Nzewi Ugochukwu-Smooth C. - Dakart : the biennale of Dakar and the making of contemporary African art

Edited by
Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi and Thomas Fillitz

This edition published 2021

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2021 Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi, Thomas Fillitz, and contributors

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ISBN: 978-1-350-10649-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-08515-7 (ebk)

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Cover design: Tjaa Krivec
Cover image Rhema Chachage.

Cover image: Rhema Chachage, PART II: Nankondo, 2017, video, projected text and bathtub (installation). Courtesy of the artist.

Eva Barois De Caevel is an independent curator, writer and editor. Her areas of interest are feminism, post-colonial studies, the body and sexuality, critique of Western-centred art history and thus the renewal of writing and critical speech. She is assistant curator for RAW Material Company and coordinator of RAW Acadmie (Senegal), and editor and consultant for the Institute for Human Activities (Congo, Netherlands, Belgium). She is one of the founders of the international collective of curators Cartel de Kunst, Paris. In 2014, she was awarded the ICI Independent Vision Curatorial Award 2014. In 2016, she was co-curator with Koyo Kouoh of Still (the) Barbarians, EVA International, Irelands Biennial in Limerick. In 2018, she was guest curator of the edition of LagosPhoto Festival, Lagos. Among her texts in exhibition catalogues and specialized journals: with Els Roelandt (eds) (2017), Cercle dArt des Travailleurs de Plantation Congolaise. Congolese Plantation Workers Art League. New York: Sternberg Press.

Viy Diba is visual artist and professor at the cole Nationale des Arts du Snegal. Besides his training as artist at Institut National des Arts, Dakar, and cole pilote internationale dart et de recherche of Villa Arson, Nice, France, he also studied urban geography at Universit de Nice, France. Since 1989 he has been president of the Association Nationale des Artistes Plasticiens du Sngal (ANAPS), and was a member of the DakArts Conseil scientifique in 1996, 2000 and 2004, and later of the Biennales Comit dorientation in 2008, 2010 and 2012. At DakArt 2018, he curated the exhibition La Brche (The Breach) in the Senegalese Pavilion. In 2018, he was also curator of the inaugural exhibition on contemporary arts at the Muse des Civilisations Noires, Dakar (MCN). He has received several national and international decorations, including the Chevalier de lOrdre du Mrite Sngalais, and was awarded the Biennales Grand Prix Lopolod Sdar Senghor in 1998. Among his participation in major exhibitions are: The Johannesburg Biennale (1995 and 1997); Container 96 Art across Oceans, Copenhagen (1996); Grafolies La Biennale dAbidjan (1993). His artworks are in the collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, Washington DC, Brooklyn Museum, New York, and Fowler Museum, University of California Los Angeles, among others. A monograph on Viy Diba: The Huchard, Ousmane Sow, (1994), Viy Diba: Plasticien de lenvironnement, Dakar: Spia.

Thomas Fillitz is retired professor of social and cultural anthropology, University of Vienna. He was visiting professor at various universities in Europe, in particular in 2008 at Universit Lumire Lyon2, and in 2011 at Universit Paris DescartesSorbonne. From 2003 to 2009 he was external examiner in the Department of Anthropology, National University of Ireland, Maynooth, and from 2007 to 2013 he was secretary of the European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA). He has conducted field research in Northern Nigeria, Cte dIvoire, Benin and Senegal. He has carried out research on contemporary art in Africa with special focus on West Africa since the early 1990s, and has conducted fieldwork on the Biennale of Dakar since 2008. Among his publications are: with Paul van der Grijp (2018), An Anthropology of Contemporary Art, London: Bloomsbury Academic; (2018) Art and Anthropology: Different Practices and Common Fields of Intersection, FIELD A Journal of Socially Engaged Art Criticism, 11. Available online: http://field-journal.com/issue-11/art-and-anthropology-different-practices-and-common-fields-of-intersection.

Joanna Grabski is director of the School of Art and professor of art history at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts, Arizona State University, USA. She has conducted research in Dakar since 1998 and has published extensively on art institutions, artistic livelihoods, market spaces, public art, fashion and street life, the DakArt Biennale of Contemporary Art, visuality and creativity, urban memory, and interpretations of the built environment. Among her honours and awards are the Art Journal Award and the Millard Meiss Publication Award from the College Art Association. Her current research focuses on art schools and art world globalization. Documentary film on Dakars storied Colobane Market as a site for transforming used objects: (2013),