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The ArtAfrica project

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 June 2016

Ana Barata*
Affiliation:
Biblioteca de Arte, Fundaçao Calouste Gulbenkian, Avenida de Berna 45-A, 1093 Lisbon Codex, Portugal
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Extract

The ArtAfrica project was launched by the Fine Arts Department of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation in January 2001, as part of its policy of aiding development. Its aim is to promote and stimulate knowledge and understanding of the work of contemporary African artists, in particular those of African descent resident in the five Portuguese-speaking countries in Africa – Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Principe – but also those in communities of emigrants from the African continent in diasporas based in Portugal, Europe and elsewhere. The project’s goals are to create opportunities for dialogue, collaboration and the exchange of information, especially about those five countries, and in addition to provide a platform from which to launch widespread debate on post-colonialism in local contexts.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Art Libraries Society 2008

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References

1. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2006. It was established in 1956 in the will of Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian (1869-1955), an Armenian business-oriented art collector, who lived the last years of his life in the Portuguese capital. For more information see http://www.gulbenkian.pt/.Google Scholar
2. The list of visual art exhibitions in which the creations of African artists could be seen is already long, for example: Magiciens de la terre (Paris: Centre Georges Pompidou, 1989); Contemporary African artists, changing tradition (New York: Studio Museum of Harlem, 1990); Big city: artists from Africa (London: Serpentine Gallery, 1995); Africa remix: contemporary art of a continent (Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2005, shown at Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf, and other European museums and galleries); Authentic/ex-centric: Africa in and out Africa (presented at the 49th Venice Biennale as a project of the Forum for African Arts; catalogue published as Authentic, ex-centric: conceptualism in contemporary African art (Ithaca, NY: Forum for African Arts; Prince Claus Fund Library, 2001)); Rèplica e rebeldia: artistas de Angola, Brasil, Cabo Verde e Moçambique (Lisbon: Instituto Camões, 2006, shown in Maputo at the Museu de Arte Nacional of Mozambique and other African countries, Brazil and Europe, 2006-2007).Google Scholar
3. Oguibe, Olu and Enwezor, Okwui, eds., Reading the contemporary: African art from theory to the marketplace (London: Institute of International Visual Arts, 1999).Google Scholar
Enwezor, Okwui was also the artistic director for Documenta 11 (Kassel, 1998-2002), and the editor of Documenta 11 platforms.Google Scholar
4. The exhibition presented artistic works of Fernando Alvim, Ghada Amer, Oladélé A. Bamgboyé, Allan de Souza, Kendell Geers, Moshekwa Langa, Hassan Musa, N’Dilo Mutima, Wangechi Mutu, Ingrid Mwangi, Zineb Sedira and Yinka Shonibare.Google Scholar
5. Farrell, Laurie Ann, ‘Introdução,’ in Das Esquinas do olhar: looking both ways (Lisbon: Fundação Calouste Gulbenkian, 2005), 5.Google Scholar
7. This role was played by different people during the project.Google Scholar
8. http://www.artafrica.gulbenkian.pt/. This was the first website, but is no longer hosted at that address and is thus only available at the URL in reference 10.Google Scholar
9. The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation has taken reasonable efforts to identify and locate all the authors of the material (information, text, video, artwork, animation and picture files, and images) in the website, in order to obtain full consent to publication of their works and materials. This site has been created and is still in operation in accordance with Portuguese law, and is protected by internationally recognised laws of copyright and intellectual property.Google Scholar
11. Centro de Estudos Comparatistas, Faculdade de Letras Universidade de Lisboa, http://www.comparatistas.edu.pt/projectos/curso_dislocatingeurope/dislocating-europe.html.Google Scholar