Unseen Art Scene (mirror)

The State of the Masses Here is a audio-book that maybe of interested to those looking for a new look at Democracy.

Shoowa Design: African Textiles from the Kingdom of Kuba Hardcover – 2 Feb 1987 by Georges Meurant (Author)   Description: The Shoowa people, a small tribe from the kingdom of Kuba, now Zaire, have been designing and making embroidered textiles for hundreds of years. With their complex geometrical patterning and bold ...

Kongo: Power and Majesty English | Français  |  Português Source: The Met September 18, 2015–January 3, 2016   Exhibition Location: Special Exhibition Gallery, first floor, Gallery 199   Press preview: Wednesday, September 16, 10:00–noon A landmark presentation that will radically redefine our understanding of Africa’s relationship with the West, Kongo: Power and Majesty , opening at The Metropolitan Museum of Art this September, will focus on one of the continent’s most influential artistic traditions, from the earliest moment of direct engagement between African and European leaders at the end of the 15th century through the early 20th century. The creative output of Kongo artists of Central Africa will be represented by 146 works drawn from more than 50 institutional and private collections across Europe and the United States, reflecting five hundred years of encounters and shifting relations between European and Kongo leaders....

Daniel Blom | ARTCO Gallery Born in 1959 in Kimberley, South Africa. Lives and works in Cape Town, South Africa; London, UK; and Kas, Turkey Daniel Blom, 'Priest', 2012, Reconstituted wood, iron particles and wire, 34 x 103 x 60 cm, Courtesy of ARTCO Gallery   Daniel Blom is a figurative sculptor and installation artist who utilises the human body as a stage for deconstructing and reconstructing visual form. His polymorphous sculptural figures, often more bestial than anthropoid and devoid of arms and shoulders, reject a human verticality. Instead they balance one-legged on a scaffold perch, such as with Blom’s birdy (2010), or appear hunched in a horizontal mode, more commonly associated with predatory canids, as with wolf (2009). The white installation space, while maligned by some for its saturation of a certain ideology, is the favoured modus operandi for Blom. He considers the minimal environment perfectly suited to emphasising hi...

Disguise: Masks & Global African Art October 18, 2015–March 13, 2016 This dynamic exhibition considers the past, present, and future of disguise - a visual act that can be a mask, a costume, or simply a camouflage.  Disguise  features exciting new works by twelve contemporary artists from Africa and of African descent who explore the impulse of disguise with optical illusions, street actions, computer magic, and virtual reality. Together these works will engage visitors’ imaginations as they consider the art of masking as a transformative process – one that is informed by a multiplicity of influences, from historical African masquerade traditions to contemporary global culture and digital media.  The artists in  Disguise  use a variety of creative mediums, including drawings, photographs, videos, masks, sculptures, performances, and install...

and the more commercial story of Marisa Fick-Jordon from South Africa.

The Finest Artist in the London  1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair Ernest Dükü, Akiineh  When?: October 14-18th, 2015 Where?: 1:54 Contemporary African Art Fair Somerset House, Strand, London WC2R 1LA Info : Bio (pdf) Press Release (pdf) www.ernest-duku.com www.1-54.com    Ivory Coast painter and sculptor Ernest Dükü was an architect and designer before dedicating himself exclusively to his readings and dreams transformed into paintings. It all starts with words, the mysterious heart of life, to shows things than cannot be written. In Ernest Düku’s work textures, colours, signs are deeply intertwined. Traditional Akan signs engage dialogue with Egyptian, Ethiopian, Caribbean, Christian, Islamic, Jewish symbols to achieve well-balanced, rhythmic and contemporary results. The “mixture” is the sum of all the unsaid words we have in our heads and an open invitation to a peaceful rebirth. His work constantly questions memory and identity by reading t...

Akon: ‘I don't think charities in Africa work’ US-Senegalese rapper Akon has launched an ambitious energy project in Africa. But will it be as successful as his music?     Joshua Surtees in Paris Monday 5 October 2015    Source: The Guardian As night falls across Africa bustling cities light up and neighbourhoods begin to buzz, fed by traffic from well-lit roads. In the countryside, meanwhile, villages are plunged into darkness, shutting down the night-time economies of rural communities as restaurants and shops close and children light candles to do their homework. For Akon, the US-based rap star, the realities of living without electricity are a vivid memory from his youth growing up in Kaolack, southern Senegal. Today, 600 million African people still live without access to electricity, and 3.5 million people die each year from inhaling toxic fuels or house fires caused while trying to light their homes. The project Akon Lighting Africa aims to tackle th...