Away from Africa

A few years ago, I wrote about Mboko Lagriffe's " Barbebuexpo " in Douala: a novel way of organizing an art fair. In the meantime, he has not been idle. He continued painting, organizing bi-annual Barbecuexpo art fairs, designing household items, but the big "coup" has been to win the competition for a new design on Royal Air Maroc (RAM) airplanes. In 2016, Royal Air Maroc organized a competition, Wings of African Art, to decorate the exterior fuselage of its airplanes. The jury president was Mehdi Qotbi, head of the National Foundation of Museums of the Moroccan Kingdom, and included artists and critics of renown. There were three winners: Mboko Lagriffe from Cameroon, the Franco-Moroccan Sara Ouhaddou, and Saidou Dicko from Burkina Faso. Mboko Lagriffe also won the public vote.  The "Love" Royal Air Maroc plane (photo: Dayot JC) The Love plane in the air (photo: Guillaume Février) Painting: Frontières Irréelles (Unreal border...

Pefura is an artist trained as an architect, of Cameroonian origin but born and raised in Paris, France, and now living in Milan, Italy... and currently exhibiting at  Skoto Gallery , in New York City, not for the first time. His previous exhibit, in 2005, was reviewed in the  New York Times  by the art critic Holland Cotter. In this show, "Pefura: nos voyages immobiles" ("our motionless trips"), his architectural background is still very much the backbone of his art, but these works are very different. There are wall-size collages, made of squares; at first glance you may think that many squares are repeated, but in reality no two squares are alike, even if some resemble each other. Another theme is small (viewed from afar) suitcase-style sculptures; one of them, however, upon closer study, is a meticulously hollowed out and reconstructed book. Then there are the paintings, more human-centric than the architectural theme of boxes seen in perspective. And f...

The Musée Dapper in Paris, located in the Embassy neighborhood in the 16th arrondissement, at 35 rue Paul Valery, is a wonderful hidden gem, mainly known to specialists of art from Africa and its diaspora, including the Caribbean. The difference between the Musée Dapper and many other French museums is that the Musée Dapper is a nonprofit organization, whereas many French museums are run by the French government. In the United States, it is the opposite: most museums are nonprofits/public-private partnerships, including the Smithsonian Institution , which I thought was a Federal institution. Samir Bitar, Director of the Office of Visitor Services , provided explanations on this subject. (however, Smithsonian museums are housed in GSA buildings .) The museum opened in 1986, after the Olfert Dapper Foundation was created in 1983 in Amsterdam by Michel Leveau (1930-2012). Why Olfert Dapper? He had written a “Description of Africa” in 1668, an encyclopedia-style book, where...

Detail Cancer and Contours , 2011,  Discarded plastic bags ( Plasto-yarns )  and bottles, twine and wood. 39 x 41 x 8 inches Skoto Gallery has unfailingly shown high quality art in New York since 1992. The gallery’s specialty is African contemporary art, and Skoto was the first to provide an NYC space to El Anatsui, for example, whose art is now displayed in many museums worldwide. The current exhibition, on view through November 2, 2013, is called Transmogrification : works by Ifeoma Anyaeji. It is a very original and also timely exhibition using surprising materials for the three-dimensional art and sculpture. Ifeoma Anyaeji Ifeoma, born and raised in Benin City, Nigeria, studied painting at the University of Benin in her hometown, as an undergraduate. However, sculpture was always her passion, and 3 years ago she won a Ford Foundation Fellowship award and attended Washington University in St. Louis (Missouri, USA). She eschewed traditional materi...

During our recent stay in Cameroon, we were fortunate to find a group exhibition showing at Doual'art , the cultural center in downtown Douala. This is one of the rare, if not the only, nonprofit exhibition spaces in Cameroon. It is managed by Marilyn Douala Bell and Didier Schaub, located in the business center of Douala, Place du Gouvernement. Pieces by Joseph Francis Sumégné "Petit Masque I," Joseph Francis Sumégné "Petit Masque II," Joseph Francis Sumégné "The Family," Romuald Dikoumé, 2012 "La déchirure," Merlin Tefolo, 2012 "Deido Plage," Salifou Lindou, 2012 "Mental Thown I," Salifou Lindou, 2012 Marilyn Doualla Bell in the upstairs office Didier Schaub It is also the best place to meet with our old friend, the artist Koko Komegne .