In Angola, Sylvia Smith discovers a new generation of African artists keen to make their mark
It is not something I had really thought about before: how do you walk around an art exhibition? I somehow imagined it was instinctive and that everyone did more or less the same thing. But, I learn, that is not necessarily true if you are African.
The curator of Angola’s first triennale, Fernando Alvim, is pointing excitedly at a small-scale model mock-up of what he calls ‘the death of the white cube’. His scheme for an art exhibition space looks so radical and different that at first glance I cannot quite grasp how the intersecting angles and lack of wall space can be a gallery. As I look more closely I begin to see how the concept works. Here in Alvim’s minimalist studio in central Luanda you come eye to eye with the ultra-modern face of contemporary African art. And Alvim’s concept is as much about how the country’s economics are feeding into a fledgling art industry as it is about intersecting, moveable panels on which to display art.
Angola’s oil boom has brought huge wealth to the country and along with it a strong desire to re-establish its cultural identity after almost three decades of war; not by simply picking up the pieces of the past, but with the bold conviction that Angolans now hold the country’s destiny in their own hands.
Through the glass windows of Alvim’s studio a panoramic view of the city confirms that construction is going on at a pace that might bring envy to the eyes of the rulers of some Gulf states. Several buildings are shooting up a rate of three floor levels a week and the building boom is not just confined to office towers. Just last week Alvim completed his architectural model for the new public contemporary art museum to be put up on Luanda Island. ‘It is unbelievable how important art and culture are to the Angolan people,’ he says. ‘We are now in a phase where people want to see something that has been created in our country and that reflects our past – but also looks towards our future.’
Youngsters learn drawing skills
during the Luanda Triennale
Back to the model mock-up. The 90-degree angle is banned and there are no outside walls. Visitors will ricochet back and forth between vertical panels placed at varying angles so as to provide space for information about what is on display. In no way does this mimic the Western habit of progressing in a pre-determined route around the walls of a gallery before moving on to the next room.
Alvim says the layout reflects Africans’ natural flamboyance of movement. He chooses his metaphor carefully: ‘It is as far removed from a stylised Western waltz as the wildly exciting improvised way of dancing here.’ Neither is reverential silence a feature of this new African gallery or of the new wave of emerging African artists. The gallery will provide places for conversation in the middle of the art. The African artists will be invited to explain their work and its meaning.
It all begs the question, where does cultural conditioning begin? What does this mean for curators of African art?
And what is it that Angolans are looking at from such a different angle?
Alvim was co-curator of the African pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2007. It was the first time ever that the African continent had been represented as a whole, with all the work coming from a collection held in Luanda.
Paulo Kapela at the
city’s Artist’s Collective
The owner, Congolese businessman Sindika Dokolo, has the largest collection of contemporary African art anywhere on the continent. He does not want it to leave Africa and intends to keep his collection in Luanda in a specially designed gallery. It is the start, he believes, of a renaissance of African art.
‘We don’t want to ask for the West to return the objects they stole from us and that are now in ethnographic museums,’ says Dokolo. ‘We want to go beyond what is expected of us; to open people’s minds to modern Africa.’
To find the artists whose work was displayed in Venice, I have to cross this traffic-congested city, reminiscent of another oil-rich African mega city in the size of its jams – Lagos.
As I sit in a line of vehicles that has scarcely moved in half an hour, a hand reaches into the car. I look out and then down. Balanced on crutches a small, cheerful man with a huge pile of masks and wood carvings from the north of Angola is squeezed between two congested lines of traffic.
This is high street shopping, Angolan-style. With traffic treacle slow, you can be tempted to buy almost anything as a way of passing the time. Just at that moment the car in front moves slightly and we shift forward a few feet. I decline his offer and the happy, shiny face does not register any annoyance. If I do not become a client, someone else further back in the queue will. The identical, mass-produced wooden masks on sale on the streets are a million miles away from the artworks in the run-down colonial building that is the workplace of many of Angola’s newest artists. From the sensational blinding colours of Nello, who paints a twisted abstraction of jagged lines, to Paolo Kapela’s collages of modern urban rubbish juxtaposed with colonial Catholic imagery, the diversity is bewildering.
Thanks to the oil boom there are plenty of buyers in Angola itself who recognise the capability of art to exorcise the devils of the past. There may be as yet few schools and no infrastructure, but there is so much talent that why it has not carved itself into the consciousness of international art collectors can only be explained by a growing domestic market.
Kiluanj, a 30-year-old photographer who is working on a series of portraits of Chinese container ships which once transported manufactured goods in exchange for Angolan oil but now lie shipwrecked on the shores near Luanda, explains the significance of rising oil prices. ‘For us it means we don’t have to look abroad to make a name for ourselves. We have our own aesthetic and there are plenty of Angolan companies to buy our work. We are interested in selling abroad, yes, but our primary market is here in Angola.’
Affluence is enabling a young generation to define the way Africans look at the world. It has emboldened Angolan artists to face the international art market on their own terms. They have moved out from behind the mask, the stuff of ethnographic museums, and into the glare of modernity – producing an Afro-centric art that does not conform to Western preconceptions.
Where to stay
Tropico Hotel and Hotel Alvalade are the most popular with business travellers. Advance booking is essential.
Where to eat
The best food in town is at the Miami Beach Restaurant on Lunada Island. The Bahia Restaurant on the Marginale is popular with the hip crowd.
INSIDE AFRICA AIRS SATURDAY AT 18:30 AND 01:30; SUNDAY AT 15:00 (CET).
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