Magiciens de l’Afrique
With the participation of Bertrand Lavier
16 July–10 September 2011
Opening
Friday, 15 July 2011, 8 to 10 p.m.
Galería Kewenig
Oratorio de Sant Feliu
C/ Sant Feliu s/n
E-07012 Palma de Mallorca
T 34 971 716 134
F 34 971 714 514
gk@kewenig.com
After subsequent exhibitions in the 1990s at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art Contemporain in Paris and at the National Museum of African Art, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, Seydou Keïta (1923, Bamako, Mali–2001, Paris), was acknowledged also in Spain with the exhibition, Alter Ego (2003, Centre de Cultura Sa Nostra, Palma de Mallorca) and in 2007 by the large travelling exhibition, 100% Africa, at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao.
As an autodidact, Keïta transformed classical African studio photography into a unique photographic art. With sure-footed sensibility for those portrayed, his black-and-white photographs show a remarkable sense for detail, the gaze, the pose, the symmetrically arranged background and the carefully selected accessories. His precision and simultaneous discretion are, at the same time, historical evidence of the modern Malian middle class and its unique synthesis with Western consumer culture. The exhibition brings together 13 of Keïta’s photographs that came about between 1949 and 1959.
From Frédéric Bruly Bouabré (c. 1923, Ivory Coast), the Galería Kewenig is showing a key work, Le Musée du Visage Africain (1995/96) from 70 colourfully painted sheets the size of postcards that were put on show already in 2002 at documenta XI. Since the 1940s, in his drawings, Bouabré has been casting a symbolic system of signs for divine creation. From prehistoric African writings, modern advertising logos, emblems and symbols, he finds new formulae for a universal interpretation whose basis is always a firm belief in God.
Framed by Keïta and Bruly Bouabré, the exhibition is showing wooden sculptures by ancient tribes from West Africa. Talismanic figures of the Dogon (Mali), androgynous sculptures in austere Cubist forms symbolize at the same time masculine strength and feminine fertility. The people of the Lobi (Burkina Faso) carved so-called Bateba figures with strict symmetry in their thoroughly formed bodies and expressive portrayal of their facial traits. They were understood as mediators between human beings and supernatural beings. The talismanic figures of the Fon (Benin) make a connection with the religion of voodoo. One of the presented figures is wearing a coat made of iron padlocks. Each padlock symbolically stands for fathoming an accident or problem that has to be solved or ‘opened’. Twin figures of the Ewe (Ghana, Togo and Benin) complete the exhibition. Honouring deceased twins brought the reward of happiness and comfort.
The circle to contemporary art is completed by Bertrand Lavier (1949, now living in Burgundy and Paris), whose work will be shown in 2012 at a large retrospective by the Centre Pompidou. Lavier has been engaged since the 1970s with mechanisms for transforming everyday objects into art. At the Galería Kewenig he takes up African sculptural language in order to reinterpret it in his own reply, thus bringing it into present-day art via his characteristic style. Made and used in Africa as everyday objects, the sculptures first became works of art and commodities in the art trade within the context of the European world. By not carving his sculpture in a handicraft way, but casting it in bronze and having it nickel-plated, Lavier demonstrates how an individual art object becomes artistic commodity.
General opening hours
Mon–Fri 10 a.m.–2 p.m., 4 p.m.–8 p.m.,
Sat 10 a.m.–2 p.m.
*Image above:
Fon (Benin), fetish, padlocks, wood, fabric, 55 cm
