May 29 - July 13, 2012
opening May 29th, 6 - 9 pm
New Galerie has invited the curator Koyo Kouoh and Raw Material Company, the art center she directs, for an installation on its premises.
The installation brings to the New Galerie all of Raw Material Company's formats of artistic action: a resource center, an exhibition, residencies, a series of lectures and a space of conviviality.
The installation includes:
- A library focused on contemporary African art (in collaboration with Maison Revue Noire)
- A residency area, indicated by the installation of a bed, which can be used each week by a resident
- A group exhibition, composed of artists linked to Raw Material Company: A Kassen, Philip Aguirre y Otegui, Kader Attia, George Osodi
- A series of lectures with the cultural historian and author Nana Oforiatta-Ayim, Elvira Dyangani Ose, Curator, International Art (Supported by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc) à la Tate Modern, and Koyo Kouoh
- A food event: with an African catering service
Lectures :
July 6, 7-8 pm
Lecture by Elvira Dyangani Ose
June 21, 7-8 pm
Lecture by Nana Oforiatta-Ayim
A Cultural Encyclopaedia
June 20, 7-8 pm
Lecture by Koyo Kouoh
Mediation of oneself, the landscape of African contemporary art in transformation
Elvira Dyangani Ose
Elvira Dyangani Ose was recently appointed curator of international art at Tate Modern, supported by Guaranty Trust Bank Plc. in London, UK. She is currently a Ph.D candidate in the History of Art and Visual Studies programme at Cornell University, New York, NY, USA. She holds a graduate degree in the Theory and History of Architecture from Universtat Politècnica de Catalunya, Spain. She is a founding member of the Laboratory for Oral Resources in Equatorial Guinea, an independent research group on Equatorial Guinea oral tradition studies and also member of the research group Afroeuropeans at the University of León, Spain. As a freelance curator she developed several interdisciplinary projects, focusing on recovering collective memories, interventions in public space or urban ethnography, most significantly, 'Memoria i Desconcert: Art a Guinea Ecuatorial', 'Urban Emotion o Authentic Fiction'. As a specialist in contemporary African art she has been a guest professor at the University of Barcelona, Spain, and has taken part in lecture cycles addressing African artistic production and contemporary culture. In the last two years she curated an exhibition of contemporary South African artists called 'Olvida quién soy / Erase me from who I am' in collaboration with Tracy Murinik, Khwezi Gule and Gabi Ngcobo and 'Tres scenarios/Three scenarios', both of which took place while she was curator at Centro Atlántico de Arte Moderno, CAAM, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain. She will also serve as the curator for the next edition of PICHA, a biennial of photography and video scheduled for the autumn of 2012 in Lubumbashi, Democratic Republic of Congo.
Nana Oforiatta-Ayim
Nana Oforiatta-Ayim is a writer, filmmaker and cultural historian. The experience of growing up in Ghana, Germany and England, of being both inside and outside these different cultures, awoke an abiding passion in language, representation and the construction of narratives. She studied Russian Literature and Politics and worked for the Eastern European Section of the United Nations in New York, before realising the relative ineffectiveness of politics. She received a Masters in African Art History and an AHRC award for doctoral research among the Akan in Ghana. Since then she has created books and films for exhibitions at The New Museum, New York; Neue Gesellschaft für Bildende Kunst, Berlin and The Museum of African Diaspora, San Francisco; has written for publications like The National Geographic, frieze, African Metropolitan Architecture, and The Statesman; curated exhibitions and events at museums and institutions like The Victoria and Albert Museum, Royal Festival Hall and Liverpool Biennial; and has broadcast for HBO, BBC and VoxAfrica. She is currently completing a novel and a film in collaboration with the artist Wu Tsang.
Koyo Kouoh
Koyo Kouoh is the director of Raw Material Company, center for art, knowledge and society. She is also curating exhibitions internationally. Her lecture will be about the new art spaces in Africa. The field of artistic and intellectual activity in Africa is right now in transition. New spaces, new contexts, new languages of negotiation and of mediation are emerging. The end of the 80's to the beginning of the 00's was a time of representation and of advocacy. This period is gradually replaced by a new generation of professionals who are interested in the power of the spaces and of their environment. This conference will present the major trends in this area as to sketch a new map of production and reflection in Africa.
