East of the Atlantic, West of the Congo
by Leon Siroto and Kathleen Berrin
Dumile Feni Retrospective
Dumile Feni was one of Africa's greatest 20th century artists - painter, sculptor, poet, and nascent filmmaker too. He left South Africa in his mid-twenties, already successful as an artist, and lived in exile in London and New York, exhibiting his paintings and sculptures widely, in both solo and group exhibitions. Dumile travelled and exhibited in China, Nigeria, the US and the UK. His work often conveyed human emotion - suffering and pain, including people contorted with anguish, as well as g...
This book features an evocative collection of images that reveal the power and importance of art in human nature. Amidst the dumps and slums of urban Kenya, street children and artisans search for a way to survive, to reclaim and promote their own existence. "The Art of Recycling in Kenya" presents readers with an evocative collection of photographs taken in the markets and villages of Kenya, where initiatives promoting self-sustenance through the exploitation of recyclable materials have been s...
World on the Horizon
The multiauthored book accompanying the World on the Horizon exhibition organized by Krannert Art Museum is the first interdisciplinary study of Swahili visual arts and their historically deep and enduring connections to eastern and central Africa, the port towns of the western Indian Ocean, Europe, and the United States. At once exhibition catalogue and scholarly inquiry, the publication features eighteen essays in a mix of formats - personal reflections, object biographies, as well as more in-...
William Kentridge (born 1955, Johannesburg) is one of South Africa's pre-eminent artists, internationally acclaimed for his drawings, films, theatre and opera productions. His work draws on varied sources, including philosophy, literature, early cinema, theatre and opera to create a complex universe in which he explores time, history and revolutionary politics. In 2016 the Whitechapel Gallery will present an exhibition of his recent works, focussing on a sequence of five key pieces dating from...
Jane Alexander is one of the most significant South African artists working today. The artist's hybrid mutants speak to the porous borders between humans and other forms of animal life. Alexander acts as a nonjudgmental surveyor mapping the forces, interests, and passions at play in human behavior. Her sculptures, installations, and photomontages are firmly rooted in her South African experience yet they also transcend their locality, revealing the disparity felt every day around the world betwe...
'San Art' is the title of a book that provides a comprehensive introduction to the variety and independent character of the arts of the San communities (also known as bushmen) living in southern Africa. After only a few years, specific support for promising artists led to the creation of a lively art scene. By now the prints and oil paintings generated under the auspices of the cultural project "Schmidtsdrift/South Africa", regularly find their way into international galleries and collections. T...
Documents folk architecture and wall paintings in Nigeria, Ghana, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Mauritania, and Mali.
Africa remix: Contemporary art of a continent features the work of more than 85 artists from 25 countries on the African continent and the Diaspora. Considered to be the largest exhibition of contemporary African art ever seen in Europe, it includes painting, sculpture, installation, video, drawing, photography and design. Africa Remix explores the themes of city and land (the contrasting experiences of urban and rural life); identity and history (including issues of tradition and modernity and...