By Andrew Mulenga
Founded in the
late 1800s, the Venice Biennale is one of the world’s largest
contemporary art exhibitions, taking place every two years in Venice, Italy. The
Biennale is considered by many
the Olympics or World Cup of contemporary art and being able to participate as
an artist, gallery or country is an outstanding achievement in itself.
The latest installment of the Venice Biennale brings
together more than 150 artists from 37 countries spanning from the 19th century
to the present day and as always
an outstanding national pavilion is selected by an expert panel of judges, and
the curators of the winning exhibition space are honoured with the coveted
Golden Lion Award.
This year, exhibiting
for the very first time, Angola has been awarded this prestigious accolade making
it the first sub-Saharan country to do so and defying the odds against some
very stiff competition from the more experienced and seemingly organised
German, French and Danish pavilions with whom the African country shared the Cini Palace, a lavish building full of
history near a bustling tourist spot. In fact Angola plays ‘David’ to the
German ‘Goliath’, toppling the so-called developed country as holder of the top
honour of best pavilion.
But it turns out
that the leading German art magazine ART
did not react too well to the fact that Angola has won the Golden Lion award
and appears to have written a shaggy-dog story in an article entitled "ANGOLA! WO IST ANGOLA?" (translated ANGOLA! WHERE IS ANGOLA?") outwardly making fun of the African
recipient of the accolade.
The article by
the magazine’s senior editor Ute Thun suggests the Angolan pavilion is not one
of the visitors’ favourites and expresses surprise at its emerging as the
winner. The article also insinuates that the Angolan team may have gone out of
its way to lobby for the accolade using co-curator Stefano
Rabolli Pansera as someone who is a “well-networked” architecture and urban
planning specialist. Thun’s
article has attracted sharp criticism from outspoken Dar-es-Salaam born and
German based art market practitioner Safia Dickersbach, however, who has
condemned the article describing it as “somewhat disappointing, narrow-minded
and an almost stereotypic viewpoint on this year's winner of the Golden Lion
contrasting with the magazine's aspiration to cover the art scene from a global
perspective”.
In a short
commentary sent to Andrew Mulenga’s Hole in
the Wall, entitled Angola wins, but
Germany's "ART - Das Kunstmagazin" wonders: Where is Angola?
Dickersbach protests that ART
magazine, “claimed that hardly any visitor actually saw the work of the
(Angolan) photo artist Edson Chagas in Palazzo
Cini and speculated about ‘successful lobbying and networking’ by curator
Stefano Rabolli Pansera. The only reason which was given for these vague
conjectures was the fact that Pansera had already curated Angola's contribution
to the architecture biennial a year ago.”
“I ask myself
what kind of "networking and lobbying" had preceded the Golden Lion
prizes previously awarded to the national pavilions of the U.S. with Bruce
Nauman in 2009 and of Germany with Christoph Schlingensief curated by Susanne
Gaensheimer in 2011? Was there also speculation happening back then about the
reasons for these successes?” queries Dickersbach who is also a very compelling
critic of TURN, the new cultural support program initiated by the German
Federal Cultural Foundation (‘Africa is
not a country’, German funders told’, Saturday Post, Hole in the Wall, 12
January 2013).
“Were those
winning countries, artists and curators maybe too established and influential
so that there was no reason to worry about illegitimate manoeuvring? Are only
the Africans again considered prone to cronyism and patronage which ART more stately translated with
‘networking and lobbying’ to make it fit the aristocratic environment of
Venice's palazzos? ART dutifully
speaks about detractors spreading such rumours, but the question remains why an
influential German art magazine provides ample space for vague suppositions by
obviously resentful competitors.”
She discloses
that ART is published by the largest
German publishing house Gruner & Jahr
which she states belongs to the media conglomerate Bertelsmann. She further states the magazine is primarily financed
by advertisements of major galleries, museums, art fairs and auction houses and
it would be very interesting to find out “which hidden agendas ART is pursuing with its lopsided
coverage of Angola's success in Venice” and that maybe some disappointment
about the showing of its own major business clients during the event in Venice
played a role as well.
In her
commentary, Dickersbach further suggests that the German magazine “mocked the
choice of Angola's national pavilion to mirror the motto of the main exhibition
Encyclopaedic Palace by calling the
Angolan presentation Luanda - An
Encyclopaedic City, instead of ignoring the main exhibition's theme as
allegedly all the other national pavilions did. The question is: What is wrong
with picking up and variegating the main exhibition's motto? Does it mean that
the artistic quality of Angola's contribution is inferior just due to its
decision to artistically interpret the Venice biennial's central theme? Or the
other national pavilions’ decision to deliberately ignore the main exhibition's
theme proves their independence and intellectualism?”
The choice of
Angola was made by a five-woman jury chaired by Jessica Morgan (Great Britain)
and comprised of Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy (Mexico), Francesco Manacorda (Italy),
Ali Subotnick (United States), and Bisi Silva, an independent Nigerian curator
and founding director of the Centre for Contemporary Art in Lagos who is
probably the most hard-working woman in contemporary African art having curated
the West African space that was the centrepiece at Art Dubai 2013, the UAE’s
premier art fair just a few months ago.
The judges at
Venice are said to have paid particular attention to countries that have
managed to provide original insight into expanding art practice within their
region but Angola’s pavilion was selected for the way it reflected on “the
irreconcilability and complexity of site”.
As much as the Angola
pavilion was co-curated by a non-African, the exhibition was commissioned and
supported by the Angolan Ministry of Culture, and in any case, the Angolan
government must be commended for supporting its artists at a cost even though
every government owes the arts its allegiance. The Angolans must be delighted
too at the outcome as it was not a bad investment after all, seeing that as
newcomers to Venice, they took an expensive gamble and rented a plush
exhibition venue for the entire duration of the Biennale, which runs until
November 24.
And in which ever context one may want to ask the
question “Angola! Where is Angola?!”, if the contemporary art world did
not know where Angola is at the Venice Biennale or on the African continent,
now they do.
Other than
Angola, South Africa, Kenya and the purportedly cash-strapped Zimbabwe are also
present at Venice. South Africa has a stand-alone pavilion whereas Kenya and
Zimbabwe have chosen more economical and temporary venues. It is through an official invitation to the Zimbabwean
Ministry of Education, Sport, Art and Culture that Zambia’s neighbour and
co-host of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation General Assembly are
attending Venice for the second time.
Nevertheless,
Africa must join Angolan in celebration for putting it on the map especially at
a time when creative Africans on the continent continue making us proud, even
though our continent’s share of the global creative economy is less than 1 per
cent according to research revealed by Mike van Graan the Executive Director of
the Cape town-based African Arts Institute during the Creative Economy
Conference held in Nairobi, Kenya in 2011.
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