All the World's Futures: Globalization of Contemporary African Art at the 2015 Venice Biennale

Abstract

This essay considers the contemporaneity of African art and the globalization of its artists as evidenced in the 56th Venice Biennale. It questions the Western capitalistic dominance that turns the production of African artists into exploitable commodities through an overview of the history of African involvement in the Biennale and analysis of issues pertinent to the 2015 exhibition. As points of example, it addresses Okwui Enwezor's historic directorial position, and reviews two African artists, Ibrahim Mahama and Gonçalo Mabunda, whose works confront global capitalism in different ways.

Notes

1 As a point of comparison, 21 Americans are included in the exhibition.

2 This Euro-American orientation of the exhibition is reflective of the larger problem of scant acknowledgment of non-Western artists in the contemporary art world.

3 Every two years, two exhibition spaces contribute to the combined Venice Biennale. An artistic director is appointed to plan an international exhibition in which he or she invites the artists and establishes a theme. This exhibit is within the Arsenale building. The second component to the Biennale is the national (and sometimes regional or thematic) pavilions in which the invited countries that hold permanent exhibition space organize their projects.

4 Searle's comment on Anatsui is interesting considering that the artist has been shown at the Biennale prior to this occasion and was at this point one of the better known African artists in the world. This is revealing with regard to the state of the visibility of African artists even recently.

5 See Documenta11_Platform1, Documenta11_Platform2, Documenta11_Platform3, Documenta11_Platform4, Documenta11_Platform5 (Ostfildern-Ruit, Germany: Hatje Cantze Publishers, 2002).

6 The other artists included at both biennials are John Akomfrah, Ghana, lives/works in London; Nidal Chamekh, Tunisia, lives/works in Tunisia and Paris; Samson Kambalu, Malawi, lives/works in London; Wangechi Mutu, Kenya, lives/works New York; Emeka Ogboh, Nigeria, lives/works Lagos and Berlin; Massinissa Selmani, Algeria, lives/works Algiers and Tours.

7 For a map of the exhibition, see http://www.labiennale.org/doc_files/map-2015.pdf.

8 See Kaplan's (2003) essay for a comprehensive history of the historic trade relations between Europe and Africa.

9 Mabunda initially began this work as part of a 1995 initiative of the Christian Council of Mozambique called Transformação de Armas em Enxadas (Transforming Arms into Tools). The concept stems from a passage in the biblical book of Isaiah 2:4, “and they shall beat their swords into plowshares.”

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mallory Sharp Baskett

Mallory Sharp Baskett ([email protected]) received her MA from Indiana University in 2014 and is a doctoral student in History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara where she specializes in African art history and visual culture. Her research focus is 20th-century Ghana.