Kenyan visual artist Wangechi Mutu is representing in the latest issue of American Vogue. Great write-up about her art, her new baby and dressing like a rock star. Check it out here: http://www.style.com/vogue/feature/2009_April_The_Shape_Issue/slideshow/horizontal/ And you can learn more about her here: http://www.saatchi-gallery.co.uk/artists/wangechi_mutu.htm
The Met’s latest exhibition The Essential Art of African Textiles: Design Without End showcases textiles designed by artists from West Africa. The show features work by the great Malian photographer, Seydou Keita. And while we’re on the issue of African masters, Senegalese artist Iba Ndiaye has died at 80.
Untitled, Teapot 2005 Art imitates street life South African artist Robin Rhode was born in Cape Town in 1976. Formally, he cut his teeth at Wits Tech (National Diploma in Fine Art) and South African School of Film, Television and Dramatic Arts – both in Johannesburg. Rhode now occupies the performing and fine arts’ worlds from its epicenter Berlin (where he resides) and beyond, having exhibited his work on his [...]
A new exhibition at the African-American Museum in Philadelphia reveals the little examined influence of Africans on Mexican culture. Mexico did not acknowledge the existence of Afro-Mexicans until 1992. Enslaved Africans are believed to have arrived in the 16th and 17th century. Many of their descendants continue to live in the southernmost tip of Mexico. The exhibition also hopes to somehow form a bridge and start get some dialogue between [...]
Los Angeles-born, half Nigerian artist Kehinde Wiley is known for his colorful and somewhat provocative paintings of black men set against intricate tapestry backgrounds. At 20 the now 31-year old Brooklyn based painter journeyed to Nigeria in search of his estranged father. The series “The World Stage: Africa, Lagos ~ Dakar” is based in his time in Lagos and Dakar. Most of the paintings were done in makeshift studios set [...]
For you New York heads, take thee to Harlem to check out the FLOW! exhibition at the Studio Museum of Harlem (through June 29). Underlying this exciting exhibition is the idea of “Afropolitanism” with contemporary African artists from Morocco and Algeria (by way of France), Uganda, South Africa, Senegal and Ivory Coast, among others. AfriPOP! spoke to Cape Town-based visual artist Thando Mama (pictured below) about his work and being [...]
