Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi | The Museum of Modern Art (original) (raw)
Uploads
Papers by Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi
Critical Interventions, 2013
This essay addresses the ways in which the aesthetics of blackness is understood in the works of ... more This essay addresses the ways in which the aesthetics of blackness is understood in the works of three Black British artists: Eugene Palmer, Denzil Forrester, and Tam Joseph. It analyzes how they combine the aesthetic conventions of the first and second generations of Black British artists, and how they negotiate their social space as members of the Black community in Britain. Their personal histories’ as immigrants and attendant sense of displacement that trails the transition from one (Black) community to another is crucial and reflected in the aesthetic practices of the three artists. Ultimately, the essay contends that despite Palmer’s, Forrester’s and Joseph’s commitment to the aesthetics of Blackness, their lack of institutional visibility is suggestive of the politics of representation in Britain, a reason why they do not have much of a presence in Black British art history. In more than three decades of substantial studio practices, Eugene Palmer, Denzil Forrester, and Tam Joseph have explored various aspects of Black British experience.1 Considering the depth of their engagement with Black cultural politics in the 1980s, the careers of the three artists have not been critically examined except for few catalogue essays. This is a gap in Black British art history that becomes amplified in attempted “grand narratives” such as the recent publication, Shades of Black: Assembling the 1980s (2006).2 The book, which arose out of a conference organized at Duke University in the spring of 2001 under the same title, examined the Black British Arts Movement of the 1980s as a significant historical moment. Apart from being included in the list of some of the important 1980s exhibitions on the last pages in Shades of Black, Palmer, Forrester, and Joseph are not discussed in the book, even though they each developed substantial careers during the course of the decade. The question that arises, therefore, is: what is the implication of significant omissions in the construction of the Black British art history in publications that claim to assemble the breadth of Black Arts in Britain? Another important publication that aimed to provide a meta-narrative was the catalogue, The Other Story: Afro-Asian artists in post-war Britain, which accompanied the seminal exhibition of the same title in 1989.3 The three artists were neither included in the exhibition nor in the Black British art historiography outlined in the last pages of the catalogue. Critics charged the exhibition with other failings and omissions. It is in this light that the curator Sandy Nairne’s call for a more progressive documentation of the entire scope of post-war artistic development in Black Britain becomes imperative (Nairne, 2006, pp. 25-30). This article provides a critical perspective on the practices of Palmer, Forrester, and Joseph by exploring artworks they produced in the historical 1980s. It analyzes how the three Caribbean-born artists draw upon their individual immigrant experiences as creative fodder in ways that differ from the first generation of Black British artists, and at the same time, how their works mirror the social concerns and radical aesthetics of the second generation of younger, largely BritishthE individuAl And community: Aesthetics of Blackness in the works of three Black British Artists
World Art, 2013
This article addresses ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ as two distinct categories in African artistic... more This article addresses ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ as two distinct categories in African artistic practices and art history. It engages with exhibitions as sites of knowledge production and examines how they construct narratives of artistic modernism, modernity, and contemporaneity. By focusing on the Tendances et Confrontations exhibition, at the Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Negres Dakar in 1966, and Dak'Art biennials since 1992, it explores the role of the two exhibition platforms in shaping artistic practices and discourse in two moments in African art and history in the last 50 years. The article also places particular emphasis on the interpretation of artworks in Tendances et Confrontations and Dak'Art to outline a transformation in artistic practices and knowledge production.
Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2018
Abstract:The creation of the Dak'Art Biennale in 1989 marked a pivotal moment in the African ... more Abstract:The creation of the Dak'Art Biennale in 1989 marked a pivotal moment in the African and international art scenes. President Abdou Diouf's government had emerged from the worst part of Senegal's economic crisis in the 1980s and was ready to return to international cultural diplomacy, a central policy thrust of Senegalese government since independence. Coincidentally, the mainstream art world had begun to reexamine the meaning of internationalism in the wake of neoliberal globalization, with groundbreaking exhibitions such as Magicians of the Earth at Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1989 and the proliferation of art biennales in the incoming decade. Dak'Art was an important player in this new, global configuration. Yet, the new "art world order" does not fully explain what precipitated Dak'Art. A full picture must include a rigorous engagement with twentieth-century history of global black cultural politics as Dak'Art's wellspring. In mapping...
documenta 14, the most anticipated event in the international art calendar in 2017, unfolded in t... more documenta 14, the most anticipated event in the international art calendar in 2017, unfolded in two venues, first in Athens, Greece, from April 8–July 16, and then in Kassel, its traditional venue, from June 10–September 17. An intimidating cultural extravaganza, not least because it was held in two cities in two countries and commanded a princely sum of nearly $50 million to organize, it presented a glut of works that occupied both cities. In Kassel, the displays were spread around the entire city at venues such as documenta’s permanent grounds, documenta Halle, Neue Gallerie, and Friedrichsplatz; local institutions and museums including Stadtmuseum, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Naturkundemuseum; and alternative spaces such as Weinberg-Terrassen, Gottschalk-Halle, and KulturBahnhof (a former underground train station). To see all of the works would have required spending at least a full week in Kassel—a luxury most art professionals can no longer afford given the saturated art world ca...
dele jegede's new works offer a way of grappling with some of the major issues that have been... more dele jegede's new works offer a way of grappling with some of the major issues that have been troubling Nigeria in recent years. Since the late 1970s he has interrogated the Nigerian project with deep insight and sincerity of purpose. His 1986 exhibition Paradise Battered , at the dystopian height of the 1980s, addressed the miasma of perdition that had enveloped the country. With a few other artists who actively engaged the national space in the 1980s such as Obiora Udechukwu, Olu Oguibe, and members of the defunct AKA Circle of Artist, jegede cast a critical light on a country that held so much promise at the time of its independence in 1960 but seemed to have lost its bearing. From the impoverishing Structural Adjustment Program, which effectively erased the middle-class, the rigmarole of a political transition program by the Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida presidency, students' protests imported neoliberal agendas, institutional corruption, to state-sponsored assassinations, ...
Critical Interventions, 2013
This essay addresses the ways in which the aesthetics of blackness is understood in the works of ... more This essay addresses the ways in which the aesthetics of blackness is understood in the works of three Black British artists: Eugene Palmer, Denzil Forrester, and Tam Joseph. It analyzes how they combine the aesthetic conventions of the first and second generations of Black British artists, and how they negotiate their social space as members of the Black community in Britain. Their personal histories’ as immigrants and attendant sense of displacement that trails the transition from one (Black) community to another is crucial and reflected in the aesthetic practices of the three artists. Ultimately, the essay contends that despite Palmer’s, Forrester’s and Joseph’s commitment to the aesthetics of Blackness, their lack of institutional visibility is suggestive of the politics of representation in Britain, a reason why they do not have much of a presence in Black British art history. In more than three decades of substantial studio practices, Eugene Palmer, Denzil Forrester, and Tam Joseph have explored various aspects of Black British experience.1 Considering the depth of their engagement with Black cultural politics in the 1980s, the careers of the three artists have not been critically examined except for few catalogue essays. This is a gap in Black British art history that becomes amplified in attempted “grand narratives” such as the recent publication, Shades of Black: Assembling the 1980s (2006).2 The book, which arose out of a conference organized at Duke University in the spring of 2001 under the same title, examined the Black British Arts Movement of the 1980s as a significant historical moment. Apart from being included in the list of some of the important 1980s exhibitions on the last pages in Shades of Black, Palmer, Forrester, and Joseph are not discussed in the book, even though they each developed substantial careers during the course of the decade. The question that arises, therefore, is: what is the implication of significant omissions in the construction of the Black British art history in publications that claim to assemble the breadth of Black Arts in Britain? Another important publication that aimed to provide a meta-narrative was the catalogue, The Other Story: Afro-Asian artists in post-war Britain, which accompanied the seminal exhibition of the same title in 1989.3 The three artists were neither included in the exhibition nor in the Black British art historiography outlined in the last pages of the catalogue. Critics charged the exhibition with other failings and omissions. It is in this light that the curator Sandy Nairne’s call for a more progressive documentation of the entire scope of post-war artistic development in Black Britain becomes imperative (Nairne, 2006, pp. 25-30). This article provides a critical perspective on the practices of Palmer, Forrester, and Joseph by exploring artworks they produced in the historical 1980s. It analyzes how the three Caribbean-born artists draw upon their individual immigrant experiences as creative fodder in ways that differ from the first generation of Black British artists, and at the same time, how their works mirror the social concerns and radical aesthetics of the second generation of younger, largely BritishthE individuAl And community: Aesthetics of Blackness in the works of three Black British Artists
World Art, 2013
This article addresses ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ as two distinct categories in African artistic... more This article addresses ‘modern’ and ‘contemporary’ as two distinct categories in African artistic practices and art history. It engages with exhibitions as sites of knowledge production and examines how they construct narratives of artistic modernism, modernity, and contemporaneity. By focusing on the Tendances et Confrontations exhibition, at the Premier Festival Mondial des Arts Negres Dakar in 1966, and Dak'Art biennials since 1992, it explores the role of the two exhibition platforms in shaping artistic practices and discourse in two moments in African art and history in the last 50 years. The article also places particular emphasis on the interpretation of artworks in Tendances et Confrontations and Dak'Art to outline a transformation in artistic practices and knowledge production.
Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art, 2018
Abstract:The creation of the Dak'Art Biennale in 1989 marked a pivotal moment in the African ... more Abstract:The creation of the Dak'Art Biennale in 1989 marked a pivotal moment in the African and international art scenes. President Abdou Diouf's government had emerged from the worst part of Senegal's economic crisis in the 1980s and was ready to return to international cultural diplomacy, a central policy thrust of Senegalese government since independence. Coincidentally, the mainstream art world had begun to reexamine the meaning of internationalism in the wake of neoliberal globalization, with groundbreaking exhibitions such as Magicians of the Earth at Centre Pompidou in Paris in 1989 and the proliferation of art biennales in the incoming decade. Dak'Art was an important player in this new, global configuration. Yet, the new "art world order" does not fully explain what precipitated Dak'Art. A full picture must include a rigorous engagement with twentieth-century history of global black cultural politics as Dak'Art's wellspring. In mapping...
documenta 14, the most anticipated event in the international art calendar in 2017, unfolded in t... more documenta 14, the most anticipated event in the international art calendar in 2017, unfolded in two venues, first in Athens, Greece, from April 8–July 16, and then in Kassel, its traditional venue, from June 10–September 17. An intimidating cultural extravaganza, not least because it was held in two cities in two countries and commanded a princely sum of nearly $50 million to organize, it presented a glut of works that occupied both cities. In Kassel, the displays were spread around the entire city at venues such as documenta’s permanent grounds, documenta Halle, Neue Gallerie, and Friedrichsplatz; local institutions and museums including Stadtmuseum, Hessisches Landesmuseum, Naturkundemuseum; and alternative spaces such as Weinberg-Terrassen, Gottschalk-Halle, and KulturBahnhof (a former underground train station). To see all of the works would have required spending at least a full week in Kassel—a luxury most art professionals can no longer afford given the saturated art world ca...
dele jegede's new works offer a way of grappling with some of the major issues that have been... more dele jegede's new works offer a way of grappling with some of the major issues that have been troubling Nigeria in recent years. Since the late 1970s he has interrogated the Nigerian project with deep insight and sincerity of purpose. His 1986 exhibition Paradise Battered , at the dystopian height of the 1980s, addressed the miasma of perdition that had enveloped the country. With a few other artists who actively engaged the national space in the 1980s such as Obiora Udechukwu, Olu Oguibe, and members of the defunct AKA Circle of Artist, jegede cast a critical light on a country that held so much promise at the time of its independence in 1960 but seemed to have lost its bearing. From the impoverishing Structural Adjustment Program, which effectively erased the middle-class, the rigmarole of a political transition program by the Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida presidency, students' protests imported neoliberal agendas, institutional corruption, to state-sponsored assassinations, ...
African Arts, 2019
The Raw Material Company in Dakar, Senegal, hosted the Condition Report 3 symposium “Art History ... more The Raw Material Company in Dakar, Senegal, hosted the Condition Report 3 symposium “Art History in Africa” in September 2018. Like the 2017 International Conference on African Cultures (ICAC) in Harare, Zimbabwe, this symposium played a significant role in positioning scholarly and creative voices of Africa at the forefront of debating art history.
The symposium was held at the Musée des Civilisations Noires (Museum of Black Civilizations) in Dakar before this building was officially opened later that year. This museum, as a dream of Léopold Senghor that was realized with the assistance of Chinese funds half a century later, set the backdrop for lively discussions about 21st century geopolitical shifts. Presentations and conversations focused on ways of localizing art histories, the role of Senegal and Dak'Art in shaping the arc of art history in Africa, the history of ''African art history", platforms that expand conventional praxes of art history, and the importance of situating Africa as the legitimizing site of knowledge creation.
Written with Koyo Kouoh (Founder of Raw Material Company and Director/Chief Curator of Zeitz MOCAA, South Africa), Ugochukwu-Smooth Nzewi (Curator at the Cleveland Museum of Art), Suzana Sousa (Angolan-based Curator and Writer) and Emi Koide (Professor at the Federal University of Recôncavo da Bahia in Brazil), this article analyses some of the issues that were raised at the symposium.
The full article can be found at the MIT Press site: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1162/afar_a_00456.
Critical Interventions 12(3), 2018
In this introduction to the theme of the Critical Interventions special issue 12/3 (2018), the ed... more In this introduction to the theme of the Critical Interventions special issue 12/3 (2018), the editors discuss critically the dialectics of the rural and the urban in African art and scholarship, offering perspectives that transgress habitual binaries in both, popular and scholarly imaginations. The aim of the introduction and the special issue more generally is to underscore the spatial dynamics of the urban and rural experience as critical in understanding contemporary cultural and artistic practices and the production of postcolonial subjectivity in Africa.
In the articles of this issue, the visions and vistas available in the works of African artists suggest that the urban and rural are not to be understood as two separate worlds. Instead they co-constitute the experience of African societies and individuals. The contributions cover various regions of the continent and engage critically with the connections between the rural and the urban in the social and aesthetic practice of contemporary artists. They question, expand and go beyond binary rural-urban tropes, offering new and unexpected perspectives on the pertinence of cultural and artistic practices as agents between these and other spaces.
Dak’Art. The Biennale of Dakar and the Making of Contemporary African Art, 2020
Dak'Art. The Biennale of Dakar and the Making of Contemporary African Art, 2020
MoMa Magazine website, 2020
Artist Sammy Baloji, anthropologist Filip De Boeck, and curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi discuss... more Artist Sammy Baloji, anthropologist Filip De Boeck, and
curator Ugochukwu-Smooth C. Nzewi discuss Congolese
painter Moke’s bright depictions of Kinshasa city life. The basis of this conversation is an extraordinary gift of three paintings by Moke to MoMA from the Jean Pigozzi collection: Kinshasa at Noon (1980), Long Live Utex Africa (1989) and Mitterrand and Mobutu (1989).