of training was another the other at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. part-time courses. But then we understood defining moment for us because we It was the most incredible collection of that to really build photography courses, started with projects like Back and Forth, untested terrain, where at that stage there you need constant engagement, you need in 2007 and Closed Constructions, a project was a race issue around representation and depth, you need to understand the politics around hostels in 2008. These projects young photographers being given space of representation a little bit better, you took the students outside the formalised in gallery set-ups. So to have 13 young need to engage with your peers and you class practice and created a project where photographers showing in Johannesburg Art need to talk about it. I think it was really they planned on multiple levels and layers. Gallery, work that was not expected from defining in the sense that it started to So it was a kind of peer-training, learning black photographers, I think gave a very build this incredible selection of possible from your peers and being inspired. It was particular space for the Photo Workshop. It projects that was linked to the PDP, got a very important aspect because the Back also gave a sense of expression and political people into the news, and suddenly the and Forth project looked at cross-border clout internally, not so much externally. Photo Workshop in terms of its ability to traders that were moving from the big cities

Copyright Euridice Kala

110 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

through for 2 weeks. So that was the first time. Our first interest was also to locate photography in South Africa. You know South Africa has a very strong tradition of photography – ‘struggle photography’, and how it was used like in witnessing democracy or witnessing human rights. I think that history has been really important. But what was lacking was that it was not communicated and we were interested. There was great under-development of photography in the region, so in places like Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe where previously there was a very strong polytechnic training, nothing was happening. What was interesting about Mozambique was that even though there was very little photography, there was a school of photography, which operated for a number of years under the directorship of Ricardo Rangel, a very important photographer in the country. It was maintained and there was a constant flow of photographers that came out of the school. For us, that was immediately interesting. Looking at the economic under-development of Mozambique with a strong, rich history in photography that had developed and was very particular, not large scale. It was very small, very insulated in many ways but it was there, it was existing and there were From the series Second Transition, 2012, copyright Thabiso Sekgala photographers that one could exchange and share with. This was very inspiring and we immediately wanted to engage with that. But in Southern Africa, coming to Johannesburg where a photographer would work with a then through that process, we also realised as to trade and going back to their cities of mentor he had selected with the help of you know that for the rest of the continent origin. But then a particular focus was on the Photo Workshop towards producing there was probably very little influence and the vulnerability to HIV. They often found a body of work in one year. Perhaps the very little development around photography. that the way to pass the legal restrictions importance of such a photographer is not of crossing borders was to use a series of understood but after 8 years, you have 8 I began to understand how under-developed other strategies and one of them, sexual bodies of work and you start to look back the continent is economically but much favours. It made these cross-border traders at who those photographers were and worse than that, the under-development particularly women very vulnerable to HIV. how they have been able to engage with of photography specifically against the very So we photographed the project in South the world, and where they are now as rich cultural possibilities that Africa posed, Africa with the South African photographers photographers. Then you are able to start and the visual-ness and the traditions of and then the non-South African tallying the importance of the workshop. what is happening on the continent. At that photographers continued to photograph stage there was a very particular problem in the neighbouring countries. I think that Was this the first project outside of the inaccessibility of photography, so project became a defining moment for the of the SA borders with other you had a lot of Western photographers Photo Workshop. It gave us a sense of a Southern African countries? creating these images of misery around large-scale project that had value on both No it wasn’t. When I first came to the what Africa really looked like. It was this sides. On one hand it built portfolios for Photo Workshop in 2002, there were a misappropriation and mis-representation those photographers, on the other hand, few projects that looked at the townships of identity that really struck me, so our it created images that the International and the region. I can’t remember exactly immediate interest was to recruit more Migration Organisation, our partner at when our first project was, I think it might students from the region to train them that stage used as advocacy material. have been in 2003 in Maputo, Mozambique. through PDP, our documentary photography Other defining moments were the start The first round, we took a small group of programme. I think quite successfully, we of mentorships at the Photo Workshop, people to Mozambique and the second were able to bring in photographers from as which was typically a year-long process, round in 2005, we took 15 students far as Kenya. That has later grown to include

111 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES students from elsewhere in the world. But It looks at land and the social landscape of for us and I think it probably lacked depth I think it’s quite a landmark to suddenly land, through photography, and imagined in many ways because it was a one-time understand that there is an African school land and the imaged land. So we started project. However, it gives us a certain of photography that is able to cater for a off with theSocial Landscape project but it’s mechanism in the Photo Workshop to think larger continent. For me that was really also about the relationship of photography around photography in different ways. important that we can train photographers with land. We were particularly interested that can go back to their countries of origin in the very interesting history of what Linked to that was Transition, which was and multiply the kind of possibilities. photography has done to document and a project that brought 6 prominent witness land. There was a long history of South African and 6 prominent French Revising the Back and Forth project, dispossession of the tools of documentation. photographers together to do a project on the history of Johannesburg is also one Looking at the socio-economic political landscapes. From South Africa, it was Santu of crossing the border just by living in state of South Africa, black South Africans Mofokeng, Pieter Hugo, Jo Ractliffe, Zanele Johannesburg. I think there has been very didn’t have access to cameras so they were Muholi and Thabiso Sekgala both alumni of large shifts in who Johannesburgers are, never able to really photograph their land. the Photo Workshop, and Cedric Nunn. where they come from, the influence They were also deposed from their land, On the French side, there were a number they bring, and how that integrates into which makes it more complicated. So when of really important photographers like Alain a larger South Africa. Especially as the ‘struggle photography’ started, interestingly Willuame, and Patrick Tourneboeuf, who Photo Workshop is based in the city there was an immediate possibility that had the ability to look at the country. It was centre, you are immediately dealing with an people could be photographed, that actions a collaboration between the Market Photo international population; Ethiopian, Somalian, could be photographed, and that land Workshop and the Rencontres d’Arles. Nigerian, Pakistani, Zimbabwean, and the became the background to this secondary Congolese. So these influences became layer but was really never photographed I think that there are several other very important for us. Typically our students in the first instance. We were interested different defining moments and many of are township-based and travel every day in recreating an archive that was not that them had to do with staff coming to the to come to the city of Johannesburg. It’s of the colonials but one of visibility, one Photo Workshop and people building really interesting for us that we send them of young, black South Africans and all careers at the workshop and developing out into the city and they suddenly realise photographers being able to photograph identities. There are also a number of how Johannesburg has shifted. I suppose the land. We called the project, Show us people that were very influential for the the voice of immigration became very our Land. It was a project where we asked Photo Workshop. One of them is Tswaledi strong in the Photo Workshop as it became all South Africans to forward photographs Thobejane, he is the resources manager and increasingly important that Africa is in flux. through social media using cell phones joined the Photo Workshop in 1999. He’s A much more important and recent and to develop a new archive of land, one been here for many years and in many ways, project that gives you a sense of the shift in that was photographed by South Africans. he is the backbone administratively of the photography is the Social Landscape project. So it was an incredibly important project cameras and resources. There is also Patricia Kyungu-Mati, a Kenyan citizen, who has been here for many years. This is particularly interesting because at the stage she was employed, it was just the beginning, where I think there were still major questions around how a non-South African can come in to administer and operate. There were a lot of other key people working at the Photo Workshop that shifted the understanding like Lester Adams, Molemo Moiloa, Bandile Gumbi, and Ingrid Masondo. There have been so many important staff members at the Photo Workshop that brought in particular skills, particular consciousness and a particular, I suppose beauty to the Photo Workshop. The other group of people that have been key to the sustainability of the Photo Workshop have been the advisory board of the workshop. People who have spent an enormous amount of time and energy helping to establish it. People like Cedric Nunn, Peter McKenzie, Jo Ractliffe - the current chair, and Rory Copyright of Cedric Nunn Bester, who played a very important role

112 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Road Worker on R61, between Cradock and Graaf-Reinet. , Tendance Floue, 2012, copyright Alain Willaume Quenton

in helping us to develop a clear strategy Hadebe, who in many ways created such an get their opinions respected. People like for our public programmes and growth. important voice for photographers of the Mark Magagane, who has been showing a Then very importantly there’s been David country have given credibility to the Photo number of bodies of work, and has been Goldblatt. He is in many ways such an Workshop. Without our students, we would invited to several different shows. And of important person for photography in South not be a school, and be in operation. I think course there is Zanele Muholi who has Africa. I think the general public seldom there is an on-going process or awareness won the Prince Claus and has become realise how important he is, particularly that to set-up a space for photographers an honorary professor at the Bremen for the Photo Workshop with the amount is a hard job, and 50 percent or more of University. She has also won the Freedom of time he spent here giving attention and that job is done by the photographers. of Expression Award. The list of what she’s leadership. So defining moments are the key We are facilitators; as an institution we won is really incredible. Before that was a people who have given attention as well as facilitate learning, we facilitate processes of very defining moment when Jodi Bieber support to the market Photo Workshop. photography but it is the photographers won the World Press Award. I think it who create the content and images. That was in 2010 with the picture of Bibi Aisha, Your students have obviously had awareness is deeply entrenched in the the Muslim woman whose nose was cut an impact on MPW. How have Photo Workshop. There is nothing more off. As an alumni of the Photo Workshop they contributed to the profile rewarding than a young student coming in that was an incredible moment for us if of the Photo Workshop? and eventually becoming a photographer, you consider our size and the budget we They have very much been a contributor or even if not, studying and continuing with have. But I think that it’s much deeper than to the Market Photo Workshop. In fact, the their careers. Many years later, you may that because sometimes the success of only way that it can ever be successful is by hear about a young photographer who has the Photo Workshop is not measured by its photographers. That is why people like made it. I think that is so rewarding to be a our top international photographers. One Nontsikelelo Veleko, Zanele Muholi, Musa part of. We are very fortunate that there would often measure it by, perhaps, the Nxumalo, Bonile Bam and Sabelo Mlangeni are a number of very strong photographers person that wouldn’t by conditions around have been really critical. And before from the Market Photo Workshop who them, have the opportunity but then then, people like Jodi Bieber and Themba have entered the international market and created the opportunity for themselves.

113 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 FEATURES

It might not be the best international it is not accredited to any South African opportunity but it’s the personal shift that qualifications authority. As it happens, brings self-acknowledgement and people the certificate means a hell of a lot. So if realising that they know something and you go to a newspaper in Johannesburg can do something in this world. That sense and you show a Market Photo Workshop of self-worth is very important for the certificate, you stand a very good chance school, for the community and for the of being accepted way above somebody country. I think it’s also very important for with qualifications from a South African photography because it brings these images national qualification body. The reputation into play that we otherwise wouldn’t see. of the Photo Workshop supersedes the questions or urges around accreditation. What is the ratio of your student In a very uncertain accredited field, we population, do you have more blacks had always felt that the quality of training than whites or is it balancing out now? internally is of much more value. If we can Well, one has to be very specific because manage relevance and quality internally, our when David Goldblatt set-up the Photo students will be competitive. The dynamic Workshop, he was very clear it was not a of the Photo Workshop is that it’s never school for black people but for any person. stable and that is part of its strengths. It was open to anyone and in the context We constantly have new assessors, new of Johannesburg at that moment. This was evaluators, new trainers, new photographers unique because there were so many schools that come in and have a cumulative effect and universities that did not encourage black and a changing understanding of what people to come in. They were very explicit photography is. There is no this is the in indicating this. I think that Goldblatt’s rule in photography. There is an on-going concern was there was an audience of challenge to perceptions, which is sometimes young black people who were interested problematic because standards need to in photography but didn’t have a space to also settle. But there are definitely certain go. David Goldblatt always tells the story aspects of training that have settled and that when the Photo Workshop at first we have been very blessed with a group of advertised, they were running courses at trainers that are interested in the world and reasonable prices. There were many white do research. I think that’s actually important people coming from the white, financially given the lack of real support towards independent northern suburbs, though that them, institutionally that we can offer. So was not really the intention. However, it the question around Goldblatt and the got sorted out very quickly by the fact that students–we have about 130 to140 students Copyright Lerato Maduna it was based in Newtown, and had a very in a year and out of that, 90 percent of the particular set of staff that kind of opened students are black. For me, that is important things up. So it was a non-racial school and because it shows that the Photo Workshop issues. In your experience is it the only even in the first group of students that is still a non-racial institution, where anybody model of this kind on the continent? came in, like Jodi Bieber, there were white can come to study photography and feel safe I think it is the only model of its kind as people. There have always been white and protected, and that opinions are valued a photography institution that runs on- students at the Market Photo Workshop and heard. What we’ve found in the last few going courses and sustained itself for but a particular kind of white student, years is that a lot of the students that come more than 2 to 3 decades. That speaks typically who had dealt with the questions from universities and have completed their to the depth of the challenges that we around race at the time, and understood Bachelors in Art or Fine Arts will choose have on the continent. It also speaks to that it was a non-racial institution. For after their studies at university to come to an international economy. There is no me, that is interesting and important. do a year course at the Photo Workshop, shortage of international photographers on because they feel it’s a much more practical the continent, so why is there then such a How was David Goldblatt able to run a multi- application that gives them much more shortage of photography training? For me it’s racial establishment under the apartheid regime? depth. This is really important because a beautiful question because it talks about I think part of the advantage was that again that gives credibility even though we old colonial strategy of acknowledging but it was a workshop and that it was non- don’t have an accredited certificate. When disempowering the continent. The continent formal education so that it didn’t need to somebody from a university comes to an is acknowledged, “Oh great photographers” go through formal educational bodies and informal institution, it must have some value, but training is never empowered. The authorities for acceptance. Part of the charm and I think our students recognise that. funding never reaches training institutions of the Photo Workshop is that it remained in sustainable ways so that they become a non-formal training environment. It is The Photo Workshop is seen as innovative, developed. Art and training institutions not a university; there is a certificate but breaking boundaries and addressing are very dependent on key individuals and

114 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

arts and culture institutions. The immediate future looks bleak; we are struggling to sustain funding. But that said, we are very much still operating and I think that the interest for me is that we’ve got the energy to rethink what we are doing. But then I think much more interesting for us in terms of the future, is to reposition ourselves and think around photography in different ways. Next year, we’ve got a series of very important kinds of meetings, where we will reconfigure the mission and vision of the Market Photo Workshop and our objectives in terms of what our structures are and how we operate in line with our move to a new premises in 2015. We will be moving to Mary Fitzgerald Square, which is the most important cultural precinct in Johannesburg and possibly in South Africa. It will give us a central space and it will give us a square right in front of us, a public square, where I think we will be able to engage in a much more public way than we have done. This is something extraordinary and we are really looking forward to that. Apart from that, we’ll have a library, and it will be an auditorium, which we have here but a much bigger space. The auditorium will be much larger and it will also have bigger training as well as working spaces. And then very importantly, it will have storage space. We are very excited about what happens in the next few years. I think it’s going to be the most important defining years of the Photo Workshop because I think it will reposition who we are.

Do you receive any funding staff members that are able to sustain that successful. There are other festivals on the from government? kind of energy and have got the vision to continent that are probably interested in Since 2004, we have received funding from draw on. I think that these people need scale and quantity rather than quality. Those the Department of Arts and Culture. The to be supported and understood. festivals lack content and in particular lack building we will be moving into is also a I think there are also huge interests in local content, and in many ways for me as grant from the department. I think we are bringing festivals to Africa, but how will these an individual, lack legitimacy. Then there is very fortunate that the Department of Arts festivals operate without proper training? the Bamako Biennale, which I think is such and Culture realises and acknowledges the I’m quite concerned about that and it feels an important biennale which has given such importance of what the Photo Workshop to me as if festivals and the idea of bringing an important focus and understanding to does and in context of a larger national shift any international reputation to places photography on the continent. It has made in photography. It’s time for photography sometimes overrides those individuals that such a change and shift. It’s very important and internationally it has grown as a major can really make shifts in society and that have to know that they are now again planning force. I think what is interesting about the vision and the energy to build training and will be operational in 2014. So I’m very photography is that it has a vernacular that institutions that have localised importance. relieved that it is continuing and we will deals with reality and also the mundane. For me, there is one festival of photography continue to support it as much as we can. For us as a training institution, it is an ideal that is quite interesting, which is the Addis stage to introduce our students to the Photo Festival. It has the intention of training What is on the horizon in real world and the research opportunities and localising photography in Ethiopia in the future for MPW? of being and thinking about photography. particular. I understand that there’s a certain I think funding is the most important Photography is about thinking not just marker of achievement, which is not a scale, question around the future and is probably about seeing and it’s that thinking part it’s the engagement and for me that’s quite the same for all training institutions and that is increasingly more acknowledged.

115 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES PEER CONVERSATION JUDE ANOGWIH AND ADEJOKE TUGBIYELE

Confession.Still 007

116 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

JA: Tell me a bit about you. Who is this maverick, Adejoke Tugbiyele?

AT: Ha! Maverick? I guess I’ll accept the term if being a maverick means viewing my art as a catalyst for change. I am a daughter of Nigerian parents, born in Brooklyn, New York (when Brooklyn was still a little rough around the edges) and raised in Lagos, Nigeria for seven years, during Babangida’s military dictatorship. My ancestors hail from Igbajo - the land of the brave in Osun State, just a few miles away from the Osun Shrine. Although neither of my parents are visual artists, I’d like to believe the creativity that runs through my veins is a combination of traditional Yoruba artistic practice mixed with contemporary influences. I was also trained as an architect, and so my love for design and/or space tends to come through in my work, both formally and conceptually. In the past, I have used the term, ‘three skins’ to describe my interests - the body, architecture, and the environment. All three are systematically connected to each other in ways we often ignore more than we should. Finally, I am also a woman who loves women. Now I am breaking my own rules of self-categorization, but I do so for the sake of activism, which is so badly needed within Nigeria’s queer community.

JA: Pragmatically, you have conveniently and consciously experimented with performance, video art and sculpture in your work. I understand you do bits of photography and drawing aside being a rebel with a definite cause. How does it feel to take charge and create change?

AT: The main thing I believe I am taking charge of, is my life. All else seems to be falling into place when one does so. Yes, my practice has become increasingly multi-disciplinary over time. On one hand, in my creative process, I haven’t found it healthy to restrict myself to one medium. It could also be that I get bored very easily. On the other hand, I think it is extremely important to show consistency and continuity when using different mediums. For example, in my video art work, you will find the same materials being used in my sculpture and mixed media work. Objects such as the traditional broom, African fabrics and re-purposed metal strainers become animated and charged in the video. So essentially, I don’t find any conflict materially in my increasingly multi- disciplinary practice.

117 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Mosquito Organist.Still 002

JA: Lagos is a an eccentric city. Do you film screenings and other events, I am able a very short period of time. see this city supporting you (inspiration, to observe and ask questions about their material, et al) to engage with it? Do you struggles amidst the impending federal anti- JA: Indeed film does travel very far. have specific ideas of what you want your gay bill, as well as the existential realities Tell me about your nomination in the fellowship and stay in Eko to reflect? of being queer in Nigeria. All these will be extended film program at The Jewish reflected in my new works. Museum of New York. AT: Eccentric is putting it lightly! I am so inspired by the hustle-bustle and JA: You talked about change and self- AT: Sure. The exhibition at the Jewish industrious nature of this city. Amidst categorisation and you seemingly sounded Museum of New York is called Sights and nightmarish traffic, loud generators, and tense. What is it about your art you think Sounds: Global Film and Video and runs the smell of diesel everywhere, Lagosians can serve as a catalyst for the desired through 2016. The museum’s interior was keep on going. People always find a reason change you and I envisage in Nigeria? renovated specifically to showcase innovative and method to make each other laugh. video projects from around the globe. It’s as if that gesture is a pure necessity AT: My art deliberately chooses to speak My experimental film,AfroOdyssey III was for getting through the day without going to issues that are still taboo in many parts selected among just a handful of video artists crazy. I’ve learned quickly in my first two of Nigeria. It also critiques the political from Nigeria. AfroOdyssey III is the third of months of Fulbright fellowship work, that machine using a range of mediums, but a longer-planned series that uses costume, sometimes one needs a driver and other particularly film or video art– a medium performance, light and sound to explore times, one better hop on a keke-maruwa–a that is very well known in Nollywood the cross-section of spirituality and sexuality local tricycle to get from point a to b. My circles but has not yet gained wide usage in Africa and its diaspora. As one of the work here has been rather experimental within Nigeria’s art scene. Generating twenty-five curators selected from around in nature. This process is clearly coming conversation or debate on topics like the world, you are in part responsible for its through, materially in my new body of homosexuality can enlighten those who get exposure, and I thank you. work. I have been very much inspired by little to no information on the subject other the fashion-sense of the queer community, than the dogma preached by right-wing, JA: Having interacted, visited and seen which blends native fabric with Western fundamentalist religious institutions. And as most art exhibitions and programs in designs and motifs while simultaneously you already know as a co-founder of Video Lagos, do you see any possibility of artists deconstructing traditional notions of Art Network, Lagos, film has the capacity providing through their work positive gender. By attending gay parties, LGBT to reach an extremely large audience within learning and aesthetic experiences in the

118 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

midst of our society, based on corruption, oppression and exploitation? Although neither of my parents are

AT: There is an amazing lack of political visual artists, I’d like to believe the expression among many young artists in Nigeria. There is so much that needs to be creativity that runs through my veins is a said, yet it seems many young artists are not saying much to critique widespread combination of traditional Yoruba artistic corruption and oppression, as you rightly put it. In fact, a few artists that I have practice mixed with contemporary spoken to in Lagos about my critique of laws against the queer community have influences. been discouraging, warning of the dangers of speaking out. I was very surprised to hear such words coming from them. I all embrace the principles I mention above. Nigeria, people historically knew these mean, if artists don’t choose to speak up, The tools we use to execute our ideas are things and practiced them. Europe was who will? If visiting foreigners decided simply different. Another important book heavily influenced by African arts, traditions to travel blindly through Lagos only to is Carl Jung’s, Man and His Symbols, which and philosophies. However, through open their eyes at gallery exhibitions, they deals more with our primal, subconscious slavery, colonialism and the introduction of would think absolutely nothing was wrong need for meaning. It explores the ways we Western religion, we lost our way. But we with Nigeria. Meanwhile, the international rationalize apparent symbols with those can return by combining our best practices airport based in Lagos, the country’s that appear in dreams to create meaning. from then with those of now, to pave the economic hub, is a complete disgrace. A Within the various traditional cultures of path towards a more enlightened future. large number of people live in the squalor of slums, highly visible as one travels across Third Mainland Bridge. State vehicles like buses and taxi’s look like ticking time- bombs, and people risk their lives riding them everyday simply to go from their homes to work and back. Rich pastors have the nerve to buy personal private jets using the tithes of the hungry, ignorant masses and show the jets off as abundant blessings from the Lord. It’s all quite sickening to watch. I sometimes wonder if this is what it felt like to live in Europe’s Middles Ages, except we are in the twenty-first century! So to answer your question, yes, I see immense possibilities for artists to speak to these issues in their work.

JA: What are your guiding principles?

AT: I must remain true to who I am and what I believe in at all times. Once I don’t, I cease being an artist or human and I become a slave. Creativity is not really about “the brush and the canvas.” It’s about problem-solving. Problem-solving can be done in the spirit of being honest and authentic, having courage and conviction, and speaking those truths that others know deep down inside, but are too afraid to say. John Dewey’s book entitled, Art as Experience sheds light on what art truly is. A visual artist can be an artist, but so can the chef, the politician, the writer, the Mosquito Net Entrapment 2.Still 004 school teacher and the doctor. They can

119 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURE ART 14 LONDONLONDON, SETTING NEW HEIGHTS

Following the success of the inaugural Art13 London, the second edition of the fair, Art14 London sponsored by Citi Private BankBank, willwill taketake placeplace from 28 Feb – 2 March 2014, at Olympia Grand Hall. Last year’s fair saw the inclusion of a Private Museum Summit complemented by two high profile public panel discussions entitled, The China MomenMomentt and The Global Rise of the Private Museum, which considered the role of collecting, the rise of private museums, and emerging centres of art production.Omenka caught up with fair director, Stephanie Dieckvoss to discuss her role and what to expect at this year’s fair.

Copyright Art Fair London Ltd

120 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURE ART 14 LONDONLONDON, SETTING NEW HEIGHTS

121 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

risen exponentially is the awareness of the each, that will present an exciting range fair internationally, which is truly amazing. of upcoming art from across the globe in While before the first edition it was still sometimes very ambitious presentations. an unknown entity, I now hear from such different parts of the world that people are OM: What is your focus this year and how talking about the fair and planning on visiting, will you measure the fair’s overall success? which of course is strong encouragement. My focus for this year is to establish the We also have already many requests about international reputation of this year’s fair and information about exhibiting in 2015, so this to ensure its recognition among galleries, is a great marker of the fair’s reputation and collectors, and curators and the public. The position it has built in only one year. educational aspects of the fair are also very important to me personally and I worked OM: What criteria did you set for hard to ensure not only a very strong talks selecting the participating galleries at this programme but also to develop partnerships year’s edition, and what should we expect? with interesting institutions and non-profit The galleries in the main section are selected partners. We also devised a much more by an international curatorial committee, coherent collector strategy and hope that who select galleries based on the merit of many collectors will come to the fair and their stand proposals. Obviously, I work hard ensure that galleries’ participation in Art14 is on ensuring the applications are interesting a viable and also sustainable undertaking. and the goal for this year was to increase the Stephanie Dieckvoss, Fair Director global spread and to engage more galleries It is hard to measure the success of an art fair. Photo by Ossi Jalkanen from parts such as Africa or Latin America. Many do so by visitor numbers, others by press Copyright Art Fairs London Ltd. So visitors can expect galleries from 42 coverage, or by attending curators. For me, the countries, which is wonderful and should success is given, if galleries have had a good fair, make for a very diverse and intriguing array have made sales and established contact with of works that can be seen. We also have important clients. Galleries are our main clients OM: What is your role as fair director and dedicated curatorial advisors for our young and if they are happy – so am I. what kind of audience are you catering for at gallery sections, London First and Emerge, the Art 14 London? which this year consists of 16 galleries OM: Art Dubai has established an initiative My role is very much about the content of the fair, which includes all projects, initiatives, galleries, collectors, press engagements, and its general strategy and vision. But the brunt of the work of course, is carried out by the wonderful team working with me, as well as by the fair owners who are actively engaged and always have very inspiring ideas, such as the Food 4 Art project. I believe that every art fair has to cater to different tiers of audiences. You need to root a fair in the local art scene and to engage local visitors and collectors. At the same time, it is vital for a global art fair such as ours, that we have serious and established, as well as aspiring international collectors attending the fair. I am personally also very keen to bring artists, curators and critics to the fair, who are important to create a platform for art discourse and opportunities that only develop from engaging with different groups of people.

OM: The fair is entering its second year. How would you describe its growth, not just in terms of the number of galleries participating, but also its reputation outside the UK? The fair has grown organically in size and we are very happy about its current size and range of galleries. What has in my opinion XIAO Jiang, Storage, 2011, oil on canvas, 50×60cm, courtesy of Vanguard Gallery

122 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Yan Lei, Landing-Shanghai C, 210 x 300, acrylic on canvas, 2007, courtesy of Tang Contemporary Art | Bangkok, Hong Kong, Beijing

called Marker to promote emerging art galleries who are either in London for the want to experience art, be it at an art fair scenes like Africa and Asia while ensuring first time or showing emerging artists in 1-2 or a biennial. I don’t think we can undo their participation in global art events. Do artist shows, which is always a risk. However, this. What we can do at an art fair is allow you have similar platforms in place, or are I am very keen to develop strategies that galleries that try to promote artists, to there plans to establish any? ensure that galleries from any part of the do so in the best possible and engaging This year, we are pleased to be welcoming world can find ways to finance participation environment. An environment that presents galleries from all of the continents, from at a fair in London and I am currently looking art beyond the limits of a stand, such as the regions including Asia, the Middle East, into ways to incorporate this into the fair’s works on show as part of the performance Africa, Europe and the United States. Over strategy for the future. programme and the Art14 projects, and the years, I have observed a range of the that stimulates a critical discourse as our above mentioned initiatives and they are OM: There has been much criticism that talks programme hopes to do. My personal interesting and admirable. However, my art fairs promote the commodification of stand to deal with this intrinsic question focus is not to single out specific areas art. In your view, does the art fair model of the value of art oscillating between the but to treat global art production and its inhibit contemporary art discourse? commercial and the symbolic, is to strive for representation equally, and also ensure In the end, most art fairs are commercial integrity and quality in what we do, especially that participation is sustainable and can entities and as such cannot reverse trend in in a commercial undertaking. become part of a long term strategy for the contemporary art world. Art fairs have a gallery. I find the exposure of a certain been successful for a while as they offer OM: Who is the London art collector and area at a fair for one year is often a one off, visitors the chance to see a lot of art in what is your target audience? and doesn’t give the results I would hope one place in a short amount of time, often There is not a single type of collector in for. Our support is very much directed to with an exciting associated entertainment London. No one believes now that 15 young galleries; we offer subsidized rates to programme. This is how collectors currently years ago collecting contemporary art had

123 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Paresh Maity, Duality, 2011, mixed media on board, 150 x 140cm, courtesy of Sumukha Gallery

not been widespread here; traditionally, collecting in the UK has Art14 London’s USP is its global outlook. Through this it has a very unique been more concerned with older art and antiques. However, this positioning and as such; we feel it is incredibly important what we do. has dramatically changed. London has the most serious and engaged While there are a larger number of art fairs, as well as other exhibitions collectors imaginable with a new generation of younger collectors of art in the world, there are also more collectors than ever and the starting to collect and be interested art. Above all, London is one of desire for art still grows. We present many galleries that have never had a the most cosmopolitan cities in the world as reflected in the collecting chance to show in London before, and do so in an international discourse, audiences, which are our target. which specialized art fairs focusing on a single region can’t achieve.

OM: London is home to a number of art fairs including Frieze, and OM: Art 14 London like the Cape Town Art Fair runs from February the recently established 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair. How 27 to March 2. What effect does major concurrent art events does Art 14 establish its identity in relation to these, as well as have on Art 14? the growing number of fairs all over the world? Sadly, it is a sign of the times that there are always concurrent events.

124 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Tyeb Mehta, Untitled, 1973, oil on canvas, 112.5 x 88.7.5cm, courtesy of Delhi Art Gallery

There are some galleries of course there, I would have liked to have from more parts of Africa in future editions of the fair. Finance is exhibit at Art14. Also the Marrakech Bienniale is in the same week as the biggest issue, as well as awareness, I guess. I think the growing the fair – you will always have overlaps and with our global remit, any interest for contemporary art out of Africa has various sources; art event across the world of course has an impact. In the end it is from the art world’s drive to always discover the next thing, to the up to visitors, as well as galleries to decide what their goals and their rising importance of Africa as a global business partner, to potentially interests are and make a choice where to go. historically founded reasons to integrate – very belatedly - Africa in the global arena. I believe that this year’s representation of African OM: What do you think is responsible for the growing global galleries, as well as galleries from other parts showing African art interest in contemporary African art, and do you think art from is truly exciting, and that we will see wonderful works, sculptures, the continent enjoys adequate representation at your fair? installations, performances at the fair – it is definitely not exhaustive! I would have loved to have more representation from Africa at Art 14 London is sponsored by Citi Private Bank and takes place from the fair and I will work very hard to hopefully have more galleries 28 February to 2 March 2014 at Olympia Grand Hall in London.

125 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES CAPE TOWN ART FAIR’S RISING PROFILE Presently in its second year and close on the heels of the successful Joburg Art Fair now in its 8th edition, The Cape Town Art Fair organized by the Fiera Milano Group is oversubscribed and welcomes a number of newcomers to the existing gallery participants. Omenka talks to Louis Cashmore, fair director and Andrew Lamprecht, curator, on the fair’s fast- rising profile and the possibility of staging more fairs in other parts of Africa.

OM: What is your role as fair director? My role is to ensure that the Cape Town Art Fair is a sustainable platform for buyers and sellers to engage with one another, creating an entire contemporary art experience of an international standard.

OM: What kind of audience are you catering for at the Cape Town Art Fair? Collectors, art lovers, curious visitors and the youth who have a passion for art – we welcome them to come and experience the excitement and dynamism of this unique world.

OM: What were the biggest challenges you had to overcome to get Cape Town Art Fair off the ground and what strategies have you adopted in sustaining it so far? The South African art market is complex and we have had to face several challenges to show a balanced representation of local art while still paying attention to the international scene, particularly art from the rest of the African continent. We have tried to be inclusive and consulatative while at the same time maintaining the highest standards.

OM: You recently changed your logo and re- designed your website. How has this affected your audience? The new ‘look’ is designed to enhance visibility and access. This is one way we hope to broaden our audience.

OM: What is new at this year’s fair? This year’s art fair focuses on quality. In fact, it is slightly smaller in scale that the 2013 fair but we have a more focused and carefully selected group of galleries and artists. The major trend will be towards showing work that firmly positions Africa as a place of innovation in the creative spheres.

OM: What were the highlights of last year’s Installation view: Christopher Moller Gallery

126 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES CAPE TOWN ART FAIR’S RISING PROFILE

127 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

Installation view: BRUNDYN+ fair? it comes down to. We have the finest galleries under one roof and Wanted Business Day magazine presented an installation of new now we need to ensure that they do good business. video works, curated by Gary Cotterell, by some of SA’s most exciting contemporary artists namely; Mikhael Subotzky, Haroon OM: How would you describe the South African art collector? Gunn-Salie, Barend de Wet, Khanyisile Mgongwe, Kudzanai There is no one type of collector. There are people from all sorts Chiurai and Cameron Platter. Cape Town curator and critic, of backgrounds and with varying budgets. Nevertheless, the South Andrew Lamprecht curated the featured artist space. Land and African collector, on the whole, is concerned with quality above all environmental artist, Strijdom Van Der Merwe was commissioned to else. There are comparatively few pure speculative investors, South make a site-specific work for the fair. Africans tend to buy art they love and they can live with in their environment, be it personal or corporate. OM: In your opinion was it successful? Yes, galleries reported high sales of over 10million Rand and in OM: How do you see the rising phenomenon of art fairs all over publicity throughout magazines, TV and radio. the world? Andrew, in your opinion, what are the roles of art fairs? OM: What is your focus this year and how will you measure the Art fairs should show what is at the cutting edge and what the fair’s overall success? defining trends are. A visit to a major art fair should leave the visitor Our focus this year was most definitely to create an art fair that with a clear picture of what is the current “state of the game” in the could stand proudly alongside art fairs around the world. Cape Town art sphere. is an international city and home to many of the country’s leading contemporary artists, curators and galleries. This is very evident in OM: There has been much criticism that art fairs promote the what we are presenting at the Cape Town Art Fair this year. How commodification of art. What is your view on this? will we measure the fair’s overall success – sales I’m afraid is what This is always a danger when commercial interests over-ride all other

128 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3 FEATURES

South Africa is now established as a significant locus for contemporary art production. Nevertheless, there is still scope for growth, expansion and greater exposure globally.

Town Art Fair were already committed to Art 14. This year with Cape Town being the World Design Capital, we thought it very important that the Cape Town Art Fair, ran at the same time as Design Indaba and Southern Guild, following Miami’s very successful template of creating a week, which is a celebration of art and design in the city.

OM: Andrew, what makes the Cape Town Art Fair different from other art fairs and how does it establish its identity in relation to other African art fairs? Especially the well-known Joburg Art Fair presently in its 8th year. Cape Town is ideally suited for an art fair being a port city with great potential to attract visitors generally. We hope that we may contribute broadly to the growing interest in African art by staging the fair in Cape Town to attract visitors who may be inclined to spend some time in the “Mother City” beyond the art fair. The identity is still developing but at present we are keen to be known for quality and breath of scope in a managable location.

OM:The Fiera Milano Group organizes the Cape Town Art Fair. Are there any plans to stage any more fairs in other parts of concerns. At this year’s Cape Town Art Fair, special attention has been Africa? Fiera Milano Africa is the African wing of the experienced paid to projects and other non-commercial ventures. In addition, the global exhibition experts Fieramilano, organisers of MiArt Italy, galleries selected will be encouraged to see their participation in the and Art International Istanbul. We definitely have plans to launch context of a bigger project– the promotion of local creativity. more fairs in the years to come, once Cape Town Art Fair is firmly established on the international exhibition calendar. OM: Location is a critical issue in creating a successful art fair. Location in this sense does not only mean geographical, but OM: How would you describe South African art and what is its architectural. How did you decide on the location for the fair? place internationally? I believe that the historical V&A Waterfront is a perfect home for South Africa is now established as a significant locus for Cape Town’s art fair as it does truly represent the beautiful city that contemporary art production. Nevertheless, there is still scope for is playing host to the fair. Art is also a very sensory sector and the growth, expansion and greater exposure, globally. environment in which this fair takes place, contributes to its success. With sweeping views of the ocean and table mountain, depending OM: Andrew what is the response of the South African on which large window of the venue you are standing in front of, government to art and how can other African countries engage made this venue an excellent choice. art as a tool in creating lasting social and economic value? While there have been challenges in terms of censorship there is also OM: Art 14 London like the Cape Town Art Fair runs from February a definite support for art and culture as evinced by greater support of 27 to March 2. What effect does major concurrent art events South African representation at international biennales and the like. have on Cape Town Art Fair? This is an area to watch and we all need to promote local art and be The international calendar is as you are aware, jam packed. The fact watchdogs for incursions on freedom of expression. In some ways, the that Art 14 London is running concurrently is definitely not ideal as educational role of the Cape Town Art Fair has this at its heart; to make a number of international galleries who wanted to exhibit at Cape our art more widely known and to show what is possible.

129 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 3

The Mother City’s budding reputation as a global art hub, captured in its title of W orld Design Capital 2014, makes this the perfect environment to bring together the nation’s high concentration of world-class galleries and showcase the breadth and depth of local talent in an exquisite setting. Collectors, critics and casual visitors are invited to rub shoulders, enjoy a glass of wine and marvel at the inspiring work on display by emerging and established South African art-world stars. CTAF presents both an unmissable highlight on the country’s creative calendar and a unique commercial opportunity .

28 FEB - 2 MAR 2014 | DOCK ROAD | Opening times: 10am – 8pm daily (Sunday 2 March until 6pm) www.artfaircapetown.co.za

@CTArtfair

Book now at Computicket (tickets also available at the door ) For more information, contact: (021) 702-2280 or art@fieramilano .coOMENKA.za MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 2 Global Energy Group (GEC) is an Africa focused independent Energy Resources Corporation. GEC operates with a mission to explore, harness and produce a variety of energy resources in a sustainable manner that enhances the wealth of our host nations and the quality of life of the people. GEC as part of its Corporate Social Responsibility over the past two decades, actively supports and promotes arts, culture and people initiatives in Nigeria and elsewhere in Africa. GEC aims to nurture, sustain and showcase the best of Africa’s immense creative energy with a special focus on the visual arts, dance, drama, and theatre.

+234 84 235 326 [email protected] www.globalenergyco.com

132 OMENKA MAGAZINE VOLUME 1 ISSUE 1