ART IN THE TIME OF AFRICA

ART IN THE TIME OF AFRICA

Colloquium 13 September 2018

The University of Johannesburg Faculty of Art, Design and Architecture (FADA), Absa and UJ Arts & Culture in association with the South African National Association for the Visual Arts (SANAVA), will host a one-day colloquium at the Chinua Achebe Auditorium, APK Library on 13 September 2018 with financial support from the UJ Division for Internationalisation and Absa.

Entitled ART IN THE TIME OF AFRICA, this colloquium will cast a post-colonial gaze on contemporary African art practice, criticism, publishing, theory and philosophy of art, within a Pan African context.

An impressive line-up of internationally recognised speakers will grace this event with specific insights into the theme under the guidance of chairperson, Gordon Froud, senior lecturer (FADA, UJ), artist and curator.

Alicia Knock, adjudicator Absa L’Atelier 2018, Curator: Contemporary art and Prospective department, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France will address the topic of Collecting for Africa and share her recent involvement in the shift towards a more consistent strategy for African acquisitions. She will elaborate on that ongoing-and still growing-strategy, mainly focusing on history and on the blurring of a merely geographic approach (either continental or national).

Director of The Showroom in London and lead adjudicator Absa L’Atelier 2018, nominated by SANAVA, Elvira Dyangani Ose, theoretical work on the evolution of artists within new forms of environment, in the absence of conventional institutions and contexts, will inform her contribution entitled About Being Together.

Cultural analyst and writer Ashraf Jamal will examine Authorship and the Art Book in Africa. He poses questions such as: What does it mean to write on behalf of Art? Whom does this enterprise reach? What is the basis for this enterprise - is it designed for a closed market? Does it merely speak to a critical cognoscenti? Who and what is the ‘African Artist’ and ‘Contemporary African Art and Culture’ on whose behalf the writer writes?

Ernestine White-Mefetu, Curator of Contemporary Art: Iziko South African National Gallery will interrogate the relevance of art competitions on the African continent and identify the possible short and long-term effects of entering or winning on the artists’ personal and professional development. Her talk is entitled: Platforms of Possibility: The relevance of art competitions in Africa)

Johannesburg based artist and curator and winner of the Laureate du Prix sculpture award, Usha Seejarim, will show a short trajectory of process that led to the sculptural artwork exhibited at the Dakar Art Biennale and share insights around what it means to be an artist on the African continent now. Thoughts reflecting the role of prizes and awards in the career of an artist will be touched on.

Thabang Menoa, adjudicator Absa L’Atelier 2018, PhD candidate in Art History, (FADA, UJ), will focus on Post-colonialism as reflected in the arts of Africa. He states that the uniqueness of the Absa L’Atelier competition presents an opportunity to evaluate and perhaps even renew our understandings of the various, and often, intersecting issues affecting Africa.

24WWW.ARTTIMES.CO.ZA

Top Left: Ashraf Jamal, Top Right: Alicia Knock, Centre Left: Usha Seejarim Centre Right: Thabang Menoa, Bottom Left: Ernestine White-Mefetu, Bottom Right: Elvira Dyangani Ose

“The Absa L’Atelier art competition is one of the longest-running and regarded as the most prestigious art contest in Africa.”

The conveners, Annali Dempsey and Gordon Froud, are excited a the prospect of the colloquium and see it as a necessary and relevant event in relation to the role as art educators and practitioners and timely in terms of post-colonial discourse in the Pan African context. The timing too is pertinent with regard to the Absa L’Atelier Competition.

The audience will include academics, artists, students as well as the 10 Absa L’Atelier finalists from all over Africa. Academics, arts practitioners, administrators and students are at the frontline of post-colonial discourse and are able and willing to share insights from a philosophical background and practical experience. The colloquium aims to offer a forum for such interaction and exchange of information. Please RSVP before by 6 September 2018 to aedempsey@uj.ac.za