Africa Remix (2004-2008) marked a watershed moment for the display and reception of contemporary African art globally. This monumental exhibit of work by over 80 artists from 25 countries traveled for four years, to five museums on three continents, and recorded blockbuster attendance at nearly every stop along the way. Curated by Simon Njami (the Paris-based Cameroonian scholar best known for his work as editor-in-chief of the influential Revue Noir), with assistance from Jean-Hubert Martin (of Magiciens de la Terre fame), Africa Remix was perhaps most notable for being the first exhibition of contemporary African art to show north-African artists alongside their sub-Saharan counterparts, representing, or so it claimed, the entire continent “from Cairo to Cape Town.”
In terms of their framing of ‘Africa,’ that ever-vexing, over-determined symbol, the curators of Africa Remix made a number of notable choices. First, they forgrounded the shared colonial experience, rather than a romanticized pre-colonial past, as the central pillar of African identity. Secondly, where Africa’s troubled present is concerned, Njami and his collaborators elected neither to wallow in what Abiola Irele has termed “Afro-pessimism,” nor to sanitize and the often-dire reality of the moment for western consumption. Instead, they saw it as a historically necessary, even necessarily painful, process of transition.
Though Njami only selected works produced between the 1980s and the early years of the new millennium, with an emphasis on pieces from the late 90s onward, his framing of the contemporary was much less about time than about place and the artist’s relationship to it. Focusing explicitly on “urban, sophisticated art produced by Africans who are connected to the discourse of contemporary international culture”¹ Africa Remix specifically claimed the city, both African and otherwise, as a way of thinking about locality beyond the confines of the nation state.
Though a range of media were represented in Africa Remix, it witnessed a particular profusion of both photograph-based works, and of mixed-media installation pieces. While the vogue for African photography has only grown over the intervening years, installation seems to be falling by the wayside as a viable strategy. Perhaps the prevalence of installation art at Africa Remix further speaks to that show’s particular concern with re-defining the spaces of African art reception and production.
The 130+ works on view in most of the shows permutations were divided into three sub-categories: “Identity and History”, “Body and Soul”, and “City and Land.” Beyond these nominal brackets, very little was done in the way of theoretical differentiation. The relatively unmediated nature of Njami’s show was, in fact, the source of one of its most common critique. Was it possible that this show had dissolved into pure spectacle in the absence of a strong theoretical narrative?² In my view, Njami does a good job of speaking to the issue of heavy-handed framing, at least on the level of language, in his introduction to the exhibition catalog:
“Some artists have turned into perfect forgers, delivering the conventional discourse to anyone who wants to hear it… Deep down they remember that some things should be left unsaid and that objects have a meaning and an origin no analysis can erase… African artists can be indifferent to the way the surrounding world sees them because, deep down, they pursue a different goal, think different thoughts and speak a different language. Their refusal to raise their voice amidst the throng is not a throwback to the timidity passed on from other eras, it marks their deliberate will to master their own space—that precious and unique space that is the hearth of all creation worthy of the name. This now all too long-forgotten silence is, in my view, the best way to approach African creativity. Everything starts and finishes with this silence.”³
That Africa Remix did not make more apologies for its inclusion of white African artists, or of black artists of trans-continental locality, was seen by some as a failure to acknowledge the relative privilege of these individuals when compared to most artists working on the ground in Africa. Again I find something liberating about the inclusive, self-assured silence of Njami’s mega-show. Specifically locating his curatorial work in the aftermath of both essentialist identity politics and its subsequent knee-jerk disavowal, Njami had hoped, through Africa Remix, to bear “witness to a certain maturity and appeasement, where artists have no need to prove anything through their work.” When the time for justification has passed, perhaps analysis can begin?
1. Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. Edited by Simon Njami; with essays by Lucy Durán ... [et al.]; and a dialogue between Marie-Laure Bernadac and Abdelwahab Meddeb. London: Hayward Gallery, 2005. p 14.
2. As suggested by Elizabeth Harney in Art Journal, Vol. 66, No. 2 (Summer, 2007), pp. 120-127.
3. Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. Edited by Simon Njami; with essays by Lucy Durán ... [et al.]; and a dialogue between Marie-Laure Bernadac and Abdelwahab Meddeb. London: Hayward Gallery, 2005. p 17.
4. Africa Remix: Contemporary Art of a Continent. Edited by Simon Njami; with essays by Lucy Durán ... [et al.]; and a dialogue between Marie-Laure Bernadac and Abdelwahab Meddeb. London: Hayward Gallery, 2005. p 21.
-Imani Roach
