Cheri samba art series#

Halter’s art tries to reconcile his mixed feelings about being a Zimbabwean living in a country wary of immigrants. His dealer Ashleigh McLean at Whatiftheworld Gallery said Mr. In South Africa, Dan Halter makes wordplay paintings and collages using woven plastic bags, a nod to the heavy-laden refugees and roadside peddlers the artist meets along South Africa’s border with Zimbabwe. Photo: Annie Tritt for The Wall Street Journal WSJ's Kelly Crow joins Tanya Rivero to discuss.

Cheri samba art series#

Samuel Fosso, a photographer known for taking elaborate, Cindy Sherman-style self portraits, dressed up like Chairman Mao Zedong for a series called “Emperor of Africa” that made its debut at the LagosPhoto festival in Nigeria three years ago.Ĭollectors have discovered Africa where new galleries, museums and fairs are flourishing. Congolese artist Sammy Baloji layers century-old photos of indigenous tribes and pith helmet-wearing Belgian colonists atop smokestack views of copper-smelting factories and mines now owned by Chinese companies. Moffat Takadiwa pays scavengers in his home city of Harare, Zimbabwe, to bring him examples of cheaply made Chinese imported plastic goods, nicknamed zhing-zhong, which he bundles into bulging wall hangings.

The current generation of contemporary African artists is well traveled and up-to-date on artistic developments in New York and London while simultaneously tuned into issues at home.Ĭhina’s entree into Africa, as investor and importer-exporter, is a hot-button topic of work throughout the continent. Little of it borrows from Africa’s traditional visual tropes: 19th century carved wooden figures, raffia costumes and woven baskets once deemed “primitive” yet famously collected by modern artists like Picasso. In November, Paris will get its own niche fair, called Also Known as Africa (AKAA), and a month after that, Ghana will debut a new fair, Art Accra, in a hotel on Labadi Beach.Ĭollectors say they’re taking a closer look at contemporary African art now because the continent’s whole scene is making a seismic break with tradition. Crowds also packed into the booth of Johannesburg’s David Krut Projects to see Ethiopian photographer Aida Muluneh’s vividly colorful portraits in which she explores ideas about rules of social engagement in her homeland. Nairobi gallery ARTLabAfrica drew in crowds with Kenyan painter Beatrice Wanjiku’s haunting portraits of faceless people wearing straitjackets. Last week, 6,500 people attended 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair during its second show in New York after debuting three years ago. At New York’s Armory Show in March, organizers set aside an area for 14 galleries who show African artists, several of whom had never shown in the U.S. The 2006 piece, “Peju’s Robe,” was only expected to sell for up to $795,000.Īll this activity has won the attention of international fair organizers who have recently jumped on the Africa bandwagon.

collector at Bonhams in London, the artist’s third-highest auction price. Three months ago, a shimmering tapestry made from folded scraps of colorful aluminum by Ghana’s El Anatsui-arguably the best-known living African artist-sold for $1.2 million to a U.S. That’s a fraction of the millions paid lately for artists who found fame after him, like China’s Zeng Fanzhi or Brazil’s Beatriz Milhazes.Īfrica’s economy is still roiling from volatile oil prices, but prices appear to be holding steady or rising for many of the continent’s heavy hitters in the art world. Gallery works by William Kentridge, a major South African artist whose animated drawings are owned by museums like the Tate, hover between $150,000 and $600,000, according to Goodman Gallery.