23/06/2019 IncarNations - African Art as Philosophy - Art Africa Magazine

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MAGAZINE
IncarNations – African Art ARCHIVE

as Philosophy
The Sindika Dokolo Collection is the foremost collection of art
from the African continent with work that begins in the pre-
colonial era and traces the influence of the African spirit via the
slave routes and diasporas into the contemporary. A patron and
visionary collector, Dokolo has put together a unique collection
that considers traditional African Art to be the spiritual ancestor
and cultural precedent to contemporary African Art.

“incarNations” curated by South African artist Kendell Geers and

Sindika Dokolo himself redirects the focus from the European
gaze and Colonial fantasy and places the mask back on the
African Artist to look at the International traditions of art with
African eyes and with an Afro-Centric spirit. The mask was
created to be performed in ritual, rite and masquerade, an
ancient symbolic transformation of the subject into the
embodiment of a spiritual deity. Classic African Art masterpieces
from the collection lead the way through the exhibition like
guides, the heroes of a living tradition that set the stage to
understanding contemporary African art. “incarNations”
celebrates the undeniable aesthetic power of African art, as well
as acknowledging the ethnographic origin and context, but goes
beyond both these schools of thought and introduces a third
point of view, African Art a Philosophy.

Africa cannot be reduced to anything to expect an ancient living

tradition of difference and contrast. Explaining African Art, the
Nigerian poet Chinua Achebe cited the Igbo proverb that “the
world is a dancing masquerade. If you want to understand it, you
can’t remain standing in one place.”

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23/06/2019 IncarNations - African Art as Philosophy - Art Africa Magazine

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Cuban artist Andres Serrano is a descendant of the Africans who was

kidnapped and forced into slavery in the New World. Serrano’s
portrait of the Ku Klux Klan grand masters inverts the cliché about
masking traditions as the black man photographs white supremacists
on the other side of the mask.

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23/06/2019 IncarNations - African Art as Philosophy - Art Africa Magazine

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Kendell Geers, Twilight of the Idols (Fetish), 2009.

Have you ever wondered why the map of the globe is oriented with
North on top? A blue/green orb oating in the dark vacuum of space
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23/06/2019
p g g p
IncarNations - African Art as Philosophy - Art Africa Magazine

has neither top nor bottom, and yet every map of the Earth is
oriented in favour of the North. The most simple answer to that
psycho-geographical political charge is that it’s nothing more than a   
habit of the European cartographers who wanted to elevate their
own perspective in relation to the rest of the planet. In 1550, before
cartographers had developed the habit, the Tunisian diplomat and
author Leo Africanus published a map of the African continent
oriented South in his book Della descrittione dell’Africa et delle cose
notabili che iui sono. This “upside down” map is key to
understanding the exhibition which has been curated from an Afro-
Centric point of view.

Artists include Jane Alexander, Joel Andrianomearisa, Omar Ba,

Sammy Baloji, Lisa Brice, Huma Bhabha, Walker Evans, Damien
Hirst, William Kentridge, Aida Muluneh, Wifredo Lam, Ernest
Mancoba, Ana Medieta, Nandipha Mntambo, Stan Douglas,
Mohau Modisakeng, Zanele Muholi, Wangechi Mutu, Otobong
Nkanga, Adrian Piper, Tracey Rose, Andres Serrano, Gavin
Jantjes, Yinka Shonibare, Malik Sidebe, Kehinde Wiley, Sue
Williamson and Hank Willis Thomas amongst others from the
continent and diaspora.

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