11 February 2020, “Culture and art are absolutely crucial to the health of a nation,” says Prince Shyllon, one of the country’s biggest collectors, by Rebecca Anne Proctor.
20 January 2020, Headed by Bonaventure Soh Bejeng Ndikung and featuring a curatorial team including Aziza Harmel, Astrid Sokona Lepoultier, and Kwasi Ohene-Ayeh; as well as artistic advisors Akinbode Akinbiyi and Seydou Camara; and scenographer Cheick Diallo, the 12th Bamako Encounters is one of the largest to date. The artist list is equally expansive, with 85 artists and collectives who reflect a truly global and complex African experience and culture. Bamako-based Malian writer Ousmane Diarra comments on the particularities of this edition.
22 January 2020, Siddhartha Mitter on the 12th Rencontres de Bamako.
23 January 2020, The Benin Bronzes, some of Africa’s greatest treasures, were looted in 1897. After a chance encounter, two men made it their mission to return them by Alex Marshall.
17 January 2020, The 2010s not only saw the rise of new and urgent social movements – #BlackLivesMatter, Occupy, #FeesMustFall, Extinction Rebellion, #MeToo – it also witnessed the emergence of a generation of bold artists, new art fairs, photo-sharing apps and a journey’s end for this short century’s most thrilling curator, writes Sean O’Toole.
16 January 2020, In the wake of initiatives to repatriate Africa’s stolen property, the author of this letter asks the French President to repair what his ancestors have broken, before attempting to restore the war trophies of colonial conquest by Manthia Diawara.
14 January 2020, A group exhibition at French art festival Les Vagamondes presents work by six photographers from Mali, Senegal, Mozambique and the Ivory Coast, and their exploration of identity, past and present by Marigold Warner.
13 January 2020, The time is ripe for artists and curators to reconfigure what can actually be done within the walls of a museum by Clémentine Deliss.
9 January 2020, The photographer Pieter Hugo, who has captured scenes from Nigeria to Mexico, takes T inside his studio by Osman Can Yerebakan.
13 January 2020, Yinka Shonibare talks about his project spaces in London and Nigeria and Africa’s untapped artistic potential.
6 January 2020, Packed with traced and freehand marks, Mehretu’s artworks inspire awe of what might be called an informational sublime, a 21st-century twist on the artistic tradition by Daniel Gerwin.