The Wonders of West-Africa part2.
In the early twenty-first century contemporary African art is no longer confined to the works of black artists; it now includes those produced by artists of European, Arab, and Asian descent. That it has come of age is evident in the creative ways it often combines ancient African elements with new and frequently Western materials, forms, and techniques to reflect the peculiarity of the continent’s history and the complexity of its encounters with other cultures. No wonder that contemporary African artists have been receiving more invitations to participate in international exhibitions and biennials. Africa itself has become the site of major expositions such as the Cairo International Biennial in Egypt, first held in 1984; the Dakar Biennial (Dak’Art) in Senegal, first held in 1992; and the Johannesburg Biennale, South Africa, first held in 1995.
The strong visibility of contemporary African art on the world stage was reflected in the inclusion for the first time in a 1996 major textbook on world art (Stokstad) the works of two contemporary African artists, Magdalene Odundo of Kenya and Ouattara of Côte d’Ivoire. In 1998 curator Okwui Enwezor of Nigeria, the founder of Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, was appointed the artistic director of Documenta 11 in Kassel, Germany—the first time an African would be trusted with such a major responsibility. A year later, the Egyptian artist Ghada Amer won the UNESCO Prize at the Forty-Eighth Venice Biennial in Italy. As Barbara Pollack aptly observes in the April 2001 issue of Art News: “While the political upheavals in … [African] … countries serve as a backdrop to their work, many of these artists struggle to make individual statements that transcend politics and nationality. By so doing, they are transforming our very definition of African art”.
